PITTSBURGH — So you think the Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL alleging systematic racism in the hiring of coaches and owner-ordered tanking is a big story?
I'm not sure it's even the most damning story of the week for the NFL.
New allegations of sexual misconduct were made Thursday against Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. It added to a nightmare that won't go away for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who continues to face pressure from Congress and the alleged victims to release a report about the team's long history of sexual harassment. The Commanders were fined $10 million by the NFL in June and Snyder temporarily gave up control of the team to his wife, Tanya.
"When the investigation of the air pressure of Tom Brady's football concludes with a 200-plus-page report, but the investigation into two decades of sexual harassment concludes with nothing, it shows the NFL's complete lack of respect toward women, their employees and for the culture of our country," Emily Applegate was quoted in an ESPN story. She worked in the team's marketing department and said she was sexually harassed daily by her supervisor.
That strikes me as a huge story.
This isn't meant to minimize the Flores lawsuit. Its allegations are troubling on both fronts.
It is almost comical that the NFL immediately responded to the lawsuit by saying it is "without merit." The numbers involving the hiring of Black head coaches tell a much different story. When the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin in 2007, there were four other Black head coaches. Now, there is only Tomlin. Five of the nine openings after this season have been filled by white men. The Minnesota Vikings are expected to make it six by hiring Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell after the Super Bowl. It's no wonder Flores and so many other Black coaches are far beyond frustrated.
"I don't have an answer for you as to how to make it better," Tomlin told me a year ago. "The optimist in me says things will get better, but there's been no evidence in the recent cycles to back that up. Without evidence, all we have is hope."
Flores' tanking allegations — if true — are frightening because they go to the integrity of the game. What do we have in sports if we can't believe what we are seeing is real? Isn't that especially true now with so many fans being encouraged to bet on games?
Flores, fired in January by the Miami Dolphins despite having winning seasons in 2020 and 2021, claimed team owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for each loss in 2019 so the Dolphins could get the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. Flores said he was fired because he refused to tank. Ross has denied the allegations, calling them "false, malicious and defamatory."
It's going to be interesting to see how the NFL takes a moral stand against the tanking. Is there any morality left in the sport now that it is in bed with and profiting from all of the major gaming companies? Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle must be rolling in his grave. He once forced Joe Namath to give up his interests in a Manhattan nightclub called Bachelors III because known gamblers were known to frequent it.
We've come a long way, I guess.
For better or worse, right?
The Flores lawsuit is hardly the first time the integrity of the NFL has been questioned.
Go back to Spygate. Many Steelers and their fans believe their team was cheated out of a couple of Super Bowls by New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Goodell fined Belichick $500,000 — the most allowed by the league — for filming opposing coaches' signals from the sideline against league rules. Goodell also fined the Patriots $250,000 and docked the team its original first-round selection in the 2008 draft. Still, Goodell was widely criticized for destroying evidence of the cheating.
Somehow, the NFL survived.
It always survives.
Goodell and the league certainly have had plenty of practice putting out big fires. Let us count just a few of the controversies over the years:
There was the concussion issue. There was Bountygate, in which members of the New Orleans Saints were allegedly paid to injure opposing players, an offense that led to a one-year suspension for Saints coach Sean Payton. There was the aforementioned Deflategate, in which Brady — the face of the league — was suspended for four games for allegedly ordering the deflation of footballs during a playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts. There was the move of the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles, which led to the NFL settling a lawsuit filed by St. Louis for $790 million. There was the national anthem issue that led to quarterback Colin Kaepernick being blackballed from the NFL after taking a knee to peacefully protest police brutality and racial injustice. There were referee blunders, notably the non-call of pass interference in the NFC championship between the Saints and Rams after the 2018 season. More recent, there was the firing of Raiders coach Jon Gruden for a series of emails he wrote over a 10-year period that included racist, misogynistic and anti-gay comments.
Then, of course, there have been countless issues of player misconduct. Everything from murder (Rae Carruth, Aaron Hernandez) to rape (Darren Sharper, Kellen Winslow II), to DUI manslaughter (Leonard Little, perhaps Henry Ruggs III) to even dog fighting (Michael Vick). The list of domestic abusers and sexual assaulters is far too long to list. Just start with Ray Rice, who punched out his then-fiancee, now-wife in an Atlantic City casino elevator, and Deshaun Watson, who is facing 22 civil lawsuits involving sexual misconduct.
Many thought Goodell might lose his job after his handling of the Rice incident in 2014. He initially suspended Rice for two games before video of the elevator beating became public. But Goodell remains on the job all these years later and makes about $60 million per year.
No controversy can keep the NFL from rolling on as North America's most successful sports league. The playoff games this season have been so spectacular — especially the Buffalo-Kansas City game — that Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and Rams will have a hard time matching up. That won't prevent more than 100 million people from watching or more than 23 million from betting around $6 billion on the outcome.
By the time Goodell hands the Lombardi Trophy to Bengals owner Mike Brown or Rams owner Stan Kroenke, few people will be thinking about the Flores lawsuit.
Who knows?
There probably will be a new NFL controversy by then.
Isn't there always a new controversy?
