NFL Spent More Time Investigating Deflategate Than Brian Flores' Claims: Attorney

Former NFL coach Brian Flores' attorney publically criticized the NFL's response to the lawsuit he filed Tuesday accusing the league and three of its teams of having racist and discriminatory hiring practices, saying that the NFL spent more time investigating the New England Patriots' Deflategate scandal than they did responding to the lawsuit's claims.

During an appearance on ESPN's Get Up on Wednesday morning, Flores and his attorneys, Doug Wigdor and John Elefterakis, spoke about the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court. In response to the lawsuit, the NFL quickly issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the league "will defend against these claims, which are without merit."

"Their statement, which hopefully was a knee-jerk reaction, they came out with a denial and it's 'without merit'," Elefterakis said on Get Up. "We filed a 60-page complaint rife with details of some serious, serious allegations. I mean they've investigated deflated footballs longer than they even took to do a response here."

"I mean, when you put that in perspective, that we're talking about how black candidates and minority candidates are hired and fired and discriminated against and they, within 30 minutes to an hour, put out a statement that it is 'without merit,'" Elefterakis said. "I mean, the fact that they were able to do that is a real indication and indictment of what's been going on."

As Elefterakis noted, the NFL spent over a year investigating Deflategate in 2015, following allegations that Tom Brady and the New England Patriots used partially deflated footballs in their victory over the Indianapolis Colts during the AFC Championship game.

The comments by Elefterakis come just a day after Flores filed the lawsuit against the NFL and three teams: the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos and New York Giants. In the lawsuit, Flores alleged that he faced discrimination during his head coaching interviews with the Giants and the Broncos in January, and that discrimination was also a factor in his being fired from his head coaching position with the Dolphins in January.

"Even when Black candidates get hired for Head Coaching positions, a rarity, they are discriminated against in connection with the terms and conditions of their employment and compensation and terminated even as far less successful white Head Coaches are retained," the lawsuit said. "Moreover, Black Head Coaches are far less likely than white Head Coaches to receive second chances even as white Head Coaches are routinely hired by Teams even after they fail elsewhere."

The lawsuit claims that in advance of his head coaching interview with the Giants, Flores spoke with New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick via text message. In the text messages, which are included in the lawsuit, Belichick tells Flores that he heard from the Buffalo Bills and the Giants that Flores was "their guy."

As the text messages continued, Belichick clarified that he thought he was speaking to Brian Daboll, who was eventually hired by the Giants as their head coach. Flores then went to interview with the Giants after learning this information from Belichick and called the interview a "sham." Flores claimed that the interview with the Giants was just so that the team could satisfy the league's Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions.

"The fact of the matter is, Brian Flores was in the conversation to be our head coach until the eleventh hour," the Giants said in a statement in response to the allegations. "Ultimately, we hired the individual we felt was most qualified to be our next head coach."

In the lawsuit, Flores also alleged that members of the Denver Broncos front office showed up to his interview late and that they appeared to be hungover. Additionally, Flores alleged that he was fired from his position with the Miami Dolphins after he refused to take an offer from the team's owner Stephen Ross to lose games in order to achieve a better draft pick. According to the lawsuit, Flores was offered $100,000 per loss in 2019.

During the interview with Get Up, Flores was asked about the allegations made against the Dolphins where he said that losing was not in his "DNA" and told the team "that's never gonna happen."

Flores was eventually fired by the Dolphins in January after leading the team to two consecutive winning seasons.

Newsweek reached out to the NFL for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.