Flores says Dolphins owner offered him money for silence after firing

Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores this week said that he was offered money from Dolphins owner Stephen Ross in exchange for keeping silent about issues he said he saw within the organization and the league after he was fired.

Flores made the comments during an interview with HBO Real Sports’s Bryant Gumbel, detailing that he declined to sign a nondisparagement agreement, or NDA, so that he would be able to discuss his experience freely, CNN reported.

“I think just signing that separation agreement would have really silenced me,” Flores said, according to CNN.

Gumbel reportedly asked Flores at the time of the interview just how much money he passed up by refusing to sign the agreement.

“A lot,” he responded, according to the news outlet. His lawyer John Elefterakis, who was also present for the interview, added that “it was millions of dollars.”

The Dolphins pushed back on Flores’s claims in a statement to CNN, saying that they were not true.

“This latest assertion by Brian Flores that Steve Ross mentioned an NDA to him is categorically false. This just did not happen, and we simply cannot understand why Brian continues this pattern of making unfounded statements that he knows are untrue,” the team said, according to CNN. “We are fully cooperating with the NFL investigation and look forward to all of the facts coming out which we are confident will prove that his claims are false and defamatory.”

Flores’s lawyers then responded to the Dolphins with photos of the alleged agreement in a Twitter post.

“[B]elow are screenshots from the draft agreement & payment termination notice. If #BrianFlores had signed this, he would have been gagged and unable to talk about his experience,” the tweet states.

Flores became embroiled in controversy earlier this month when he filed a lawsuit against the NFL, accusing the Dolphins organization of bribing him to tank games and of widespread racism in the league’s hiring process.

He has since been hired as a defensive assistant with the Pittsburgh Steelers.