Brian Flores has subpoenaed 25 NFL teams for information about their hiring practices, widening a long-running discrimination lawsuit that already names six teams and is set for another turn in federal court on Wednesday. The subpoenas seek records going back 24 years, deepening a case that has already outlasted multiple rounds of dismissal fights and appeals.
Flores filed the lawsuit on Feb. 1, 2022, after the Dolphins fired him, initially naming Miami, the Giants and the Broncos. He said the Giants and Broncos brought him in for head coach interviews only to stage sham processes aimed at meeting the Rooney Rule. Two months later, he added Steve Wilks and Ray Horton as plaintiffs and expanded the case to include the Cardinals, Titans and Texans.
The new filing push comes after a steady reshaping of the lawsuit through the courts. In March 2023, Judge Valerie Caproni ruled that claims against the Dolphins, Cardinals and Titans could go to arbitration, while claims against the Broncos, Giants and Texans could not because those teams never employed the coaches. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that split decision on Aug. 14, 2025, and said Commissioner Roger Goodell’s unilateral authority to arbitrate was plainly unenforceable. Then, on Feb. 13, Caproni moved the entire case into federal court and lifted the stay on discovery.
Last week, a letter to Caproni said Flores had already sent more than a thousand document requests and sweeping subpoenas to 25 teams. The NFL responded that his proposed Third Amended Complaint improperly tries to add a retaliation claim against the league, saying it does not cure the problems in the second amended complaint and calling the new theory meritless because it is based on the league’s enforcement of arbitration provisions in employment agreements the court found binding.
The scope of the discovery push suggests Flores is not just pressing the six teams in the lawsuit but trying to build a broader record about how the league handles head coach searches. Chris Deubert summed up the tactic bluntly: “They’re obviously going scorched-earth,” he said. For the NFL, Wednesday’s amended complaint may determine whether the fight stays centered on the original discrimination claims or grows into an even larger confrontation over retaliation, arbitration and how teams hire for the most visible jobs in the sport.
