The attorneys for former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores’ discrimination lawsuit against the NFL subpoenaed 25 teams and requested more than 1,000 documents, according to recent court filings.
A list of the subpoenaed teams wasn’t readily available.
Four of defendants listed in the lawsuit — the NFL, New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans — called the discovery requests “punishingly overboard,” according to a memo sent to the federal judge about the case. Flores’ lawyers, however, argue that the documents are necessary to prove that the league and teams have a pattern of racial discrimination.
Originally filed in 2022, Flores’ lawsuit — which initially named the league as well as the Giants, Broncos and Dolphins as defendants — alleged that the NFL was “rife with racism” when it came to the “the hiring and retention of Black Head Coaches, Coordinators and General Managers.”
Specifically, Flores, who coached the Dolphins from 2019 to 2022, noted that the very year he began, owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for every loss. The team’s middling success, which corresponded with a 5-11 record, allegedly made Ross “mad” as it affected the Dolphins’ “draft position,” per the complaint.
Now the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, Flores also alleged that the Giants and Broncos set up “sham” interviews with him just to fulfill the Rooney Rule. Enacted in 2003, the policy designates that teams must interview at least two minorities for their top level openings. It was designed to combat the very thing that Flores claims runs rampant in the NFL: racism.
In the case of the Giants, the team had already made the decision to hire then-Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll before Flores’ interview.
“Mr. Flores was forced to sit through a dinner with Joe Schoen, the Giants’ new General Manager, knowing that the Giants had already selected Mr. Daboll,” the complaint reads. “Much worse, on Thursday, January 27, 2022, Mr. Flores had to give an extensive interview for a job that he already knew he would not get — an interview that was held for no reason other than for the Giants to demonstrate falsely to the League Commissioner Roger Goodell and the public at large that it was in compliance with the Rooney Rule.”
A subsequent complaint would allege that after Flores, who was fired from the Dolphins in 2022 despite coming off back-to-back seasons above .500, filed the lawsuit, the Texans removed him from their hiring process to fill their head coach opening. The Dolphins are also accused of retaliating against Flores.
Miami refused “to comply with its obligations under his employment contract with the team [the “Flores Employment Agreement”] and asserting baseless claims against him, including that he should be obligated to return to the Dolphins wages paid to him — wages it claims were conditioned on him not suing the Dolphins even though no such condition was ever expressed to Mr. Flores let alone agreed upon,” the amended complaint reads.
Two additional coaches, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, later joined the case, accusing the Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans, respectively, of similar discriminatory acts. Wilks, who most recently served as the New Jets’ defensive coordinator in 2025, alleged that the Cardinals had hired him as “bridge coach” in 2018. He was subsequently fired after one season in Arizona during which his team went 3-13. Similarly, Horton argued that the Titans failed to offer him a genuine interview during the franchise’s 2016 head coaching search. He has been out of the league since 2019.
A federal judge sent some of Flores’ claims — including those against the Dolphins — into arbitration in 2023. His lawsuit against the Giants, Broncos, Texans and league, however, will be heard in open court.
C. Isaiah Smalls II is a sports and culture writer who covers the Miami Dolphins. In his previous capacity at the Miami Herald, he was the race and culture reporter who created The 44 Percent, a newsletter dedicated to the Black men who voted to incorporate the city of Miami. A graduate of both Morehouse College and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Smalls previously worked for ESPN’s Andscape.
