With the news that former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores is suing the NFL, the Denver Broncos, New York Giants, and the Dolphins, for racial discrimination in the hiring process, the conversation surrounding the lawsuit has centered on “systemic racism” in the NFL.
Whether it be the lack of black head coaches in the NFL — Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is the lone black head coach — or what appears to be a shorter leash for black coaches actually granted an opportunity to lead a team, sports media outlets around the country have been focused on what the league must do in order to “even the playing field.”
But the lawsuit by Flores highlights the NFL’s Rooney Rule, a rule implemented in 2003 with the intention of ensuring that minority coaches receive an opportunity to interview for open head coaching positions. According to Flores, both the Giants and the Broncos granted him “sham” interviews in order to satisfy their Rooney Rule requirements, never actually giving Flores a fair opportunity to be hired for the position.
Jack Brewer spent his time in the NFL playing for the Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, and the New York Giants, and sees the Rooney Rule as the crux of the issue.
“The issue comes about when the league and their protocols have this crazy rule where you literally are going around trying to find a black person to come interviewing to your company knowing you’re not going to give them a job in order to check a box,” Brewer said when discussing the Rooney Rule during an interview with The Daily Wire. “That’s the racism. If you’re going to play around with people based on the color of their skin, then you’re going to have to pay the consequences in a situation like this. I think right now, this is more of the Miami Dolphins paying the consequences of some ignorant policy from the National Football League. It’s disrespectful, it’s racist, the whole thing is racist.”
“I don’t care if you’re white or black,” Brewer continued. “Flip it around. Say you have to bring in a white guy to interview, even if you knew you weren’t going to hire him. It would still be racist.”
Flores is not the first person to claim that the Rooney Rule allows teams to simply check a box in their hiring process, but he is the first to sue the league over their processes. On Wednesday night, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups voiced his opinion on the NFL’s hiring process and also sees it as an opportunity for teams to “check a box.”
“I’ll be honest with you: I’m not – it probably sounds crazy – but I’m not really a big fan of the Rooney Rule,” Billups said. “I think they’re just making you interview a black candidate, but if that black candidate don’t really have a chance, don’t interview him.”
“So, I think it just gives you a check-the-box in the situation, and I don’t think that’s fair,” he added. “But for some reason they thought that that rule was going to be the great equalizer and it’s not. It’s not. So I’m not crazy about that rule and a couple other things in the NFL, but I’m blessed to be in the NBA.”
Brewer sees it as an appeasement problem.
“You see it all the time. It has to happen because if you’re an organization and you have your eye on a coach that’s white, you can’t just hire them,” Brewer said about coaches going into an interview solely due to the Rooney Rule. “They force you to bring somebody black in. So at the end of the day, this is something that is a result of wokeism, trying to tiptoe on the lines. If the hearts and minds of the people that were running the National Football League were pure, you would never have this. But the hearts and minds are not pure.”
“If I’m running an organization, there’s no way I’m going to bring in somebody because of the color of their skin to check a box,” Brewer continued. “I just wouldn’t do it. And I would be straight up with everybody about it, and I would never have to deal with something like this. But they’re not; they play games with people and they’re trying to appease folks who might say something, call them racist. Now they’re going to have to pay for it because they’re going to get sued. And I firmly believe Brian Flores is going to win a major lawsuit.”
Brewer likes that Flores is suing the league, but believes that the lawsuit will not address the root cause of the issues, one that many on one side of the aisle do not view as a problem.
“I think Brian Flores is going to be able to accomplish a lot through the lawsuit, but I think it’s only going to be attacking a symptom,” Brewer said. “I don’t think it gets to the root cause.”
“The root cause in our country is the fact that I have to have a conversation with my wife and my son to discuss which box he’s going to check on the color of his skin,” he continued. “The root cause is the fact that we have created a nation where we divide people the second that they’re born. Until we all get to the point in America where we are all Americans, and that is the box that we check, we’re going to continue to have all of this separation in any major industry of power. It’s a power struggle that is being created by our system. And so Brian Flores, yes, this is going to be a battle. He’s going to win a small battle, but I don’t believe that’s going to make more black coaches get opportunities. I think it’s going to wake people up that hiring someone because of the color of their skin, or interviewing someone because of the color of their skin, makes no sense. It’s wrong.”
“I don’t blame him for filing a lawsuit. I like it, but my hope is that this wakes us up,” Brewer continued. “And instead of us talking about equity the way that we do, and instead of us talking about … Critical Race Theory and separating people because of their skin color, instead of talking about that stuff, let’s get to the root cause and stop systematically separating people.”
Brewer blames the increased emphasis on skin color, saying that the focus is leading to problems like Critical Race Theory, and the current issues the NFL is being forced to face in their hiring process.
“It goes right back to Whoopi Goldberg,” Brewer said. “You look at what Whoopi Goldberg said about the Jews and she just got suspended for it. This comes from that same spirit. In Whoopi Goldberg’s mind, race means skin color. Why? Because Goldberg has been born in a country where all she thinks about is racial, and all she talks about is skin color. So in her mind, which is warped, she believes that being Jewish is not a race. So, it’s just ignorance. It’s ignorance because she doesn’t know the true definition of what race means. And race itself is man made. And so we have all these different words and all these different ways to categorize people, all these things we’ve created over time that is causing the Brian Flores situation. It’s causing CRT, causing Joe Biden to go out and have to appoint a black woman and x out anybody else that may have worked all their lives to be qualified to do it.”
“All of those things come from that same spirit,” Brewer added. “And we created it right here in this nation.”
There are many who feel that Flores will never work in the NFL again now that he’s suing the league, but Brewer doesn’t see it the same way.
“I think he’s an amazing coach,” Brewer told The Daily Wire. “I don’t think he’s doing this out of spite. Any color of a person, when you get to a situation where you work that hard and you’re accomplished, and you’ve earned the respect of your locker room and your players … and then people just start playing you like you’re some toy? You gotta stand for truth. And that’s what he’s doing right now. I don’t think he’s doing this selfishly. I think he’s standing for truth because, what they put him through and the way that they did him through this process, he doesn’t want anybody else to have to go through it. And for him to have those text messages and for you to have an [owner] that’s trying to pay you to lose, and that same person stabs you in the back, fires you, and then you go on this little puppet show to check everyone’s boxes around the league … he had no choice but to do it.”
“He would have been turning his back on other people if he didn’t do that,” Brewer added.
Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.