Steelers hire Brian Flores as senior defensive assistant
PITTSBURGH — Brian Flores is back in the NFL.
The Pittsburgh Steelers hired the former Miami Dolphins coach on Saturday to serve as a senior defensive assistant. Flores will specialize in working with Pittsburgh’s linebackers, a group that includes NFL Defensive Player of the Year T.J. Watt.
The hiring comes less than three weeks after Flores, who is Black, sued the NFL and three teams over alleged racist hiring practices following his dismissal by Miami. Flores led the Dolphins to consecutive winning seasons before he was fired in January.
Flores has maintained his lawsuit would continue even if he found another coaching job. He joins a restructured defensive staff in Pittsburgh after longtime coordinator Keith Butler retired. Teryl Austin was promoted to take Butler’s place earlier this month.
“I am excited about Brian Flores joining our coaching staff given his history of developing and teaching defensive players during his time in the NFL,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said in a statement. “Brian’s resume speaks for itself, and I look forward to him adding his expertise to help our team.”
Tomlin is the NFL’s longest-tenured Black head coach and one of three Black men to lead teams last season. The other two, Flores and Houston’s David Culley, were fired. Houston subsequently hired Lovie Smith, who is Black, and Miami hired Mike McDaniel, who is biracial.
Flores’ lawsuit alleges the league has discriminated against Flores and other Black coaches for racial reasons, denying them positions as head coaches, offensive and defensive coordinators and quarterbacks coaches, as well as general managers. Flores also maintains Miami offered him $100,000 per loss during his first season with the team in 2019 in an effort to receive a top draft pick.
The NFL has maintained the lawsuit is “without merit,” although commissioner Roger Goodell said before the Super Bowl that “all of the allegations, whether they were based on racism or discrimination or the integrity of our game, all of those to me were very disturbing.”
The lawsuit has also sparked the league to review the “Rooney Rule,“a policy named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney. Introduced in 2003, the policy has expanded to require NFL teams to interview multiple minority candidates for highprofile job vacancies, including head coach and general manager.