The NFL Never Really Attempted to Hide its Racism. It Just Doubled Down on Gaslighting Black Fans

With the recent lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores against the NFL for racial discrimination in its hiring practices, the league once again has shown its true colors.

Miami Dolphins head coach, Brian Flores; Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Image

When Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid and a small number of other Black NFL players started protesting racial injustice and police violence by refusing to stand for the national anthem in the 2015-2016 season, their activism drew fierce criticism from several NFL owners, fans, sports commentators and even some of their fellow NFL athletes who deemed their actions unpatriotic and disrespectful to the military. Their stance dominated sports headlines, and news headlines in general for months, and ultimately led to both Kaepernick’s and Reid’s departure from the league.

But there was a larger story brewing beneath the debates over players’ right to protest on game day. A story that would pose a question for many football enthusiasts that were often dismissive of the racial undertones that impacted personnel decisions in the league from the sidelines to the executive suites: was the NFL a racist organization?

Recently, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, who was one of two current Black head coaches in the NFL, filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL claiming discrimination in the league’s hiring process as he was interviewing for head coaching jobs with the Denver Broncos and New York Giants, and as the motive for him being fired by the Miami Dolphins. According to Flores, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him a $100,000 per game incentive for every game he lost, effectively hoping to sour Flores’ credibility as an NFL head coach.

If what Flores is alleging was the league’s first, second or even tenth questionable move regarding Black talent, it possibly could be looked at as a series of unfortunate coincidences, IF a person was looking to play devil’s advocate in giving the NFL the benefit of the doubt. But Flores’ allegations directly align with a decades-long pattern of systemic racism perpetrated by the NFL against Black members of the organization, no matter what role they played in moving the chains down the field.