The Brian Flores suit charging systematic racism against the NFL has been the subject of a lot of talk on sports radio and a lot of beating of breasts.
All of this comes from the so called “Rooney Rule” which requires a minority candidate to be interviewed for any coaching position that opens up. This of course creates tokenism and thanks to the accidental Belichick text that Flores received Flores, who is in my opinion and excellent coach, was called up to interview for the Giants job after it was already given to someone else.
This in itself is not a surprise as when you create a rule that encourages “pro-forma” interviews you are going to get them, but whatever you think of Flores charges of racism his charges include in my opinion a much larger and more significant scandal that everyone seems to be passing over.
One of Flores’ charges is that Miami after a bad start offered him a six figure bonus per game lost to improve their draft prospects. To in effect, THROW GAMES.
Flores being a disciple of Bill Belichick and as I noted, an excellent coach an apparently an honorable man didn’t bite and turned his team around so that after a bad start they finished with a winning record just shy of a playoff birth. Miami played spoiler to the Patriots and only missing the playoffs due to a loss to the #1 seed in the conference in the 2nd to last game of the season. When I and the guys who drive into work with me heard he was fired by Miami we were all shocked but if his charge concerning the bounty for lost game is true then it explains a lot.
Given the expansion of sports betting around the nation I can’t think of anything that could be more damaging to the game of football, not even the woke bullshit, then the idea that teams might be directing coaches to lose. This, and not the race angle, should be the real scandal here and I suspect Flores unwillingness to play ball in throwing games is the real reason why he hasn’t gotten a coaching position that he is eminently qualified for.
But because that scandal would be more damming and if investigated if suspect would be discovered to be more prevalent around the league then anyone wants to admit and has the potential to curb the betting that can draw a lot of extra eyes to the games, it will be downplayed or ignored.
Unexpectedly of course.
Closing thought: Why the leagues don’t see what widespread gambling is going to do to the various leagues is beyond me.
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