EAGAN, Minn. — Amid a job search this winter that included interviews for NFL head coach and defensive coordinator positions, Brian Flores visited a Pittsburgh-area church. The pastor’s message that day was clear: There are occasions in life the place you possibly can have management or progress, however you possibly can’t have each.
That message, Flores mentioned Wednesday, encapsulated his resolution earlier this month to drop out of the combination for the Arizona Cardinals‘ head-coaching job and settle for the Minnesota Vikings‘ supply to be their defensive coordinator.
“That sort of hit me fairly good,” mentioned Flores, who spent the 2022 seaon as a senior defensive assistant/linebackers coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “I simply really feel like this can be a nice alternative for rising.”
Flores’ resolution carried further gravity within the context of the lawsuit he filed in February 2022, accusing the NFL and three groups of discrimination relating to his interview processes with the Denver Broncos and New York Giants and his firing by the Miami Dolphins after the 2021 season. Longtime NFL assistants Steve Wilks and Ray Horton later joined the go well with, which the NFL is making an attempt to maneuver to arbitration.
Flores additionally alleged the Dolphins tried to incentivize him to lose video games and take part in unlawful tampering. The league disciplined the Dolphins final summer season for tampering violations of “unprecedented scope and severity,” in keeping with commissioner Roger Goodell.
On Wednesday, Flores thanked Cardinals proprietor Michael Bidwell and common supervisor Monti Ossenfort for together with him of their course of, which ended Tuesday after they employed Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon to switch the fired Kliff Kingsbury.
Flores mentioned he didn’t wish to “dive too deep into” the circumstances surrounding the lawsuit. Requested about it, he mentioned he considers himself extra of a coach and a instructor however mentioned he seen the variety of the Vikings’ group in the course of the interview course of.
“Clearly variety is vital to me as effectively,” he mentioned. “I am not going to run away from that. However once I stroll on this constructing, you see variety actually throughout the board in each division. That is thrilling, too. The lawsuit is ongoing. However I am the place my toes are, and proper now my toes are proper right here in [Minnesota].”
Flores was a particular groups assistant for the New England Patriots in 2008, when the crew drafted present Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell as a quarterback out of San Diego State. Flores mentioned Wednesday that he and O’Connell are philosophically “aligned” on how they wish to play protection.
Flores might be tasked with bettering a unit that completed 2022 ranked No. 31 in yards and tied for No. 28 in factors allowed per sport. He mentioned he’s simply starting to guage how his schematic priorities can mesh with the Vikings’ roster. When requested whether or not he’ll maintain the crew’s 3-4 scheme from final season, or change to a 4-3, he smiled and mentioned: “Who’re we enjoying? It is gameplan-specific. But it surely’s a 3-4.”