Former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores was singled out for praise in the NFL’s findings of its investigation into Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, but Flores believes the NFL should have gone further.
The NFL doesn’t dispute Flores’ explosive allegation that Ross said he would pay Flores $100,000 to lose, but the league says Ross was not making a serious offer. And the NFL says Ross expressed his belief that the Dolphins should prioritize a high draft pick in 2020 over winning in 2019, but that the Dolphins didn’t actually tank any games because Flores refused. Given that, Ross thinks the tanking investigation should have come down harder on Ross.
“I am thankful that the NFL’s investigator found my factual allegations against Stephen Ross are true,” Flores said in a statement today. “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.”
Ross has been fined, suspended and docked two draft picks, but all of that was for tampering, not tanking. And Flores is making it clear that he thinks Ross got off easy.
