The Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday hired former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores as a senior defensive assistant less than three weeks after he sued the NFL and three teams over alleged racist hiring practices.
Flores led the Dolphins to consecutive winning seasons before he was fired last month.
“While coach Flores is now focused on his new position, he will continue with his race discrimination class action so that real change can be made in the NFL,” attorneys Douglas Wigdor and John Elefterakis said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
Flores joins a restructured defensive staff in Pittsburgh after longtime coordinator Keith Butler retired, and Teryl Austin was promoted to take his place.
“Brian’s resume speaks for itself, and I look forward to him adding his expertise to help our team,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said in a statement.
Tomlin is the NFL’s longest-tenured black head coach and one of three black men to lead teams last season.
The other two, Flores and the Houston Texans’ David Culley, were fired. Houston hired Lovie Smith, who is black, and Miami hired Mike McDaniel, who is biracial.
“The Steelers organization is FIRST CLASS,” veteran Pittsburgh cornerback Joe Haden, who will become a free agent next month, wrote on Twitter after Flores’ hiring was announced.
Flores’ lawsuit alleges that the league has discriminated against him and other black coaches for racial reasons, denying them positions as head coaches, offensive and defensive coordinators, and quarterbacks coaches, as well as general managers.
Flores also claims Miami offered him US$100,000 per loss during his first season with the team in 2019 in an effort to receive a top draft pick.
The league has maintained that the lawsuit is “without merit,” although NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said before the Super Bowl that “all of the allegations, whether they were based on racism or discrimination or the integrity of our game, all of those to me were very disturbing.”
The lawsuit has also sparked the league to review the “Rooney Rule,” a policy named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney.
Introduced in 2003, the policy has expanded to require NFL teams to interview multiple minority candidates for high-profile job vacancies, including head coach and general manager.
Steelers president Art Rooney II earlier this month said that the league has “not seen progress in the ranks of head coaches.”
Flores’ lawsuit specifically names Austin as an example of a coach affected by racism in hiring.
Austin, who is black, said in an interview that he was zero for 11 when interviewing for head coaching jobs during his nearly 20 years in the NFL.
Flores is to work under Austin as they try to help Pittsburgh’s defense bounce back from a subpar season.
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