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The Texans still have a head-coaching vacancy. And they’re getting the word out that they’re still considering former Dolphins coach Brian Flores as a serious candidate for the job.
Per multiple reports, the three finalists are Flores, Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, and former NFL quarterback Josh McCown.
The Texan have no choice but to regard him as a finalist. If he were immediately dropped from consideration after filing his lawsuit, that would become immediate and persuasive evidence of retaliation. While many seem to think it’s appropriate for a company to blackball someone who dares to exercise their legal rights arising, it’s not. It becomes a separate violation of the person’s rights.
And so Flores will continue to be offered interviews and regarded as a finalist for head-coaching jobs. Will one of the American oligarchs who own the various NFL teams ultimately offer the job to someone who has filed landmark litigation against the entire league? Texans owner Cal McNair (who got his team the old-fashioned way, he inherited it) can shrug and say to himself, “Someone else will.” And then someone else will shrug and say, “Someone else will.”
If it sounds a lot like the way individual owners regarding minority coaching candidates, it should. It’s the same mindset. “I don’t want to do it. Someone else will.”
So, yes, the Texans will consider Flores. They have to. Will they hire him? They should. But they should have hired him before he filed suit, when it appeared they were preparing to hire Josh McCown.
The winner in all of this could be Gannon. While the Texans can try to plausibly defend not hiring Flores, it becomes much more difficult to hire a white candidate with no experience coaching college or pro football in any capacity, when one of the other viable candidates is Flores. Gannon could be the internal compromise candidate.
We’ll see what happens. As the saying goes, dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. The Texans have been rife with dysfunction since Cal climbed into the captain’s chair. They’d be helping themselves (and the rest of the league) if they hire Flores.
We still don’t count on it happening. The NFL’s initial statement regarding his lawsuit essentially paints him as a liar. The statement issued by Dolphin owner Stephen Ross regarding the alleged offer of $100,000 per 2019 loss makes an even stronger assault on the character and credibility of Flores.
Besides, it’s not as if hiring him will make the case go away. Flores already has said he’s not dropping it.
While we hope (for the sake of the Texans’ fans) that Houston hires him, the more likely outcome will be that the NFL fights Flores aggressively — and that the NFL eventual will offer him a settlement that includes an agreement he will not seek nor accept employment with any NFL team in the future.
It won’t be cheap. But, hey, whenever everything gets divided by 32, everything gets cheaper.
