Brian Flores Lawsuit Against the NFL: Arbitration and Supreme Court

The Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL is heading to trial in federal court in Manhattan after the U.S. Supreme Court declined on May 26, 2026, to review a Second Circuit ruling that kept the racial discrimination case out of the league’s private arbitration system. All claims against the NFL, the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, Miami Dolphins, Arizona Cardinals, and Tennessee Titans are now consolidated in court before Judge Valerie E. Caproni, with motions to dismiss briefing running through August 2026 and discovery underway. No trial date has been set.

What Flores Alleged

Flores filed suit on February 1, 2022, in the Southern District of New York, bringing claims under Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 along with New York and New Jersey anti-discrimination statutes. He sued on behalf of himself and a proposed class of all Black NFL coaches, managers, and candidates for those jobs. His attorneys are Douglas Wigdor and David Gottlieb of Wigdor LLP.¹

Three team-specific allegations anchor the complaint. Flores said the New York Giants interviewed him for their head coaching vacancy in January 2022 only to satisfy the Rooney Rule, and he cited a text message from New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, sent three days before the interview, that congratulated him by mistake. The message was meant for Brian Daboll, who the Giants ultimately hired.²

He made a similar sham-interview allegation about the Denver Broncos in 2019, claiming then-General Manager John Elway and other executives showed up an hour late and disheveled.²

Against the Miami Dolphins, Flores alleged that owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for every game the team lost during the 2019 season and pressured him after that season to recruit a prominent quarterback in violation of the NFL’s tampering rules, including a yacht meeting Flores refused to attend. When Flores pushed back, he said he was labeled “difficult to work with.”²

The complaint also pointed to the gap between a player workforce that is roughly 70 percent Black and a coaching tier that remains overwhelmingly white. When Flores filed, only one of 32 head coaches was Black.²

Two More Coaches Joined in April 2022

An amended complaint added Steve Wilks and Ray Horton as plaintiffs. Wilks, the Arizona Cardinals’ head coach in 2018, alleged he was hired as a “bridge coach” and fired after one season with a 3-13 record, while white counterparts like General Manager Steve Keim and later head coach Kliff Kingsbury received longer tenures for comparable results. Horton, a longtime assistant, alleged the Tennessee Titans interviewed him in January 2016 as a Rooney Rule formality after already deciding to hire Mike Mularkey.³

The amended complaint added the Cardinals, Titans, and the Houston Texans as defendants, alongside the NFL, Giants, Broncos, and Dolphins.⁴

The Fight Over Arbitration

For more than four years, the case did not turn on whether the coaches were discriminated against. It turned on where their claims would be decided. The NFL’s constitution gives Commissioner Roger Goodell authority to arbitrate disputes between coaches and teams, and the league moved to force the entire lawsuit into that process. Flores’s side argued that letting the league’s top executive decide claims brought against the league was no forum at all.

The District Court Split the Case in Two

On March 1, 2023, Judge Caproni sent the claims against the Dolphins, Cardinals, and Titans into arbitration, because Flores, Wilks, and Horton had signed employment agreements with those teams containing valid arbitration clauses. Claims against the Broncos, Giants, and Texans stayed in court. The judge found the Broncos’ clause “illusory and unenforceable” because the NFL and its teams could unilaterally change the NFL Constitution at any time. For the Giants and Texans, the defendants tried to invoke an arbitration provision from Flores’s earlier contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but that contract had never received the Commissioner’s approval required to make it binding.⁴

In July 2023, Judge Caproni refused to let the defendants introduce a signed version of the Steelers contract, ruling the evidence had been available earlier.⁴

The Second Circuit Went Further

The NFL and the teams appealed. On October 17, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, and pushed the reasoning further. The court held the arbitration agreement unenforceable under the “effective vindication” doctrine: requiring coaches to submit discrimination claims to the Commissioner, the principal executive of the very organization being sued, failed to provide a genuine forum for statutory rights. The panel described the provision as offering “arbitration in name only.”⁴

The claims already sent to arbitration, meanwhile, went nowhere. Arbitrator Peter Harvey was appointed by Goodell in September 2024, but by September 2025 Flores’s attorneys accused Harvey of “inexplicable inaction” and said the process was at a “complete standstill.”⁵

All Claims Returned to Court

On February 13, 2026, Judge Caproni granted the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and ruled that the Second Circuit’s reasoning applied to the claims previously sent to arbitration as well. The NFL’s internal dispute resolution procedures, she found, did not cure the “fatal flaws” the appeals court had identified. She lifted the stay on discovery and set a pretrial conference for April 3, 2026, with a joint case management plan due March 26.⁶

The Supreme Court Declined to Intervene

The NFL and the teams asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit ruling, calling it “unprecedented” and pointing to a long history of lower courts upholding league commissioners as arbitrators. On May 26, 2026, the Court denied the petition in New York Football Giants, Inc. v. Flores (25-790). Justice Brett Kavanaugh alone indicated he would have granted review.⁷⁸

Flores’s attorneys said in a statement that “the NFL must now accept that its commissioner cannot be the arbitrator over discrimination claims against the league and its teams.” NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said the league “respect[ed] the Supreme Court’s decision” and was “fully prepared to defend ourselves as this matter proceeds.”⁹

Where the Case Goes From Here

The NFL’s motions to dismiss were due June 5, 2026. Flores’s opposition briefs are due July 20, 2026, and the league’s reply is due August 19, 2026.¹⁰

Discovery is active and large in scale. Flores’s legal team has served subpoenas on 25 NFL teams and submitted more than 1,000 document requests covering 24 years of hiring and employment records. NFL attorneys have called those requests “punishingly overbroad” and accused the plaintiffs of using them to delay. Flores’s team filed a second amended complaint on May 20, 2026, alleging that the NFL retaliated against the plaintiffs after the lawsuit was filed and that Goodell “outrageously” misinterpreted league guidelines in an effort to hold onto the arbitration process.¹¹

Class certification has not yet been sought or decided.⁴

The Dolphins Investigation That Grew Out of the Suit

Flores’s tanking and tampering allegations against Miami triggered a separate NFL investigation led by former U.S. Attorney and former SEC chair Mary Jo White. On the tanking claim, the six-month inquiry found Ross had “repeatedly expressed his belief that the team’s draft position should take priority over the win-loss record,” but concluded there was no evidence the Dolphins intentionally lost games. On the $100,000-per-loss remark, investigators cited “differing recollections about the wording, timing, and context” and treated the comment as not a serious offer. Goodell said even a joke of that kind threatened the integrity of the game.¹²

The tampering findings were harsher. The league concluded the Dolphins had committed “tampering violations of unprecedented scope and severity” involving contact with quarterback Tom Brady during the 2019 and 2022 seasons and with coach Sean Payton while he was under contract with the New Orleans Saints.¹³ Ross was fined $1.5 million and suspended from team operations until mid-October 2022. The Dolphins lost their 2023 first-round pick and a 2024 third-round pick. Vice Chairman Bruce Beal was fined $500,000 for his role in the Brady contact.¹²

Flores Is Still Coaching

After his firing by Miami in January 2022, Flores spent the 2022 season as a senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has been the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator since February 2023, was named an Associated Press Assistant Coach of the Year finalist in 2024, and signed a new deal with the Vikings in January 2026 after interviewing for head coaching openings with the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers and for the defensive coordinator job with the Washington Commanders.¹⁴¹⁵

The league he sued has not changed much at the top. Ten head coaching vacancies filled during the 2025–26 hiring cycle went to zero Black candidates, and the 2026 season opened with three Black head coaches out of 32, down from five a year earlier.¹⁶

1
CourtListener. Flores v. The National Football League
2
Wigdor Law. Complaint Against National Football League et al.
3
NFL.com. Former HC Steve Wilks, Former NFL Assistant Ray Horton Join Brian Flores in Amended Complaint
4
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Flores v. The National Football League
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Pro Football Rumors. Attorneys in Brian Flores Suit Renew Attempt to Remove Claims Against Dolphins, Cardinals, and Titans From Arbitration
6
Courthouse News Service. Brian Flores Arbitration Rejected – NFL Ruling
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CBS News. Supreme Court NFL Brian Flores Lawsuit
8
SCOTUSblog. N.Y. Football Giants, Inc. v. Flores
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The Athletic. Brian Flores NFL Discrimination Supreme Court Appeal
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USA Today. Brian Flores Lawsuit NFL Briefing Dates
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The Athletic. Brian Flores NFL Discrimination Lawsuit Team Subpoenas
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CNN. NFL Suspends Miami Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross
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Sportico. Dolphins Tampering and Tanking Investigation Results
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Minnesota Vikings. Brian Flores Coaching Profile
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ESPN. Brian Flores, Head Coach Candidate, Gets New Deal With Vikings
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The Athletic. NFL Black Head Coaches Diversity Hiring