NFL's latest Brian Flores case motion was rejected. What it means
· Yahoo Sports
Once again, the NFL tried to move Brian Flores' discrimination case out of the American legal system and into arbitration. Once again, the league was denied.
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United States District Judge Valerie Caproni rejected motions by the Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals and Miami Dolphins to reconsider moving the case to an arbitration process handled by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Flores' case against the NFL and the Dolphins, New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans will have to be decided in court, according to the latest ruling. The same decision applies to the cases of similar discrimination claims brought by Ray Horton against the Titans, and Steve Wilks against the Cardinals.
Caproni bemoaned the NFL's attempts to prolong the legal proceedings of the case in her ruling.
"This case continues to linger at the starting block," she wrote. "Or, to use a more fitting metaphor, this case continues to linger as the teams mill about in the players’ tunnels."
Flores, who is currently the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, sued the NFL in 2022, alleging racial discrimination by the league and several of its teams in the hiring process for new head coaches. In his suit, he claimed that teams conduct "sham interviews" with minority candidates to satisfy the league's "Rooney Rule" – which mandates that every NFL team must interview two non-white candidates for every head coach, general manager and coordinator position – despite alleged preferences to hire a white candidate.
In the most recent NFL offseason, zero Black head coaches were hired despite 10 openings across the league. New Titans head coach Robert Saleh, who is of Lebanese descent, was the only non-white coach to get a job during the most recent head coach hiring cycle.
Caproni initially ruled in 2023 that Flores' lawsuit against the NFL would be decided in federal court rather than arbitration, and in August 2025, a three-judge panel at the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. The Supreme Court said May 26 it would not review the appeals court's decision.
The judge concluded her ruling by emphasizing that the NFL and its teams should stop attempting to delay the legal process with more appeals. Caproni wrote that future motions to move the case to arbitration are likely to end in similar rejections.
"Defendants' seemingly-never-ending list of arguments why they should not have to litigate this case has run its course. Stepping back, while Defendants are free to spend endless attorneys' fees to pursue the forum they think will be most advantageous to them, arguments about the superior efficiencies of arbitration ring hollow," Caproni wrote in her ruling.
"Instead of proceeding, discovery and motion practice for these three teams have been further delayed so this Court can deal with these teams' attempt to take yet another run at how to avoid district court litigation and will, presumably, be delayed further while they pursue yet another appeal."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL's latest Brian Flores case motion was rejected. What it means