Employment & Labor Insider

After a torturous four years of litigation, coach Brian Flores and his fellow plaintiff coaches have prevailed in their arguments that they should not be required to arbitrate their claims of race discrimination against the National Football League and certain teams.

The coaches successfully argued that the league arbitration process was not legitimate because claims had to be arbitrated before NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell or his designee. 

The coaches’ claims will now proceed in federal court, and the question turns to the merits of their race claims.

The longest yard

In February 2022, Mr. Flores, now defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, filed suit after he was terminated as head coach of the Miami Dolphins and was not hired for head coach positions with the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, or Houston Texans. Mr. Flores seeks to represent a class of Black coaches and executives he contends were similarly discriminated against and has been joined in his action by two other Black coaches, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, who are asserting similar claims against their former employers, the Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans.

The case has had a complex procedural history. In March 2023, a federal court in the Southern District of New York issued a split decision on the NFL’s motion to compel arbitration, finding that some claims had to be arbitrated while others had to be litigated in court.

In August 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s rulings. Nevertheless, the appeals court generally rejected the NFL’s arbitration process as applied to Mr. Flores because he had to submit his claims to Commissioner Goodell, the NFL’s principal executive. Although recognizing that courts generally defer to arbitration, the court found that the NFL arbitration process “fails to bear even a passing resemblance to traditional arbitral practice” and “is unworthy even of the name of arbitration,” and therefore deserved no protection.

On remand, the coaches requested the district court to reconsider its ruling that their claims against the Dolphins, Titans, and Cardinals (and related claims against the NFL) had to be arbitrated. In light of the Second Circuit’s decision, the district court agreed, and assumed jurisdiction over the entire case in an order issued last month. In considering whether the NFL’s process qualified for protection under the Federal Arbitration Act, the Court noted that “rock-paper-scissors” is a dispute resolution method, but that does not mean it has FAA protection.

The teams have now moved for reconsideration of that order. And the NFL has thrown a Hail Mary to the Supreme Court seeking review of the Second Circuit decision.

Decided on the field of play

Barring an unexpected legal ruling, the coaches’ race discrimination case can now proceed in earnest. Mr. Flores’ case was initially predicated on a claim under 42 U.S.C. Section 1981, a Reconstruction-era law, as well as state laws against discrimination and retaliation. 

After having completed the administrative filing requirement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, on March 4, 2026, the coaches filed a Second Amended Complaint that added claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII permits claims for disparate impact as well as intentional discrimination. In this case, that means the coaches can prevail if they can show that a race-neutral policy or practice by the NFL and its clubs has a discriminatory impact on Black coaches. (They also have to show that the policy or practice is not a business necessity and that an alternative with a less discriminatory impact exists.)

The coaches’ claims seem questionable. Each NFL club has its own hiring policies and practices, contrary to the coaches’ claims that there is some problematic league-wide policy or practice.  Moreover, the NFL is among the most competitive industries in the country, and the idea that a club would make a hiring decision based on race is dubious.

Decision-makers could have been susceptible to unconscious biases that affected the fairness of their hiring processes. There is useful academic commentary explaining why competition does not always fix or prevent discrimination.

However, the NFL’s only intentional league-wide policy or practice on the issues raised in the case is designed to prevent the very discrimination about which the coaches complain. The Rooney Rule has been in place since 2003 for the express purpose of promoting more minorities as head coach candidates (see here for an excellent history and analysis of the Rule by Professor Jeremi Duru). 

The Rule has undergone multiple iterations over time but generally has required that a minority candidate be interviewed for any head coach or general manager position. The Rule’s success has ebbed and flowed. At the start of the 2024 season, nine head coaches were minorities. However, of the 10 vacancies filled during or after the 2025 season, none were by Black coaches.

Despite the Rule’s mixed results, it should weigh in favor of the NFL.

There is also ground for skepticism on any claim that Mr. Flores was terminated by the Dolphins based on his race. For one, Mr. Flores was replaced by Mike McDaniel, who identifies as biracial. More substantively, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had harsh words about Mr. Flores’ coaching style, an opinion shared by his former colleague Ryan Fitzpatrick, who described Mr. Flores as a “dictator.”

Finally, class certification appears unlikely. There does not seem to be a sufficiently large population of individuals subject to the same policy or practice.

Time to take a knee?

Despite the NFL’s apparent strong legal and factual defenses, it certainly does not want to go through the process required for their adjudication. The coaches will soon begin seeking intrusive discovery into NFL policies and practices on hiring and race, and are likely to take depositions of some of the league’s most important figures, including Commissioner Goodell and several owners (starting with the Dolphins’ Stephen Ross).

And even more of the NFL’s workings could be exposed as part of a motion for summary judgment or in a trial.

For all of these reasons – as well as the possibility of substantial monetary damages given the coaches’ high salaries – one would expect the NFL to try to find a way to resolve the case. But money does not seem to be the coaches’ primary motivation. Instead, they seem to be seeking lasting changes to the NFL’s hiring policies and practices.