A one-page scouting report that a search firm wrote about Brian Flores for the Las Vegas Raiders is now public, and the Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator’s lawyers say it proves what his discrimination lawsuit against the NFL has argued since 2022.
The memo, prepared by recruiting firm Korn Ferry during one of the Raiders’ recent head coaching searches, was unsealed in federal court in New York on Tuesday. It sits under the headline “Brian Flores — Strengths and Weaknesses” and lists six strengths and seven weaknesses. Flores’ attorneys say several of those lines rely on racial stereotypes, and that one of them shows the league and its teams are punishing him for suing.
The Raiders, who did not interview Flores for the job Korn Ferry was helping to fill, declined to comment.
What the memo says
The line drawing the most attention is listed as a strength:
“Polished and a good presenter despite growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn (same as Mike Tyson). He was able to build a strong friendship with a billionaire’s son which gave him opportunities to socialize and learn how to build relationships with white-collar and upper-class individuals.”
The weaknesses column is harsher. Among the bullet points:
- “He can fool you with his polish upwards. Has little people skills, lacks self-awareness and can sometimes exhibit erratic behavior.” The same bullet cites Tua Tagovailoa’s public comments that Flores was “pessimistic and adversarial” and that his style “shattered his confidence.”
- “Chip on his shoulder — can be a dictator with players, coaches, and can even be difficult with ownership. His personality is unpredictable — not sure who is going to show up.”
- “Needs someone strong at the top to reign in some of his worst behavior. He once threatened violence to his GM and made irrational demands during an ownership meeting. One long-time senior team executive said, ‘He may have changed since, but he was the worst hiring decision we’ve ever made.’ Another President of a club refused to talk about him.”
- The final item: “Ongoing litigation may be a distraction.”
Why Flores’ lawyers call it retaliation
Flores attorney Douglas H. Wigdor said in a statement that the documents show “two unfortunate, but unsurprising, realities.”
“First, that Mr. Flores’ decision to hold the league and its teams accountable for systemic race discrimination has been met with unlawful retaliation. Second, discrimination continues to play a significant role in the hiring process for NFL Head Coaches, as evidenced by the fact that the candidate profile prepared for the Raiders leans heavily on racial stereotypes.”
Another of his lawyers, Michael Willemin, said the “polish” language is a racially offensive way of treating it as surprising that a Black man is articulate. He also argued that the Brownsville line suggests the only way someone from that largely Black and Hispanic neighborhood could succeed is by befriending a billionaire’s son, and that the weaknesses column paints Flores as an “angry Black man.”
Willemin pointed to the last bullet, the lawsuit being a possible distraction, as the clearest sign of retaliation. In their view, a search firm listing the act of suing the league as a reason not to hire a coach is exactly the kind of punishment the law forbids.
The Dolphins quote
The memo does not name the “long-time senior team executive” who called Flores the worst hire his club had ever made. Flores’ new supplemental complaint, which attaches the memo as an exhibit, attributes that remark to the Miami Dolphins, who fired Flores in January 2022 after three seasons as head coach. Flores has accused the Dolphins of defaming him, and the quote could become part of that claim.
Mike Florio wrote that a line like “the worst hiring decision we’ve ever made” in a formal candidate profile makes it much harder for Flores to land a head coaching job, and raises the question of whether the lawsuit shaped that view. That is Flores’ allegation, not a finding by the court; the Dolphins and the Tennessee Titans had objected to the timing of the supplemental complaint.
How the memo became public
Korn Ferry fought to keep the document sealed. It argued that it is a third party to the case, that the memo was privileged work product and that it does not say what Flores claims. The magistrate judge overseeing discovery rejected those arguments, and Korn Ferry did not appeal to the district judge. Daniel Kaplan, the reporter who first published the memo, noted that the ruling cleared the way for it to be made public Tuesday morning.
Where the lawsuit stands
Flores filed suit on Feb. 1, 2022, shortly after Miami fired him, alleging the league was “rife with racism” in how it hires head coaches. Besides the league and the Dolphins, the case targets the Denver Broncos, the New York Giants and the Houston Texans, teams that interviewed Flores without hiring him. Former head coaches Steve Wilks and Ray Horton later joined the case, adding claims involving the Arizona Cardinals and the Titans.
Much of the past four years was spent fighting over whether the case belonged in court or in the league’s arbitration system. It ended up in court, though three teams still have an appeal pending. The next major step is the judge’s rulings on motions to dismiss.
What it means for Flores now
Flores, whose parents immigrated from Honduras, has rebuilt his reputation in Minnesota since the lawsuit was filed. He is in his fourth season running the Vikings’ defense, and the 5-0 Vikings lead the league with a plus-6 turnover differential after five weeks, as we covered in our look at the turnover leaders.
That success is what makes the memo matter beyond the courtroom. Every hiring cycle, Flores’ name comes up as a head coaching candidate. Now the league and its teams know what at least one search firm was telling clubs about him, and Flores’ lawyers have a document they say shows that suing the league became part of the case against hiring him.
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