Cardinals Respond to Steve Wilks’s Joint Filing in Brian Flores Lawsuit

The class action details accounts of “sham” interviews and discrimination.

Coaches Steve Wilks and Ray Horton joined Brian Flores’s racial discrimination lawsuit on Thursday.

Wilks, who served as the Cardinals’ coach during the 2018 campaign, said in the amended filing that the franchise hired him as a “bridge coach” but did not have long-term plans to keep him on the team.

Arizona released a statement to Sports Illustrated’s Conor Orr on Thursday concerning the matter.

“The decisions we made after the 2018 season were very difficult ones. But as we said at the time, they were entirely driven by what was in the best interests of our organization and necessary for team improvement. We are confident that the facts reflect that and demonstrate that these allegations are untrue.”

Not only did Wilks assert that general manager Steve Keim “made poor personnel decisions” per The New York Times, the amended complaint also highlighted that even though Keim was charged with and pleaded guilty to a DUI—a fireable offense—in 2018, he was allowed to keep his job. Keim was suspended for only five weeks. 

Wilks was fired on Dec. 31, 2018, and replaced by Kliff Kingsbury, who had no previous NFL experience. He now serves as an assistant with the Panthers.

“Like Brian and Ray, I did not make the decision to join this lawsuit based on what it could potentially cost me in my own career,” Wilks said in a statement, per the Times. “Instead, this decision was made to help pave the way for the next generation of talented minority coaches and executives to finally be given an equal opportunity and level playing field. When I consider that joining this call for equality could one day help a child of color who dreams of coaching an NFL team, what I stand to lose becomes irrelevant.”

SI’s Albert Breer spoke with Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill in November about a variety of topics, including how quickly the franchise moved on from Wilks and Josh Rosen. 

“As the season progressed in 2018, it just seemed like things weren’t working,” Bidwill said at the time. “I don’t want to belabor the point too much, but we were last in almost every category. And we weren’t getting better. I just didn’t believe in the plan going forward, and when things aren’t going well, you look in the mirror. That’s the first place you ought to look—right in the mirror. Did we make the right decision?

“And so we decide to make the change and move on and start a coaching search.”

The amended complaint highlighted the position Wilks was left in as Keim was suspended for five weeks, leaving the coach “without a GM to weigh in on personnel decisions and make roster moves during a critical time in the preseason.”

During those weeks, there are typically many meetings among the front office personnel, scouts and coaching staff as they narrow the roster down to 53 players. According to the amended filing, there’s evidence that Keim provided input on deals during his suspension. 

“On top of everything else, Mr. Wilks was micromanaged and was unable to make personnel decisions related to his staff with the appropriate level of discretion and autonomy,” the amended complaint reads.

Bidwill added to Breer, “The name that kept popping up, when you get some of the background, who people were thinking about having their coordinators be, it was Kliff Kingsbury. His name kept coming up as a coordinator candidate. But he also had head-coaching experience, considerable head-coaching experience, in addition to running offenses. Now, it was all at the college level. But that still counts for something.”

Flores’s class-action complaint features a variety of claims against the league and three franchises, the Giants, Broncos and Dolphins. Flores claims he participated in two sham interviews with New York and Denver, in which he was not a serious candidate for the positions. Both teams have denied the claims. 

Shortly after the news broke of the initial filing, the league released a statement asserting its commitment to diversity and called the former Dolphins coach's claims “without merit.”

Flores also claimed in the lawsuit that Miami owner Stephen Ross offered him a $100,000 bonus for each loss during the 2019 season, wanting to secure the league’s worst record so they could have the No. 1 pick in the ’20 draft. Ross has denied these claims.

Horton lodged similar accounts as Flores, claiming the Titans conducted a “sham” interview with him to meet the Rooney Rule requirements. The pretrial conference for the lawsuit is currently scheduled for April 29.