Doug Gottlieb: “Brian Flores is sitting there going ‘the only reason all of this stuff happened to me is because I’m Black.’ Here’s the problem – your GM, your assistant GM, and your 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… I’m not disputing his feelings, there’s a problem with it, though. This wasn’t about the Rooney Rule, they had already interviewed two Black coaches, including Leslie Frazier, who was the defensive coordinator for Joe Schoen, the new GM for the Giants who was the GM in Buffalo. If he thinks it was a ‘sham interview’ that’s fine, if he thinks it was about the Rooney Rule, well that’s just inaccurate. I don’t think he’s lying, I think he’s telling his truth from his perspective, that doesn’t mean that’s what the actual truth is… Nobody said Flores couldn’t coach, it was getting along with people, and honestly, you see in these interviews. He takes everything to be personal, everything to be a front to his reputation, to his credibility, and he’s going General Sherman on a league that, ya know if he was just a little contrite he probably would have gotten another job. ‘What happened in Miami?’ – ‘Ya know, I didn’t love the idea of Tua and I probably didn’t handle it the right way…’ Do I like the idea that there’s currently one head coach that is Black? Of course not. It’s terrible optics. Do I think that changes? I do. But do I think that Brian Flores is out of a job because he’s Black? I don’t. His GM, assistant GM, and his director of player personnel are all Black men. It’s simply he couldn’t manage up. He could manage down with his players but he couldn’t manage up. You gotta be able to do both… I’m led to believe from really good sources that the reason Flores got the Dolphins job was because of the Rooney Rule the year before, he was brought into a bunch of different interviews, and a couple of them he killed. He’s GREAT in those settings. What happened to him in losing his job because of how he handled people is no different than what happened to Josh McDaniels in Denver, what happened to Bill O’Brien in Houston, what happened to Charlie Weis at Notre Dame. They try to be Bill wherever they go, and there’s only one Bill…. This is not just divisive, it’s toxic. You gotta be really, really careful when you label people a ‘racist.’ I’ve always found that to be fascinating, ‘WELL, THAT GUY IS A RACIST!’ Okay, why? He doesn’t care about the color of skin of his coach, his GM, his quarterback, people representing his businesses… You might not like the decisions or why they’re made, but it feels really hard to prove that race was a factor… Brian Flores being the point man to say ‘the reason I’m out of a job is because I’m Black, and the reason I had what I felt was a sham interview…’ – when they had already had interviews with other Black men, it just doesn’t stand up. It creates the type of adversarial situation where, gosh, I don’t know if this guy ever works again in the league.”
Listen to Doug Gottlieb continue discussing the fallout from the Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL, and explain why he thinks Flores simply overreacted to his Dolphins firing, and regrettably wound up going full-scorched earth on a ‘racism’ assertion that was never there.
Check out the audio above as Gottlieb fears that Flores may have sued his way out of ever being a head coach in the NFL again.
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