A document central to Brian Flores’s discrimination case is now public, and it contains language the NFL and Korn Ferry had tried to keep out of view.
The item was filed as part of a supplemental complaint Flores submitted against the Miami Dolphins in the lawsuit he originally brought in February 2022. Attached as an exhibit, it is a Korn Ferry summary of Flores’s “strengths and weaknesses.”
Inside the “weaknesses” section is a blistering assessment, listed among seven bullet points: “Needs someone strong at the top to reign [sic] in some of his worst behavior. He once threatened violence to his GM and made irrational demands during an ownership meeting.
One long-time senior team executive said, ‘ He may have changed since, but he was the worst hiring decision we’ve ever made.’ Another President of a club refused to talk about him.”
(Emphasis added.)
Another bullet point says: “ Ongoing litigation may be a distraction.” (Emphasis in original.)
The Raiders, who received that Korn Ferry assessment, did not interview Flores for their head-coaching vacancy, the one on which the search firm was consulting.
Flores’s supplemental complaint says the Dolphins were the source of the line calling him “the worst hiring decision we’ve ever made.”
On Tuesday, Flores’s attorneys at Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis, Elefterakis & Panek issued a statement on behalf of their client.
“The recently unsealed documents demonstrate two unfortunate, but unsurprising, realities,” they said. “First, that Mr.
Flores’ decision to hold the league and its teams accountable for systemic race discrimination has been met with unlawful retaliation. Second, discrimination continues to play a significant role in the hiring process for NFL Head Coaches, as evidenced by the fact that the candidate profile prepared for the Raiders leans heavily on racial stereotypes.
We and Mr. Flores are committed to eradicating the institutional racism and retaliation that permeates the league, its teams and their partners.”
The wording in the Korn Ferry summary is significant because it could make it harder for Flores to land another head-coaching job, while also raising the question of whether the harsh evaluation was influenced in whole or in part by his decision to sue after being fired.
And because those comments surfaced in a formal summary rather than some stray conversation, it leaves open the possibility that more could come out in discovery, especially if Flores’s lawyers get access to the informal emails and text messages exchanged among owners and executives.
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