We learned last month that Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has amended his complaint against the NFL and six of its teams to include a retaliation count. As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk detailed in an episode of PFT Live (video link), Flores alleges the fact that he has not been hired as a head coach since he filed suit in 2022 supports his retaliation theory.
Flores’ candidacy for another head coaching opportunity appeared to be at its zenith in this year’s hiring cycle given his work with Minnesota’s defense in 2025. His efforts led to his earning perhaps the highest salary among the league’s coordinator contingent, but he received only two interviews even though there were 10 HC vacancies.
While that fact alone will likely prove insufficient for Flores to prevail, Florio says the discovery process will naturally feature a “full investigation” of all teams that have hired head coaches since the initiation of the suit. That includes, of course, whom those teams considered and hired and whom they did not consider or hire. We previously heard Flores has subpoenaed 31 of the league’s 32 clubs, with the Vikings likely the only exception.
Florio appears to have changed his stance since news of the retaliation count first surfaced. At that time, he said retaliation would be difficult to prove, but he now believes it could be Flores’ strongest claim, because it will be easy for a jury to understand the “culture of retaliation” that Flores alleges persists in the NFL. After all, no one likes to be sued, and it stands to reason that a corporate entity might be tempted to lash out at someone who has questioned its practices.
Several days after the above-referenced PFT Live episode, Florio published an article detailing two of the more intriguing paragraphs in Flores’ most recent amended complaint. He avers the Dolphins failed to make contractually required severance payments to him after firing him in early 2022, and he also alleges the Dolphins tried to recover money they had already paid him.
The amended complaint reads, in part, “[t]o make matters worse, after this lawsuit was filed, the Dolphins filed a letter with Commissioner Goodell seeking an arbitration over claims that Mr. Flores should be required to return hundreds of thousands of dollars of earned income. The only reason that the Dolphins filed this request is because Mr. Flores filed this suit and opposed the team’s discriminatory conduct.”
Presently, there is no further information about Miami’s alleged efforts, which are surely among the many targets of Flores’ discovery requests. Since the United States Supreme Court has declined to hear the NFL’s appeal to keep this matter in arbitration and out of open court, it is possible the league will increase its urgency to settle the case before discovery advances too far (assuming the trial court does not grant the NFL’s motion to dismiss).
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