For Pete's Sake - Conference Championships

This week, we react to the news of the Brian Flores lawsuit, the conference championship games and the Cleveland Browns looking to fill their open assistant spots.

In this episode of For Pete's Sake, Nicole Chatham and I get into the lawsuit filed by Brian Flores against three NFL teams over hiring practices, reactions to the conference championships, and a few other topics.

Nicole gets to show off her legal expertise by walking us through exactly what Flores is accusing the NFL of doing and how he believes the league needs to address longstanding hiring issues.

The level of detail included in the accusations from Flores and his legal team combined with the data regarding minority hires is compelling. Given what Flores is seeking, it appears that he both understands he will never be able to coach in the NFL again, but also isn't doing this for the money.

We discuss some of the problems with the NFL hiring process, which includes race but isn't limited to it. There's a substantial amount of nepotism involved as well, where bias becomes inherent even if it's not intended.

Speaking of curious head coaching decisions, the Super Bowl is now set after the conference championships. Two of the most highly regarded head coaches in the league, Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan, made some curious decisions that leave them open to significant criticism.

The Bengals defense has epitomized the concept of being timely the past two weeks. They've come up with key plays, often in the form of turnovers that enabled them to outlast the Tennessee Titans and then come back against the Chiefs.

Nicole wants to see Matthew Stafford get his ring. I'm torn, both impressed by the Rams willingness to go big with trades as a different way to get a championship, while also sick of the press they and a certain former Browns receiver is getting.

We touch on the Senior Bowl as a job fair, which could lead to the Browns filling their vacant assistant jobs.