DENVER — Brian Flores amended his explosive racial discrimination lawsuit Thursday, adding two black coaches to his side of the complaint, and two more NFL teams he accused of wrongful hiring practices.
Flores’ amendment did not drop the Denver Broncos from his suit.
>The above video is from March 28 at the NFL owners meetings in Florida.
By all accounts, the Broncos like Brian Flores, or at least they did from the time they interviewed him for their vacant head coaching job on January 5, 2019 at a Providence, R.I. hotel. They are not happy with him now after he accused the Broncos of conducting a “sham” interview with him and made scurrilous accusations regarding the appearance of then-general manager John Elway, and CEO and President Joe Ellis.
“I was disappointed my name got drug into it because I remember the interview quite well,’’ Ellis said last week at the NFL owners meetings in Palm Beach, Fla. “I remember being there early, driving down from Boston early in the morning to be there early and greeting him in the conference room. I could go to that hotel and show you were it was. I remember it very clearly. Brian was a compelling candidate and did a great job in his interview.’’
Ellis then recounted Flores’ upbringing in Brooklyn, his high school, his Boston College education, and NFL education from Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots. It was a series of texts Flores received 2 ½ months ago from Belichick regarding the New York Giants’ head coaching search that incited Flores and his two lawyers to file suit against the NFL, specifically the Giants, the Dolphins and the Broncos. The amended filing Thursday added the Tennessee Titans and Arizona Cardinals to the complaint per accusations of black coaches Ray Horton and Steve Wilks. Flores also claimed the Houston Texans retaliated against him for filing the lawsuit by not hiring him as head coach.
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After detailing his text exchange with Belichick, Flores and his lawyers wrote: “Incredibly, this was not Mr. Flores’ first sham interview that was held only in an effort to comply with the Rooney Rule. Indeed, in 2019 Mr. Flores was scheduled to interview with the Denver Broncos. However, the Broncos’ then-General Manager, John Elway, President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Ellis and others, showed up an hour late to the interview. They looked completely disheveled, and it was obvious that they had drinking heavily the night before. It was clear from the substance of the interview that Mr. Flores was interviewed only because of the Rooney Rule, and that the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate for the job."
The Broncos quickly issued a statement vehemently denying Flores’ account, calling his claims “baseless and disparaging” and citing details of the interview that contradicted him. Elway called Flores' complaint “false and defamatory” before referring to an interview he and his head coach search committee held the night before, Jan. 4, 2019, in Denver with Mike Munchak, then flew overnight before arriving at their Providence hotel around 3:30 a.m. for the 7:30 a.m. interview with Flores – which was the only time Belichick allotted the Broncos time for Flores’ interview. Ellis was in Boston and drove to the Providence hotel early the morning of the interview.
“It wasn’t a shill interview as far as I was concerned,’’ Ellis said. “I thought it was a great interview and I enjoyed it. I’ve had some subsequent texts with him over the time, congratulating him on big wins. To get dragged into it, I don’t know that it was Brian’s idea. We’ll just leave it at that. It’s disappointing.”
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