Anyone not living in a cave knows the story.
Brian Flores gets a text from Bill Belichick congratulating him on getting the Giants job…except he hadn’t even been interviewed yet. After one question, it was determined Belichick thought he was talking to Brian Daboll, the one that was hired.
This was nowhere near the first time something like this happened to Flores. He had just been fired by the Dolphins right after he had made a two-month comeback, and an improbable playoff run. There’s also an accusation that the Dolphins owner, Stephen Ross, offered Flores $100,000 per loss so that the team could tank and get a better draft pick. There is also the accusation that John Elway came into his interview with Flores disheveled and hung over, not taking the interview seriously because it was one that satisfied the Rooney Rule.
(Note: I have PLENTY to say about the fraud that is the Rooney Rule. That is for another column)
So let’s review.
Rooney Rule interview not being taken seriously, gets hired by a team, but gets sabotaged at every turn before a sudden firing, and gets a Rooney Rule interview again, only to find out that someone was already hired
That was the last straw. Flores immediately filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL. This is now war.
Make no mistake, black coaches and front office representatives have the hardest time breaking through the wall. In the earlier era, Fritz Pollard was the first black coach while playing running back for various teams, and then became a head coach for the Hammond Pros in 1923 and 1924. This lasted till the NFL removed the nine black players they had for good in 1926. To coach again, Fritz Pollard would have to organize all black barnstorming teams until he started his own professional team, the Brown Bombers, in 1930.
With all that history, you know who the next black coach was? Art Shell in 1989. There have been sixteen since.
You know who the first black GM was? Ozzie Newsome in 2002. The Bears just hired the first in their 101 year history with 36 year old Ryan Poles. They also just hired the first assistant GM in team history in Ian Cunningham.
So yeah, this is now war. It’s going to be bloody and painful. Any black coach that gets in on this suit will probably be blackballed from the league. Here’s the kicker though. You know who is currently watching from the sidelines, and is planning his next move?
Dwayne Johnson, AKA The Rock
Anyone that watched all five seasons of his HBO show “Ballers” knows that his character, Spencer Strasmore, spent the final season going after team ownership. Outside the fictional realm, Dwayne did better.
He bought a whole league.
After COVID hit, Vince McMahon’s XFL had to fold again. Rock bought it for fifteen million. An absolute coup. This easily saved the league because while Vince did a better job the second time around than the first debacle in 2001, he will never have the same respect from corporate interests, big money, and advertisers that Rock has. Vince McMahon’s reputation is always going to be of an old school carnival act, no matter what he did to rebuild wrestling. Rock is universally loved…a badass to the male population, easy on the eyes to the female population(or vice versa to certain segments), and a money magnet to the corporate world. His movies have generated over a billion dollars, his tequila, Teremana, is number one. Everything he touches turns to gold.
The XFL will also shoot to the moon in record time.
The Rock is a storyteller by nature, and the NFL just handed him his first big story on a silver platter. The NFL was already going to eventually lose name players because of their absurd rules and fines in the name of “safety”. Now there is a perfect setup for Rock’s story.
You know what is going to eventually happen. Flores and any other coach will settle with the league for big dollar amounts we will never hear about, they will never work in the NFL again, and the XFL will scoop them all up in record time. The story will be how these men took on a conglomerate, and risked their livelihoods. XFL will get TV deals Vince could only dream about having, substantial ESPN coverage. The stories will write themselves.
Most of all, it’s something genuine. Rock truly loves helping people. In the end, this will expose the phoniness of the NFL.
2023 is not far away, and things are about to change.