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Brian Flores Dragging Entire NFL (Except Vikings) Into Legal Battle
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- Brian Flores Dragging Entire NFL (Except Vikings) Into Legal Battle
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Brian Flores signed a very lucrative contract this offseason to remain the Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator for the foreseeable future. If you thought that meant he was going to chill out on his ongoing legal battle against the NFL's Rooney Rule and the league's one-sided arbitration processes… you thought wrong.
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MN Vikings DC going "scorched earth" with new subpoenas?
This week, Flores and his attorneys filed subpoenas for information on internal hiring practices from 25 of the 26 NFL teams who were NOT previously involved in his lawsuit. The only team not being subpoenaed by the Vikings defensive coordinator is… the Vikings.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has subpoenaed 25 NFL teams—in addition to the six he is suing—for information about their hiring practices as part of his long-running discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, a new court filing shows.
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That brings nearly the entire NFL in some fashion into his case, likely omitting only his current employer.
In other words, Brian Flores is dragging the entire league into legal drama that goes back to February, 2022 , when he filed his first suit against the league and three teams.
At the time, those teams were the Dolphins, his former employer, along with the Giants and Broncos — who had recently interviewed him for vacant head coaching jobs.
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So what's happening between Brian Flores and the NFL
Flores' original lawsuit alleged that the NFL and multiple teams use racist hiring practices, and that teams across the league hide behind the Rooney Rule, in order to claim otherwise. Two months later, the Cardinals, Titans and Texans were added as defendants.
According to Daniel Kaplan (Front Office Sports) , today's subpoenas are a result of a decision in February that moved Flores' case to federal court and lifted the previous stay on discovery.
That paved the way for his attorneys to submit today's discovery request of over 1,000 document from every NFL team, except one. Unsurprisingly, the NFL will look to " quash " everything filed by Flores that doesn't involve the 25 new teams.
Flores has moved aggressively, sending more than a thousand document requests and "sweeping document subpoenas" to 25 teams seeking information about their hiring practices over the last 24 years…Sports attorney Chris Deubert expects the NFL will move quickly to quash the subpoenas to the non-party NFL teams.
"They're obviously going scorched-earth," Deubert told Front Office Sports about Flores seeking information from 31 teams… Those teams are probably going to object to the subpoenas, probably collectively through the league-friendly counsel, and say it's not relevant, and there'll be an interesting sort of fight there."
If you wade through all the legal mumbo jumbo, Flores is fighting the NFL's implementation of the Rooney Rule, along with what he alleges as a bias league arbitration process, which currently begins and ends with Roger Goodell.
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Since he originally filed his first lawsuit in 2022 — if we include the Third Amended Complaint that is set to be filed today by Flores' attorneys Wednesday — it has now been amended a total of three times.
What does MN Vikings exclusion mean?
There's a lot of legal jockeying going on in this case right now. Flores is alleging that the league's arbitration process itself is used by the league to retaliate against those who raise any sort of problem with how the NFL operates behind closed doors.
It's certainly interesting that the Minnesota Vikings (probably) are the only team not included in the subpoenas. I'd imagine Flores' attorneys would argue their exclusion is based on first-hand experience, since he is currently employed by the Wilfs, and that additional information is unnecessary.
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Of course, that is just my assumption. While it's true that I was in college long enough to be an attorney, I don't have that level of degree.
Related: MN Vikings Announce Joint Practices for 2026
Attorney or not, it's difficult to see a world where the American government forces NFL teams to submit internal hiring practices over to Brian Flores' attorneys, especially since teams won't have official documentation on much of that stuff.
Where this case goes from here is anyone's guess. One thing is for sure, though. There is no end in sight.
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