Star witness in Flores’ NFL suit: Bill Belichick. His ‘screwed up’ text is key evidence
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Brian Flores lawsuit rocks NFL
Brian Flores sues the NFL for racial discrimination, alleging that Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross bribed him to “tank” in 2019.
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Bill Belichick, who has won a record six Super Bowls as the head coach of the New England Patriots and crushed the hopes of Miami Dolphins fans for two decades, has the reputation of a prickly control freak always pushing his players toward perfection.
But suddenly his own simple mistake — sending a text to the wrong person — has made the NFL legend a potential star witness in a bombshell lawsuit filed by fired Miami Dolphins’ head coach Brian Flores, who is accusing the Dolphins, New York Giants, Denver Broncos and the entire league of 29 other pro teams of racial discrimination against him and other Black coaches.
While legal experts say there is a long process ahead before it could happen— both with the lawsuit and likely but separate league investigations — they put Belichick high on the list for potential subpoenas or depositions as the case moves forward.
“Bill Belichick has no options to avoid being deposed in this case,” Miami employment lawyer Matthew Sarelson said Wednesday. “The opening line in the complaint is a text from Bill Belichick to Brian Flores.”
That’s because last month Belichick inadvertently sent a congratulatory text message to Flores about landing the head coaching job with the New York Giants — apparently thinking he was texting another Brian, former Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, a white coach. The Giants had not yet announced a decision and Flores, a Black coach, wasn’t set set to interview with the team for several days. Both Brians had once been assistant coaches for Belichick.
“Sorry – I f***ed this up. I double checked and misread the text. I think they are naming Brian Daboll. I’m sorry about that. BB,” Belichick wrote in an exchange that now makes him a valuable if involuntary witness in Flores’ case alleging widespread racism against Black coaches in the NFL. It can’t be a comfortable position for the future Hall of Fame coach, famously tight-lipped about internal team matters.
The text is perhaps the most damning evidence for a major allegation in Flores’ lawsuit: that the Giants only interviewed him to satisfy an NFL policy known as the “Rooney Rule” that requires teams to consider minority candidates for top coaching positions.
Miami criminal defense attorney David Weinstein, a former state and federal prosecutor, said Flores’ lawyers will want to zero in on Belichick to find out what a likely leaker at the New York Giants told him about Daboll’s hiring as the new head coach, along with the timing and circumstances.
“I would love to be a fly on the wall in his deposition just to hear him testify about what he knows,” said Weinstein, who appeared on former Dolphins’ player Joe Rose’s sports show on WQAM Wednesday morning to talk about Flores’ explosive suit.
Weinstein, who has produced a podcast on issues of racism in the NFL, predicted that the Patriots head coach would say “there is no doubt I sent the text message, but I got my Brians mixed up.”
However, Weinstein added that without additional evidence or documentation, the texts alone may not be enough to make the case for Flores. “It’s doubtful [Belichick] got a text from the Giants saying that Brian Flores was only being interviewed to show the team was following the NFL’s Rooney Rule,” he said.
Flores’ suit, filed as a proposed class-action case in New York federal court, alleges that the Giants’ interview was a “sham.” The broad-ranging lawsuit immediately ignited public and media discussion of the NFL’s struggles to elevate more Blacks into high-level coaching and executive positions.
But the case also faces high legal hurdles — and certain challenges from teams and the league — before Flores’ lawyers ever get the opportunity to take depositions from Belichick and other key witnesses, including owners and senior executives with the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos, NFL brass and other Black coaches. Legal experts say the teams and NFL are all likely to file motions to dismiss his case, saying he he has failed to make sufficient allegations that, if proven, would violate his civil rights as a Black coach.
If Flores’ suit overcomes that hurdle — a big if — then his New York lawyers would be allowed not only to take depositions but also gather potentially critical evidence such as text messages, emails and other correspondence that might help make his case alleging racism. The 58-page complaint accuses the NFL and its 32 teams of historically discriminating against Blacks for head coaching and other key positions despite the fact that the majority of pro players are Black.
Flores also accuses billionaire Dolphins owner Stephen Ross of pressuring the coach to tank games in 2019, including trying to pay him an alleged $100,000 bribe for each loss, so that the team could qualify for a higher pick in the following year’s NFL draft. Flores said he resisted. For the Dolphins and particularly Ross, that allegation ranks as the most serious in the suit and is certain to draw scrutiny from the league.
On Wednesday, one of Flores’ lawyers said there’s corroborating evidence for his claims about the Ross offer, beyond what is mentioned in the suit. “We’re going to prove that if this case continues to go,” Douglas Wigdor told CNN. “There’s going to be corroborating evidence, there’s going to be other witnesses, there’s going to be emails and texts. We’re confident in that allegation. As Brian said, you don’t just make that up.”
The Dolphins, in a brief statement, denied racism played any role in Flores’ dismissal last month. The team also denied his allegation that Ross offered him bribery payments for game losses. The NFL and other teams also have issued short denials that legal experts say were typical following lawsuits.
Whatever the outcome of Flores’ suit, the NFL also is likely to open an internal investigation examining the bribery allegation against Ross, along with potential violations of the Rooney Rule and minority hiring practices in the league.
At the same time, Flores also filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which will evaluate his claims of civil rights violations and decide whether to pursue legal action against the NFL and the 32 teams.
But where Flores’ suit is sweeping in allegations — describing the league as a racially imbalanced operation managed like a “plantation” — it is short on details regarding how he was rejected by the New York Giants and other NFL teams for head coaching jobs, employment lawyers told the Herald.
Flores, who led the Dolphins for three years, including two winning seasons but no playoff spots, was fired by Ross in a move that angered many fans across South Florida. Flores, who in recent weeks was looking for head coaching jobs with other teams, said in his suit that he was “humiliated in the process as the New York Giants subjected him to a sham interview in an attempt to appear to provide a Black candidate with a legitimate chance at obtaining the job.”
Ironically, Flores would probably never have learned about the Giants’ hiring of the white coach, Daboll, before his own interview had it not been for Belichick’s text screw-up. That it was committed by the Patriots’ coach, who famously obsesses over all aspects of the game, makes his mistake all the more remarkable.
“If Bill Belichick knew how to use his [mobile] phone and sent his text to the right Brian, this lawsuit would never have come about,” said Sarelson, the Miami employment lawyer. “Imagine where we’d be if he had.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 7:15 PM.
