By Christopher R. Deubert, Senior Writer
After a tortuous 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 racial discrimination against the NFL and certain its teams before NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell or his designee. The coaches’ claims will instead proceed in federal court. Now the question turns to the merits of their case.
The longest yard
In February 2022, Flores, now the Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator, filed suit after he was terminated as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins and was not hired for the same position with the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, or Houston Texans. 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.
From there, the case has had a complex procedural history. In March 2023, the Southern District of New York issued a split decision on the NFL’s motion to compel arbitration.
Then, in an August 2025 decision, the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s rulings. Nevertheless, the Court generally rejected the NFL’s arbitration process as applied to 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,” “is unworthy even of the name of arbitration,” and therefore is deserving of no protection.
Next, on remand, the coaches requested the District Court to reconsider its prior 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 in a February 13, 2026 order, returning the entire case to the Court’s jurisdiction. In considering whether the NFL’s process qualified as an arbitration, the Court noted that “rock-paper-scissors” is a dispute resolution method, but that does not make it an arbitration protected by the Federal Arbitration Act.
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’s decision.
Decided on the field of play
Barring an unexpected legal ruling, the case can now proceed in earnest. Flores’ case was initially predicated on a claim of intentional racial discrimination under 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 which added claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The significance of that addition is that Title VII permits claims for disparate impact, a lower bar than intentionality. Here, that means that the coaches could prevail if they can show that a race-neutral policy or practice by the NFL and its clubs nevertheless has a disparate impact on Black coaches and that either the policy or practice is not a business necessity or that a less discriminatory alternative exists.
The coaches’ claims initially seem questionable. Each individual NFL club has its own hiring policies and practices, contrary to the coaches’ claims that there is some problematic league-wide policy or practice. Further to that point, the NFL is among the most competitive industries in the country, and thus the idea that a club would make a hiring decision based on race (rather than whether it will help the club win) is dubious.
That said, NFL club decision-makers could of course have fallen susceptible to various unconscious biases that negatively affected the fairness of their hiring processes. Moreover, there is useful academic commentary explaining why competition does not always fix or prevent discrimination.
Next, of course, 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 heading coaching candidates (see here for an excellent history and analysis of the Rule by Professor Jeremi Duru). In fact, the Rule was borne out of the threat of litigation similar to the present action.
The Rule has undergone multiple iterations over time but generally has required that a racial minority 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 ten head coaching vacancies filled during or after the 2025 season, none were by Black coaches.
Nevertheless, despite the Rule’s mixed and uncertain success, it should legally count in the NFL’s favor on the coaches’ claims.
There are also grounds for skepticism on any claim that Flores was terminated by the Dolphins based on his race. For one, Flores was replaced by Mike McDaniel, who identifies as biracial. More substantively, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had harsh words about Flores’ coaching style, an opinion shared by his former colleague Ryan Fitzpatrick, who described Flores as “dictator.”
Finally, class certification appears unlikely. There does not seem to be a sufficiently large population of individuals subject to the same problematic policy or practice for the case to proceed on that basis.
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, before likely taking depositions from some of the league’s most important figures, including the Commissioner and probably several owners (starting with the Dolphins’ Stephen Ross).
Then, if that process does not already air too much of the NFL’s dirty laundry, even more would be exposed as part of a motion for summary judgment, let alone a public jury trial.
Consequently, one would expect the NFL to try to find a way to settle the case. The economic damages could be substantial given the coaches’ high salaries. But monetary damages do not seem to be the coaches’ primary motivation. Instead, they are likely seeking lasting changes to the NFL’s hiring policies and practices.
Deubert is Senior Counsel at Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete LLP
