Doug Gottlieb: “Can we have a real discussion about this? I don’t think there’s a ton of merit, in terms of legal merit, to what Brian Flores is saying, I just don’t. The idea that it was a ‘sham interview’, like OK, maybe they decided on Brian Daboll previously and maybe they violated the spirit of the Rooney Rule, but look, GM’s have the right to choose who they want to choose… In the REAL WORLD you go and interview for a job and they tell you ‘yeaaahhh, you’re not getting that job.’ It doesn’t mean what Flores is saying doesn’t have some merit – that there needs to be some balance – no one ever said that, but trying to say that it’s ‘racism’, ‘racial discriminatory practice’, and that each of these things that he’s pointing out is in fact ‘racism’, in the court of law that’s really hard to prove… One thing people will do, they’ll point out that ‘the Pac-12 doesn’t have any Black basketball coaches’ and on optics it looks bad. But it should be pointed out that Arizona State had a Black coach before Bobby Hurley and Herb Sendek, Ernie Kent [African-American] was the last head coach at Oregon before Dana Altman, and then he was the last coach at Washington State before Kyle Smith. Lorenzo Romar [African-American] was the last head coach at Washington before being let go before Mike Hopkins took over. Cal’s last head coach was Black, Stanford’s last head coach was Black, USC has had several Black coaches. Ricardo Patton [African-American] at Colorado was the last coach I believe before the current head coach. On paper these things look bad, but the reality is that we have had a great influx at times of Black head coaches in college basketball and the Pac-12 I’m using specifically, AND in the National Football League, we’re just in a current cycle where there haven’t been enough Black hires made. Claiming ‘racism’ is such a strong claim and it’s really hard to push back against. It’s just as hard to disprove as it is to prove. I don’t even think that’s the ‘smoking gun’ in this, I don’t think Flores has a ton of legitimacy. I’m not going to argue that there haven’t been interviews to only satisfy the Rooney Rule, but the spirit of the rule is to create inroads for somebody who isn’t normally considered, and of who hasn’t had a longstanding relationship… The problem is that your GM, assistant GM, and Director of Player Personnel are all Black in Miami, and it was YOU against them. Brian Flores feels like the scorned coach who wants to burn everything to the ground. And then on one hand he’s like ‘I’d still like to coach again’ – Well, good luck with that. It feels like a no-win. If the Saints hire him instead of Denis Allen, then is the narrative ‘he got the job so he’d stop suing the NFL’? Was Brian Daball not qualified for the position? If your interview was a ‘sham’ interview, can the same be said of Leslie Frazier and Dan Quinn who were also interviewed? Those claims, though they are veracious and grab headlines, do they really have merit in the court of law and do they really stand up when you actually stop and take a breath and look at it? This suit is about racial discrimination but then you look at claims he’s making about the Miami Dolphins and you’re like ‘that has nothing to do with his race, that just has to do with him being mad about being fired.’ One of the reasons Brian Flores got his job in Miami was how well he conducted and purported himself during his interviews the year before. You have a lot of people who are commenting on things that are completely lost in how business is about RELATIONSHIPS. Dan Quinn pulled out because he was like ‘I’m not getting it…’, it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re Black or you’re White. Brian Flores is toxic right now. He was toxic before and now he’s Chernobyl. He was toxic for whatever happened with the relationship between him and Chris Grier, and how he treated Tua Tagovailoa. It doesn’t mean he’s not wrong in how he feels about Tua Tagovailoa, but it’s the perception of it, as much as it is the reality. Have you ever seen a QB who was a first round draft pick being taken out of the game in the fourth quarter? NO... It's a gigantic leap to go from 'I was fired' to 'I was fired because I'm Black.'” (Full Segment Above)
Listen to Doug Gottlieb explain why he thinks Brian Flores’ name is now as ‘toxic as Chernobyl’, as Doug believes Flores’ class-action lawsuits against the NFL and a handful of other teams will torpedo future head coaching opportunities Flores may have been given.
Check out the audio above as Gottlieb details why he thinks Flores’ lawsuit against the league doesn’t have any legal merit, and why Flores is simply coming off as a scorned coach who is still angry about being fired by his former employer.
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