On Tuesday, the NFL brought the hammer down on the Miami Dolphins and punished them for some of the charges levied by former head coach, Brian Flores, in the federal lawsuit he filed against the team this past February.
For violating league policies governing the integrity of the game, the league announced the following punishments:
The team was stripped of their 2023 first-round draft pick and a third-round selection in 2024.
Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross was suspended through October 17th, removed from all NFL committees and fined $1.5 million.
Bruce Beal, the Dolphins’ vice chairman and owner-in-waiting, was banned from league meetings for the remainder of the 2022 season and fined $500,000.
The punishments stemmed from Flores’ claims that Ross offered financial rewards for losing games in 2019 in order to improve the team’s draft position, and for improper contact with Tom Brady, Sean Payton and Payton’s agent, Don Yee.
In its ruling, which came after an investigation led by former US attorney Mary Jo White, the NFL ripped Ross and Beal for their improper contact with the three aforementioned individuals, citing “tampering violations of unprecedented scope and severity.”
While the investigation didn’t turn up concrete evidence of Ross offering Flores $100,000 to purposely lose games, White and the NFL did determine that Ross at least hinted at prioritizing draft picks over wins in 2019.
“An owner or senior executive must understand the weight that his or her words carry, and the risk that a comment will be taken seriously and acted upon, even if that is not the intent or expectation,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. “Even if made in jest and not intended to be taken seriously, comments suggesting that draft position is more important than winning can be misunderstood and carry with them an unnecessary potential risk to the integrity of the game.”
After the NFL’s announcement, the Dolphins issued a statement from Ross.
“The independent investigation cleared our organization on any issues related to tanking and all of Brian Flores’ other allegations,” said Ross.
Wait a minute.
Did we miss something or did Stephen Ross just say the Dolphins were cleared of “all of Brian Flores’ other allegations”?
There was nothing in the investigation absolving Ross and the Dolphins of the charges of racial discrimination in their hiring practices that Flores filed in lawsuit against the team, the NFL and other teams.
And while the league didn’t find any explicit evidence of pay for tanking claims, they found enough references to levy punishment.
“The comments made by Mr. Ross did not affect Coach Flores’ commitment to win and the Dolphins competed to win every game,” said Goodell. “Coach Flores is to be commended for not allowing any comment about the relative importance of draft position to affect his commitment to win throughout the season.”
It’s great that Goodell acknowledged Flores’ ability to coach the team and not tank despite comments “made in jest” from Ross to do just that.
But it’s infuriating to know that despite the Dolphins going 5-11, 10-6 and 9-8 under Flores, Ross was going behind his back to illegally court Sean Payton and ultimately fired him.
After the league’s announcement, Flores expressed mixed emotions.
“I am thankful that the NFL’s investigator found my factual allegations against Stephen Ross are true,” wrote Flores in a statement. “At the same time, I am disappointed to learn that the investigator minimized Mr. Ross’s offers and pressure to tank games especially when I wrote and submitted a letter at the time to Dolphins executives documenting my serious concerns regarding this subject at the time which the investigator has in her possession.
“While the investigator found that the Dolphins had engaged in impermissible tampering of ‘unprecedented scope and severity,’ Mr. Ross will avoid any meaningful consequence. There is nothing more important when it comes to the game of football itself than the integrity of the game. When the integrity of the game is called into question, fans suffer, and football suffers.”
He’s right about Ross avoiding any meaningful consequence.
$1.5 million and essentially a six-week suspension is nothing to the billionaire.
But his team ultimately suffers with the loss of two picks.
What still reeks is the racial hiring practices employed across the league.
As of today, there are three Black NFL head coaches- the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, the Texans’ Lovie Smith and thanks to former Bucs head coach Bruce Arians’ succession plan, Todd Bowles.
Three out of 32.
That’s why Flores risked his career and filed his lawsuit on the first day of Black History Month.
And that lawsuit is still pending, despite Stephen Ross’ belief.
So don’t lose sight of that while digesting all that happened Tuesday between the league and the Miami Dolphins.
