Attorneys for former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, who is suing the NFL over racial discrimination in its hiring practices, added two other former NFL coaches to an amended complaint Thursday.
Steve Wilks, who served as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals for a season in 2018, and Ray Horton, an NFL assistant since 1994, who applied for the Tennessee Titans head coaching job in 2016, are now part of the lawsuit filed against the NFL, the Dolphins, the Denver Broncos, New York Giants, Houston Texans, Titans and Cardinals, plus 26 other “John Doe” NFL teams. The Titans, Cardinals, and Texans were also added to the color as part of the change.
Flores’ attorneys allege in the amended complaint that the Texans “retaliated” on Flores by barring him from consideration for their head coaching position “for his decision to file this lawsuit and speak publicly about systemic discrimination in the NFL.” “.
The amended lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York. It calls for more transparency in NFL hiring, incentives for hiring black coaches, and increased visibility of black assistant coaches, among other things.
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Lawyers say Wilks was discriminated against as a “bridge coach” who was “not given a meaningful chance to succeed. Wilks was 3-13 in one season with Arizona before being fired and replaced by Kliff Kingsbury. Lawyers wrote that Kingsbury has been successful, “Mr. Surely Wilks would have succeeded too had he had the same opportunity as Mr. Kingsbury.”
“When Coach Flores filed this lawsuit, I knew I owed it to myself and all black NFL coaches and prospective coaches to stand by him,” Wilks said in a statement released by his attorneys. “This lawsuit has shed another important light on a problem we all know exists but too few are willing to address. Black coaches and candidates should have exactly the same opportunities to be hired and remain employed as white coaches and candidates. That is not currently the case, and I look forward to working with Coach Flores and Coach Horton to ensure the pursuit of racial equality in the NFL becomes a reality.”
Wilks returned to the NFL this year as the passing game coordinator and assistant coach for the Carolina Panthers after spending a season as the University of Missouri’s defensive coordinator.
Horton was defensive coordinator for the Titans in 2014-15 and was being interviewed for the team’s head coaching job. Lawyers said the interview was a “completely sham interview conducted solely to comply with the Rooney Rule and to demonstrate the appearance of equal opportunity and a false willingness to consider a minority candidate for the position”. The Titans hired Mike Mularkey, a white man, for the job and Horton left to become the defense coordinator in Cleveland. He is now retired.
Mularkey, who had been the team’s interim head coach for the final nine games of the 2015 season, said on a 2020 podcast that the Titans’ owners told him he would get the job before they completed the interview process, including the Questioning of two minority candidates.
Mularkey’s comments, part of an extensive interview with the Steelers Realm podcast, were in response to a question about his regrets during his career. The allegations have gained new relevance since Flores filed his lawsuit in February alleging he was discriminated against when interviewing for vacancies as a head coach.
“I’ve always taken pride in doing what’s right in this business, and I can’t say that applies to everyone in this business,” Mularkey said on the podcast. “It’s a very cutthroat business and a lot of people will tell you that. … I allowed myself, at one point while in Tennessee, to become involved in something I regret and still regret. But the property there, Amy Adams Strunk and her family came in and told me I was going to be the head coach in 2016 before they went through the Rooney Rule, and so I sat there knowing I was 16 the head coach when they this fake went through recruitment process. They knew many of the coaches they interviewed, knew how well they prepared for those interviews, knew they could do anything and had no chance of getting that job. Actually he was the GM, Jon Robinson in the interview with me. He had no idea why he was interviewing me – that I already had the job. I regret. I’m sorry I did that. It wasn’t the right way.”
ESPN became aware of the interview, which was not widely shared at the time, as part of its coverage of the issues raised by Flores’ lawsuit, and reached out to Mularkey for comment before the amended lawsuit was filed. Mularkey was fired from the Titans in 2017 after winning 9-7 in back-to-back seasons and losing to the New England Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs.
“I believe you have the truth and what you need,” Mularkey told ESPN via email. “You’d better not comment any further.”
The Titans, in a statement to ESPN issued before the lawsuit was filed, denied Mularkey’s recollection of what happened during the interview process, but did not make Adams Strunk or other executives available for comment.
“Our 2016 head coach search was an open and competitive process in which we conducted face-to-face interviews with four candidates and followed all NFL rules,” the statement said. “The organization was undecided on their next head coach during the process and made their final decision after reviewing all four candidates following the conclusion of the interviews.”
Two minority candidates who were finalists for the 2016 Titans job, Teryl Austin and Horton, did not respond to repeated interview requests from ESPN before the lawsuit was filed. Austin is currently the defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he works on the same team as Flores. Flores, who was fired in January after three seasons with the Dolphins, was hired by head coach Mike Tomlin as senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach in February.
When contacted by ESPN prior to filing the lawsuit, the NFL said it was unaware of Mularkey’s comments before being asked about them.
“I did a lot of internal research, but it never got through to the NFL,” said Brian McCarthy, the NFL’s vice president of communications. “We were not aware of this problem.”
“I’m proud to stand by Coach Flores and Coach Wilks in addressing the systemic discrimination that has plagued the NFL for far too long,” Horton said in a statement released by his attorneys. “When I learned from Coach Mularkey’s testimony that my head coaching interview with the Titans was a fraud, I was devastated and humiliated. By joining this cause, I hope to turn this experience into a positive one and bring about lasting change and true equality of opportunity in the future.”
In the amended complaint, Flores’ attorneys write that on February 4, it was widely reported that the Texans had narrowed down their candidates for Flores’ head coach to Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and Josh McCown. After it was announced that white Gannon was out of the question, the decision was up to Flores or McCown, who is also white and has no NFL coaching experience.
The complaint said the “Texans were right to be concerned that hiring Mr. McCown in place of Mr. Flores would reinforce Mr. Flores’ allegations of systemic discrimination against black candidates, particularly in light of the fact.” that the team had just fired Black Head Coach David Culley after just one season. Therefore, later on the same day that it was announced that the Texans had narrowed their search to just two candidates, it was also announced that the team had decided to give an initial interview to its own coach, Culley’s defensive coordinator Lovie Smith, for the position of head coach.”
The Texans eventually hired Smith, who is also black, for her job as head coach. The complaint applauds the Texans for hiring Smith, who “is more than qualified for the role,” but says it’s “problematic” that Flores was passed over for filing his lawsuit.
The amended complaint also addresses claims that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Flores $100,000 per loss during the 2019 season – his first as head coach – to “tank” the value of the draft pick of the to strengthen dolphins. It said Flores sent a memorandum to General Manager Chris Grier, CEO Tom Garfinkel and Senior Vice President of Football and Business Administration Brandon Shore on December 4, 2019 detailing “the toxicity that existed within the organization and the inappropriate stated position he was placed in by team ownership and senior management.”
Flores’ attorneys said the NFL had a copy of that memorandum.
At its annual owners meeting last month, the NFL announced a new Diversity Advisory Committee to review league and club policies on diverse hiring. The six-member committee “will bring its expert, outside perspective on industry best practices and will assess leagues and clubs’ diversity, equal opportunity and inclusion strategies and initiatives, including all recruitment processes, policies and procedures, with a primary focus on senior-level coaches and Front office staff positions.”
“While the NFL can hire outside consultants, make minor rule changes, and support diverse stakeholders, real and lasting change can only be achieved through the appointment of a court-ordered monitor, as the NFL has shown time and time again that it is unable to do so itself.” self-monitoring,” attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor and John Elefterakis said in a statement.