Let's talk Stephen Ross
For those who didn't hear, the coach he just fired in Miami sued him and everyone, claiming racism and also that Ross offered him money to Tank for Tua
Flores filed the suit in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday. In it he accuses Dolphins owner Stephen Ross of offering him $100,000 for every loss in an effort to tank for the No. 1 draft pick during the 2019 NFL season,
IF THE ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE, WHICH THEY MAY OR MAY NOT BE,
1. How much trouble is Ross in? Throwing games is the ultimate sin in sports. Would he be forced to sell the team?
2. Did he back out of the race for JH because he knew this storm was coming? (Or is he really out of it yet?)
3. Is his money part of the UM head coach's salary? Is UM in a bad spot looking for a new head coach now but unable to accept this booster's money? Is there impact on the UM head coach search?
4. Does UM have to look at taking his name off buildings all over campus?
February 1st, 2022 at 8:55 PM ^
If he'll be forced to sell the team for throwing games, can't we pin something on the Ford family so they have to sell the Lions?
February 1st, 2022 at 9:40 PM ^
If the Ford family tried to intentionally lose games, the Lions would have more Super Bowl wins than Tom Brady.
February 2nd, 2022 at 12:02 AM ^
My Lions are experts, they learned from Frank “The Tank!”
February 2nd, 2022 at 12:35 AM ^
Fukn Commie is beyond underrated.
February 1st, 2022 at 8:56 PM ^
Teams tank all the time, he will get a slap on the wrist. I'm a lifelong Washington fan and they did nothing to Snyder after many sexual harassment and abuse claims. Nothing.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:10 PM ^
My condolences to you from a fellow fan of the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:17 PM ^
Those leaked pics of the gear so far is butt
February 1st, 2022 at 8:58 PM ^
Listen, man...1 fucking catastrophe at a time, please
February 1st, 2022 at 8:58 PM ^
The sport has a built in incentive to lose for draft positioning, so I don't see the issue with throwing games for that reason (gambling is different). That pretty much answers most of your other questions.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:02 PM ^
But isn't offering money to the coach to make sure it happens bribery?
February 1st, 2022 at 9:28 PM ^
If there is no paper trail and no money has exchanged hands, there is no story.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:37 PM ^
It's a performance bonus.
February 1st, 2022 at 11:06 PM ^
No. Offering your employee money to achieve a certain goal is not bribery.
February 1st, 2022 at 8:59 PM ^
He won't be in any trouble. Tanking isn't illegal in pro sports as far as I know or the sixers owner would've been kicked out a long time ago.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:01 PM ^
There's tanking (say, selling off all your good players for picks) and telling your coach to lose outright.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
Yep, 100%. Tanking and outright throwing games are 2 different things. Throwing games is the kinda thing that earns lifetime bans.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:00 PM ^
I don’t think the Ross part of the suit is where the juice is. The suit says the Rooney Rule is a sham which … let’s be honest … it is. NFL has a big problem here now that somebody finally got the balls to challenge them.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:45 PM ^
I am with you on this. The meat of this lawsuit is Rooney Rule and the Giants interview process. The Dolphins part of it just makes Ross and his organization look stupid.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:00 PM ^
I imagine we'll never know. Look at what went down in Washington and the person the shield ultimately scapegoated was somehow Chuckie (this isn't me being an apologist for what he said, it was vile). The league literally found a coach on another team and used his racist language as cover for the hostile workplace, rife with sexual assault, in Washington.
The league will fight this as much as they can or settle and little will come out. There has been no sign of an nfl owner facing any consequences so I don't see this as any different. The shield, the shield the shield
February 1st, 2022 at 9:01 PM ^
Roger G does not make two orders of magnitude of money more than he is worth to meaningfully discipline his employers. Pretty sure the deal is precisely the opposite. Nothing is gonna happen to Ross. Which is not to say this isn't all a really bad look.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:03 PM ^
How about we not rush to judge or fan any flames of indignation? Let it play out first ...
February 1st, 2022 at 10:12 PM ^
Sir, this is the internet. That’s all we do here.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:03 PM ^
We have bigger fish to fry at the moment.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:39 PM ^
Fish don't fry in the kitchen.
February 1st, 2022 at 11:52 PM ^
Beans don't burn on the grill
February 2nd, 2022 at 1:49 AM ^
Wieners don't.... never mind.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:05 PM ^
If there's any levity to be found in this whole disaster of a day, the Bill Belichik texts are goddamn hilarious.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
Example #372963 why 70 year olds shouldn’t text
February 1st, 2022 at 9:22 PM ^
Hey! Some 70 year olds text jusssst fine. :-)
February 1st, 2022 at 9:07 PM ^
But why is throwing games racist?
February 1st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
The racism is at the NFL for how they fail to hire black coaches and then are way quicker on the trigger with them.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:19 PM ^
Ok but that's not a Ross specific issue... Regarding the removal of building names etc
February 2nd, 2022 at 3:00 PM ^
Just so we understand the threshold, the College of Architecture & Urban Planning, Health Sciences Library, and the Health Care Center are all named for a convicted felon.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:42 PM ^
The racism charges deal with the accusations against the Giants interview process not Ross and the Dolphins.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:07 PM ^
Initially I was with you as my first reaction to the Ross part was that it just seems shady but not necessarily racist and Flores including that specific point comes off like sour grapes. But in reading a bit more it seems like he's just making the case that he was fired presumably for a lack of wins (which should be the main reason to fire a coach) but was also being asked to lose by the owner. In combination with the rest of the things he cites he's painting a picture that the performance expectations both for hiring and retaining coaches differ based on race.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:48 PM ^
I think you're right that that's his case, but I read it differently: I think he was fired for insubordination, for continuing to try to win games when he'd been told in no uncertain terms, not to mention strongly incentivized, to lose them.
That's a problem for the league, which wants to pretend this doesn't happen while continuing to give teams every reason to do it. But I don't think it's a legal problem in any way.
It is a bit ironic (I'm giving more benefit of the doubt here than is maybe deserved) given the rest of the allegations that it's the black coach who's put in this situation. Lose all your games to help the owner get the draft picks he wants, and then take that crappy record to your interviews when you try to find your next job. Or win games and get fired for it. Your choice...
February 1st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
If he’s forced to sell, that will be a few billion dollars he can invest in his favorite college team. Since college championships are basically for sale, this might not be a bad result. Highly doubt he gets in any trouble though.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
1. Are you joking? Who is going to force him to sell? The commissioner works for the cabal of NFL owners. The other owners are not going to want to set a precedent where they can be forced to sell for something like this. Remember this is a group of people that includes Dan Snyder (team being investigated for toxic work environment and sexual harassement with accusations that Snyder interfered in the investigation), Robert Kraft (caught in an anti-sex trafficking investigation), Jim Irsay (DWI while illegally possessing several Schedule IV prescription drugs), and Stan Kroenke (forced the NFL into a messy lawsuit with St Louis leading to an $800 million settlement). And Ross would sue the shit out them if they tried. The only thing I have seen get an owner forced to sell has been sexual harassment and racial discrimination investigations (and even those don't always lead to a sale).
2. No
3. No. I'm not sure Ross committed a crime here even if the allegations are true. He may look really stupid, but I am sure there are a lot of donors who look stupid in their business dealings. OSU's biggest donor, Les Wexner, was Jeffrey Epstein's closest business partner and associate, and OSU pretty much shrugged it off even with Epstein providing some of the money for their fundraising. And if there were any concern with Ross, I think the Business School would be the one that would be more at risk.
4. LOL. Ross may be dumb, but let's not make this out to be some kind of Sackler-like offense. The bigger issue may be for the NFL as a whole not just Ross. I actually think the accusations leveled against the Giants may be worse than the ones against Ross and Miami.
February 1st, 2022 at 9:35 PM ^
Billionaires tend to look out for each other. He'll be fine.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:03 PM ^
He said VS he said - rarely wins in a league as bonded as NFL. All Flores has done is guarantee himself the Colin K treatment = no one wants him and he is destined to coach special teams (maybe) the rest of his career.
Ross is one of the most respected owners in the NFL. NOTHING will happen because I think Flores is full of crap and is fabricating this because he felt owed by the league. Now - given his record at Miami, I do agree that he probably earned another year, but he comes across as a maverick dick summa cum laude and maybe a hothead who can't handle the pressure of satisfying the front office and owner.
ZERO PROOF that what he claims happened really did. Now - if he can pull up some recordings like those that doomed Sterling for the Clippers, we can talk.
Not that I think the Rooney rule hasn't been shammed by "hey we have to interview a minority" so a token guy gets chosen. Not since the Liedowns got fined big time after hiring ill-fated Mariucci almost 20 years ago, no one has been so brazen to let that leak out. What the NFL should demand is the note from interviews and the "scoring criteria" used to evaluate each coach. While I'm recently retired from a Fortune 100 Company, I can tell you that the interview "scoring" docs and notes were held for 5+ years in case of lawsuits. We had to justify if someone wasn't chosen and to why. NFL doesn't appear to be pushing this.
Goodbye Brian you attacked the goose laying the golden eggs and will eat spam from here on.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:20 PM ^
"NOTHING will happen because I think Flores is full of crap. . ." There's some logic for us.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:08 PM ^
Not my favorite entitled bazillionaire, tbh But I don't get to pick 'em, not even the Michigan benefactors.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:24 PM ^
Steve Ross is a demonstrably bad person, a supporter of a racist ex-president, and for too long he got a pass here because he throws money at Michigan. Money talks.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:44 PM ^
That complex he built in New York is an architectural disaster. Especially that honeycomb staircase thing. Fuck that guy.
February 1st, 2022 at 11:43 PM ^
First, no politics. Second, you do realize that half of the country supported said ex-president. Third, the current president just announced that he is picking a Supreme Court based solely upon race and gender as a mandatory characteristic. Fourth, I’d like to know what actions (not feelings, actions) you believe make either Ross or whichever ex-president you are referring to a racist.
February 1st, 2022 at 11:55 PM ^
You seem not very bright.
February 2nd, 2022 at 12:16 AM ^
I got this same impression.
February 1st, 2022 at 10:43 PM ^
Unless they slow play any investigation, he won't be forced to sell the team for the simple reason of not letting two franchises be available for sale at the same time. This will depress their value and hurt every owner in their most prized possession: their wallet.