Brian Flores Lawsuit Overshadows Tom Brady Retirement. Bombshell on a Tuesday.

     There was a lot of news in the NFL yesterday. The National Football league is the biggest sports league in the United States and one of the biggest in the entire world. The most watched television program of the year is usually the Super Bowl(February 13, 2022 18:30 EST TV NBC Radio Westwood One) often drawing in over 100 million viewers from around the world. 

    The first piece of news was Tom Brady officially announcing his retirement and not at any time offering an apology to Adam Schefter or Jeff Darlington who both reported he was retiring over the weekend. To be inducted into the pro football hall of fame as a player you need to have been retired for 5 years. This means he would be able to be inducted in the class of 2027. Tom Brady should not have to wait for this arbitrary deadline and as long as his retirement paperwork has been filed with the league office he should be being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio with the class that is being elected right now. 

    The next piece of news was the Washington Football Team accidentally leaking that they will be called the Commanders by failing to cover the windows where there new banners are. This seemed silly at the time until a couple of hours later when the lawsuit dropped. 

    Former Miami Dolphins head coach filed a 58 page class action lawsuit against The National Football League, The New York Giants, The Miami Dolphins, and The Denver Broncos. This lawsuit alleged numerous things and none of them are a good look for the league. 

                                                Point 1 Racism in Hiring

    Flores alleged that his interview with the Giants was a Rooney rule fulfillment sham. This is because Bill Belliecheck sent messages to Flores congratulating him on getting the Giants job. This happened before his actual interview took place. The coach of the Patriots then realized he was texting Flores instead of Brian Daboll who the Giants did end up hiring. 

    This may be difficult to prove and the messages from Bill B would not be able to prove criminal liability, but this is a civil suit and the burden is only to prove what you are alleging is more likely to have happened that have not. And these messages do not paint the league or the Giants in a good light. 

    There is a chance that the NFL tries to settle this portion of the claim out of court. The court of public opinion will matter more to them than the opinion of a court of law. If the NFL is seen as being racist its viewership will go down significantly. It also risks alienating its labor pool which is 70% black. 

                                                Point 2 Prior Sham Interview with Broncos

    This one is pretty simple. He alleges that in 2019 at his interview with the Broncos John Elway showed up drunk and it did not feel like a real interview. 

    John Elway showing up drunk to an interview makes sense. And him being drunk on the job all the time would explain the Broncos QB situation since Peyton Manning retired. This one is believable, but I have no idea how it could be proven unless there was video footage of either the interview or of John Elway being drunk a few hours before the interview. It appears that the latter is available and it could be interesting to see if it is included in the evidence presented to the court. 

    This also adds to one other piece of news that was put out by the NFL yesterday. The Broncos are for sale and Forbes estimates them to be valued at $4 billion. I could see them selling for more than that. And I do not see this lowering the valuation of the team. Vic Fangio is a black head coach and he was fired for poor performance. It is possible that he was the preferred hire and the Flores interview was a Sham Rooney rule violation. 

    This would be the biggest thing to look out for in the suit if the Dolphins did not appear to be completely incompetent as seen in points 3 and 4. 

                                                    Point 3 Tampering with Tom Brady

    The Dolphins wanted Flores to tamper with Tom Brady while he was still under contract with the Patriots. There were rumors that Brady would go to the Dolphins if Flores were not the head coach. These rumors appeared to start after Flores left a yacht that owner Stephen Ross had arranged for Flores and Brady to meet on. In the suit he alleges that the ownership group labeled him as hard to work with after this. 

    We all know that tampering goes on in every sports league. Look at everything Lebron James has done in his career. Flores refusing to tamper and then basically being fired after two straight winning seasons in Miami does not look good for the Dolphins or the league. 

    This could go either way. And Tom Brady could have retired simply to avoid getting suspended again. I have no idea which way this goes. But to prove it would be very difficult. 

                                        Point 4 The Bombshell Paid to Lose

    Flores alleges that the owner of the Dolphins offered him a bonus of $100,000 per loss in the 2019 season and was upset that the team kept winning. The Dolphins won a couple of games in 2019 and this lowered their draft position. Ownership wanted to tank. Players and coaches did not because going out and trying to lose a game would end your career. 

    This seems pretty easy to prove as the narrative around Miami for all of 2019 was tank for Tua and for a while it did seem like they were just really bad at Football. They finished that season 5-11. If Flores had a check for $1.1 million at the end of the season this would be a slam dunk in a court of law. We don't know if this happened. But this is definitely     a slam dunk in the court of public opinion.

    At the beginning of 2022 the league signed deals with sports books. They also added a taunting penalty that the officials could just arbitrarily dole out. This is a 15 yard penalty that could swing games. This was suspicious. 

    Even allegations that an owner is offering cash payments to lose a game on purpose while being partners with sportsbooks is a problem. Many people are going to believe that the league is fixing games because of this. And this may not be able to be proven in a court of law. But in the court of public opinion this is a huge problem. 

    This lawsuit may end Flores career, but I see a lot of things happening because of it. Will they be good? Only time will tell, but hopefully this sees the inside of a court of law and is not settled so that all of us can see what is happening inside the NFL.