Kevin Seifert
Attorneys for Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores and several other plaintiffs have filed for reconsideration of a court order that shifted some of their lawsuit against the NFL and multiple teams to the league’s arbitration process.
In a request filed earlier this week with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Flores — along with fellow coaches Steve Wilks and Ray Horton — argued that the 2023 order should be reconsidered based on an August ruling that found insurmountable flaws in the league’s arbitration process. That decision, Flores’ attorneys wrote in this week’s filing, “constitutes definitive controlling law” over the previous order.
“Any attempt by the NFL to further delay and avoid litigation of these claims should respectfully be rejected,” the attorneys wrote.
Flores sued the NFL and several teams in January 2022, after he had been fired by the Miami Dolphins as their head coach and was in the process of interviewing for other jobs. His original claim accused the league of being “rife with racism,” particularly in its hiring and promotion of Black coaches.
Standard NFL coaching contracts calls for disputes to be settled in an arbitration organized by the commissioner. Following the 2023 order, commissioner Roger Goodell named Peter C. Harvey as the arbitrator for the issues that had been shifted out of the lawsuit.
That arbitration process has not progressed since an exchange of legal briefs in December 2024, Flores’ attorneys said in their filing this week.
“As such,” they wrote, “the entire arbitration has been in a complete standstill and effective stay.”
Flores spent the 2022 season as an assistant with the Pittsburgh Steelers before joining the Vikings in 2023. He interviewed for head coaching positions with the Chicago Bears, Jacksonville Jaguars and New York Jets after the 2024 season but did not advance out of the first round of applicants for any of them.
Some of Flores’ claims led the NFL to strip the Dolphins of their first-round draft pick in 2023, among other disciplinary measures, for violations of league policies relating to the integrity of the game. Following a six-month investigation, the league found the Dolphins — primarily team owner Stephen Ross and vice chairman/limited partner Bruce Beal — violated the anti-tampering policy on three occasions from 2019 to 2022 in conversations with quarterback Tom Brady and the agent for then-New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton.
