Judge rules Brian Flores' NFL discrimination case can head to open court, not arbitration

Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz react to the court ruling that Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ discrimination lawsuit against the NFL will proceed in open court instead of arbitration and discuss the ramifications of the news. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.

Video Transcript

Through the efforts of Brian Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton, the NFL’s long-standing practice of forcing non-players into arbitration controlled by the commissioner may finally be ending.

That from Mike Florio on Pro Football Talk, on something we’ve talked about on this show regarding the Jon Gruden lawsuit that has now carried over to a separate lawsuit involving several former coaches in the NFL, current coaches, former head coaches in the NFL, regarding, discrimination, racial discrimination.

and Brian Flores’, 2022 lawsuit against the NFL, accuses them of systemic and chronic racial discrimination made in a landmark attack against the league.

And, and this is the important part of it, Caroline, is that now what we’ve had, yet again, for the second time in a major court case, we’ve had the courts decide that any system where the person that dictated the rules, Roger Goodell, is also the arbitrator of the final decision, Roger Goodell, would be so incredibly unfair that it cannot be done.

So now we are one step closer to the NFL being forced to air every ounce of their dirty laundry in a public court.

This is what the NFL has been desperately trying to avoid, and it’s the sort of thing that I believe could change the way we see the league for a long time, when you have huge names being put under oath on the stand to talk about some of the dirty laundry that exists in this league.

You know, people in the NFL always talk about protecting the shield, protecting the league, whatever it takes.

Airing your dirty laundry isn’t going to be the best thing for the shield, but maybe it’s just the best thing for justice.

Maybe it’s the best thing, period.

I think it’s right that the NFL, or that Brian Flores has every right to take the NFL to court, because it is gross, and it is icky.

If the commissioner of the NFL, whose p- own personal interests align as closely with the interests of the NFL as any other person out there in America, had the right to, to be the arbiter for that case.

There is, no world where that’s right or where that is just, or where the legal system can go through the, the correct due processes.

So I think this is a good thing, just for, you know, justice and the law, that we can have this go into court.

Now, what does this mean for the NFL?

Not great.

I think we’re gonna have a lot of people whose, whose reputations are damaged.

There are going to be a lot of people who we might not think have dirty laundry or skeletons in their closets, whose dirty laundry and skeletons get put out, right out there into the public, and right out there into the open.

This will cause a lot of shakeup, I think, in the NFL front offices, in front offices of, of individual teams.

But maybe that’s a good thing, Fitz.

Maybe it’s a good thing that we have people who are no- whose secrets are no longer being held secret.

Judge rules Brian Flores’ NFL discrimination case can head to open court, not arbitration

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