Flores suit throws league for loop … Hands up anyone who thought that the league that still can’t figure out what’s a completed forward pass, can’t get a centuries old conundrum like race right. In fact, one could probably ask ‘what did they think was going to happen’ when the NFL introduced the Rooney Rule which forced teams to at least consider minority candidates when hiring head coaches and general managers. We are all for racial equality, in football and life, but its just hard to legislate what is essentially a very personal decision by teams in the hiring of senior execs. Bottom line is that when teams, especially those that pretty much know already who they want to bring in for the job, are forced to interview minority candidates, they’ll interview as many as they have to to comply with the rule. Period! Is it sham? Of course it is and everybody in the league knows it. In fact, we have always wondered why they really have to interview these guys anyway. The the NFL, especially at the senior ranks, is a pretty small community in which just about everybody knows everybody else. Why, for example, did the Giants and new G.M. Joe Schoen have to interview new head coach Brian Daboll twice. I mean, they worked together for years in Buffalo; what could they possibly have needed to learn in a second, or even first interview?
While the racial basis for hiring head coaches will be the front page story with Brian Flores’ suit against the NFL and several particular team, we wonder if the more impactful aspect of the whole deal won’t ultimately be the allegations that ownership in Miami and Cleveland paid to have their coaches go in the tank to enhance their draft position. If that story does go anywhere, one would have to think that any team proven to have done so could be in jeopardy of losing draft picks. Stay tuned!
