Brian Flores was only weeks removed from filing a lawsuit against the NFL when the Pittsburgh Steelers hired him in 2022, providing the former Miami Dolphins head coach a pathway back into the league.
Four years later, the Steelers could rekindle his head coaching career, too. The Steelers conducted an in-person interview with Flores on Tuesday as their search for Mike Tomlin’s replacement entered the next stage.
Flores, 44, spent the 2022 season as a senior defensive assistant with the Steelers, a position the team created for him. He served the past three seasons as the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator, a successful stint that further bolstered his coaching resume.
The Baltimore Ravens interviewed Flores for their vacant head coaching job last week. He was the Steelers’ first in-person interview after a series of virtual sessions last week.
Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy, a former NFL head coach with the Cowboys and Packers, was expected to interview with the Steelers on Wednesday. The Steelers held virtual interviews last week with seven candidates: Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula and pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase, Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak, Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley.
Hafley was hired by the Dolphins on Monday.
The Steelers are conducting their first coaching search in nearly two decades. Tomlin, the team’s coach for 19 seasons, resigned Jan. 13.
Neither Flores nor McCarthy — the candidates with the most familiarity — had a virtual interview.
Under Flores, the Vikings’ defense ranked among the league’s best this season in yards allowed (third), points allowed (seventh) and sacks (fourth). The team surrendered the league’s fifth-fewest points in 2024 and ranked 14th in 2023.
Flores’ impact was noticeable on a defensive unit that ranked 30th in points allowed a season before he arrived in Minnesota. Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell has said he hopes he remains his defensive coordinator but added that Flores was “more than deserving” of interviews.
Flores’ contract expired at season’s end.
“Everything he’s brought to our organization over these last three years, it’s been an awesome process,” O’Connell told reporters in Minnesota last week. “To go back to when I first sat down with him and really talked about this vision and his impact, and what it’s inevitably ended up being, it’s been a really positive thing for me.”
During his stint in Pittsburgh, Flores was tasked with coaching the team’s linebackers while working with defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. The Steelers defense finished ninth against the run that season, an improvement from 32nd the previous year.
A former Boston College linebacker who earned Big East All-Academic honors, Flores has served 22 seasons as a coach or scout at the NFL level.
Flores went 24-25 combined in three seasons as the Dolphins’ coach from 2019-21. He was surprisingly fired despite leading the team to consecutive winning seasons, reportedly over conflicts with the team’s brain trust.
“I think an organization can only function if it’s collaborative and it works well together, and I don’t think we were really working well as an organization … to win consistently at the NFL level,” Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said at the time, according to the Associated Press.
Flores later alleged he was encouraged to lose games to improve the team’s draft status.
He claimed in his lawsuit that Ross offered him $100,000 for each loss in his first season, an incentive to “tank” and acquire the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Flores said he rejected that plan, which ultimately led to his dismissal. The Cincinnati Bengals chose Joe Burrow first overall in 2020.
The Dolphins began thinning the roster early in Flores’ first season, including trades that sent former first-round picks Laremy Tunsil to Houston and Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Steelers.
After he interviewed unsuccessfully for multiple coaching jobs, Flores filed a class-action lawsuit in February 2022 against the NFL, the Dolphins, the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos for what he alleged were discriminatory hiring practices. Among the claims, Flores alleged the Giants already had decided to hire Brian Daboll before conducting his interview.
The civil litigation remains active, and a federal appeals court in August ruled Flores’ case could go to trial over efforts by the NFL to force arbitration. The NFL appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month.
Flores’ NFL coaching career started in New England, where he was part of four Super Bowl winning seasons.
He began as a scouting assistant for the Patriots in 2004 and joined the coaching staff as a special teams assistant four years later. He was later promoted to jobs coaching the safeties (2012-15) and linebackers (2016-18) on Bill Belichick’s staff before joining the Dolphins.