One of the most fascinating NFL coaching candidates is Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores. Fascinating is one way to describe him. Controversial is another. Talented works, too. So does fearless trailblazer.
Flores, according to various reports, has drawn head coaching interest. The NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said on X that Flores was scheduled to meet with the Jets and Jaguars on Friday and Bears on Saturday.
It all makes sense. Flores is a brilliant tactician who transformed the Vikings’ defense into one of the best units in the league. He deserves another chance to be a head coach.
But would an NFL team really hire Flores as a head coach again? That is the question and there’s an extremely specific reason for asking it: Flores still has an active lawsuit against the NFL for racial discrimination. It’s there. Still there. (Looks again.) Yep, still there.
Flores filed his suit in 2022 and he’s been a head coaching candidate in a previous cycle. But this is different because Flores is coming off a season where he was a catalyst for why the Vikings were so dominant.
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This moment makes Flores one of the most fascinating head coaching candidates in league history. What happens next with Flores is actually bigger than a coaching search. It goes to a pertinent query: Can NFL owners overlook Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit against the league? Can the league let things go?
You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t necessarily trust the NFL on issues of race. The league essentially banned Colin Kaepernick after he started one of the great athlete protest moments in American history.
However…
While I don’t see the Jets hiring Flores, several people that I trust in and around the NFL, who are just as skeptical as I am when it comes to NFL teams and race, feel that Flores actually has a legitimate shot with some other owners. None of this is sourcing or hardcore reporting but more of a belief some owners genuinely don’t care about the lawsuit.
In a way, Minnesota is proof that this could be true. The Vikings hired Flores and no one on the team cared about the suit. They welcomed him.
“Obviously, diversity is important to me as well,’ Flores said during his introductory news conference. ‘I’m not going to run away from that. But when I walk in this building, you see diversity, really, across the board in every department. That’s exciting too. So, those are things that are ongoing. Obviously, the lawsuit is ongoing, but I’m where my feet are. Right now, my feet are right here in Eden.’
In fact, there are likely some teams that agree with Flores. Also, the league office would love for Flores to become a head coach again because to them it would prove that the Flores lawsuit was without merit. I’m not saying that’s the actual case; I’m saying that’s how the league office would see it.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for Flores isn’t the lawsuit. Instead, it’s what he did as coach of the Dolphins. Flores was the Miami coach from 2019-2021. His tenure there was, well, rocky. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said on a podcast that Flores was a ‘terrible person.’ Flores later responded: “Look, I’m human. So, that hit me in a way that I wouldn’t say was positive for me. But at the same time, I’ve got to use that and say, ‘Hey, how can I grow from that, or how can I be better?’ And that’s really where I’m at from that standpoint.
“Do I feel like that’s me? No. But how can I grow from that situation and create a world where that’s not the case where anyone says that about Brian Flores?”
Another thing teams will likely ask Flores about was something quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said on a recent podcast. Fitzpatrick would later emphasize how much he liked Flores but his words were his words.
“Brian Flores has been a really hot name, and I think the further removed we get from his tenure in Miami, the more people kind of forget about how that ended — and the better his name becomes,” said Fitzpatrick. “He went to Pittsburgh and got to learn under Mike Tomlin and see how he led. And now he’s been in Minnesota with Kevin O’Connell.’
“I think the interesting thing about Brian Flores when I think about him and being able to play under him for a few years is which version of Brian Flores are we getting?’ Fitzpatrick added. ‘In Year 1 with Miami … (the Dolphins) got rid of every good player they had; that was jokingly called the ‘Tank for Tua’ year. Halfway through that year, we hadn’t won a game yet, and there was a shift in the way he was approaching his job. He was likable. He was relatable. He demanded a lot out of the players, but he was also able to get the version of his players — and I really appreciated him for that.”
Then, Fitzpatrick said, things began to shift.
“As his tenure went on in Miami, he kind of became unrecognizable,” Fitzpatrick continued. “A lot of the staff he brought over from New England — that was where he cut his teeth in the NFL; was there for 15-plus years as an assistant. I think he’s going to have a really hard time. If you’re interviewing him as a head coach, I think in the interviews, he’ll be likable, he’ll be relatable.
“But, when people say, ‘Give me somebody from Miami that coached under you as a reference, so we can talk to them,’ I think he burned a lot of bridges there. I think he alienated himself from the entire staff. Instead of … having the humility to ask questions, to collaborate, I think by the end of his time there, he became a dictator. He ruined a lot of relationships that he built up through the NFL. And his ego grew so big that there wasn’t room for anyone else.”
All of this is why Flores’ potential candidacy is so fascinating. We haven’t really seen anything like it. Ever.
We also have no idea how it’s going to end.