Two black coaches have joined former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL for alleged racial discrimination in its hiring practices. The suit asks for, among other things, increased transparency in NFL hiring, incentives for hiring black coaches, and increased visibility for black assistant coaches.
Lawyers for Flores added Steve Wilks and Ray Horton to the lawsuit in an amended complaint filed in the Southern District of New York. A pretrial conference for the federal case is scheduled for April 29.
Wilks was the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals for one season in 2018 before being fired. Horton interviewed for the Tennessee Titans head coaching job in 2016 but ultimately was not hired.
Wilks alleges the Cardinals discriminated against him by using him as a “bridge coach” who was “not given any meaningful chance to succeed.” The coach went 3-13 in his one season with Arizona before being fired and replaced by Kliff Kingsbury.
Lawyers wrote that while Kingsbury has been successful, “Mr. Wilks, given the same opportunity afforded to Mr. Kingsbury, surely would have succeeded as well.”
After the 3-13 season, the Cardinals used the No.1 overall draft pick on quarterback Kyler Murray.
“When Coach Flores filed this action, I knew I owed it to myself — and to all black NFL coaches and aspiring coaches — to stand with him,” Wilks said in a statement released by his lawyers. “This lawsuit has shed further important light on a problem that we all know exists, but too few are willing to confront. Black coaches and candidates should have exactly the same ability to become employed, and remain employed, as white coaches and candidates.”
The Cardinals released a statement to ESPN in response, saying, “The decisions we made after the 2018 season were very difficult ones. But as we said at the time, they were entirely driven by what was in the best interests of our organization and necessary for team improvement. We are confident that the facts reflect that and demonstrate that these allegations are untrue.”
Wilks returned to the NFL this year when the Carolina Panthers hired him as pass game coordinator and secondary coach after spending one season as the defensive coordinator at the University of Missouri.
Horton had been an assistant in the NFL since 1994 and the defensive coordinator for the Titans in the 2014-2015 season before interviewing for the team’s head-coaching job the following year.
Lawyers said he was given a “completely sham interview done only to comply with the Rooney Rule and to demonstrate an appearance of equal opportunity and a false willingness to consider a minority candidate for the position.”
The Rooney Rule is an NFL policy mandating that teams interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operations jobs.
The Titans hired Mike Mularkey, who had been the team’s interim head coach for the final nine games of the 2015 season, for the job. Horton left to be the defensive coordinator in Cleveland and has since retired from the NFL.
In a 2020 interview for The Steelers Realm podcast, Mularkey said that Titans’ owners told him he would get the job before completing the interview process, including interviewing minority candidates to comply with the Rooney Rule.
Mularkey’s comments came when he was asked if he regretted anything in his career.
“I allowed myself at one point, when I was in Tennessee, to get caught up in something I regretted, and I still regret it,” Mularkey said in the podcast. “But the ownership there… came in and told me I was going be the head coach in 2016 before they went through the Rooney Rule. And so, I sat there knowing I was the head coach in ’16 as they went through this fake hiring process, knowing a lot of the coaches they were interviewing, knowing how much they prepared to go through those interviews, … and they had no chance of getting that job.”
The remarks were not widely reported, but resurfaced after Flores filed the lawsuit.
In a statement released by his lawyers, Horton shared that he “was devastated and humiliated” when he learned of Mularkey’s comments.
“I am hoping to turn that experience into a positive and make lasting change and create true equal opportunity in the future,” said Horton.
Tennessee fired Mularkey in 2017 after posting a 9-7 record in back-to-back seasons.
The Titans provided a statement to ESPN, disputing Mularkey’s recollection of what happened during the interview process.
“Our 2016 head coach search was an open and competitive process during which we conducted in-person interviews with four candidates and followed all NFL rules,” the team said. “The organization was undecided on its next head coach during the process and made its final decision after consideration of all four candidates following the completion of the interviews.”
The amended complaint also features an additional allegation on Flores’ behalf.
His attorneys allege that the Houston Texans “retaliated” against Flores by removing him from consideration for their head-coaching vacancy “due to his decision to file this action and speak publicly about systemic discrimination in the NFL.”
Flores filed the lawsuit on February 1 after being fired as the Miami Dolphins coach in January. He had led the Dolphins to a 24-25 record over three years; they went 9-8 in their second straight winning season but failed to make the playoffs during his tenure.
Flores is currently an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.