Russell Wilson is staying in New York. But he won’t be playing for the Jets.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN, Wilson is “finalizing a deal” to become an analyst with CBS.
Wilson will be joining The NFL Today, which currently features James Brown, Nate Burleson, and Bill Cowher. A seat opened when Matt Ryan left to become the Falcons’ president of football.
The Jets were considering Wilson as a veteran backup to Geno Smith, who once was Wilson’s backup in Seattle. Wilson has said he had an offer from the Jets.
It’s rare for any quarterback who was once the highest-paid player in the league to happily accept the second spot on a depth chart. (Joe Flacco is the one of the most significant exceptions.) Wilson was the Giants’ starter when he signed there in 2025, and he was the Steelers’ starter when he signed there in 2024. His days as a starter are and were over.
As to the biggest TV opportunities, those seats don’t always pop open. With Ryan exiting, there was a current opportunity for Wilson. If he didn’t take it now, it may not have been there in a year.
Wilson, a third-round pick out of Wisconsin, started for the Seahawks from 2012 through 2021. He was traded to the Broncos in 2022.
A Super Bowl winner and a 10-time Pro Bowler, Wilson was never a first-team All-Pro or a serious MVP candidate. At 16th on the all-time passing yardage list and 12th on the all-time passing touchdown list, he’ll have a somewhat challenging case to get to Canton.
That’s where a great career in TV can make a difference. Yes, the debate will be about his playing career. And, yes, his case will get stronger if he becomes a successful and enduring presence in NFL broadcast universe.
Now that the Supreme Court has declined to accept the NFL’s last-ditch effort to force all or part of the Brian Flores case into arbitration, the litigation will finally get going.
And the going could get nasty.
By way of background, I have handled many employment cases. From both sides. After working for years at a firm that focused on representing corporate clients that had been sued (no matter how strong or weak a given case may have been), I decided that I was more interested in representing individuals who had cases I believed to be strong.
So I’ve been there, done that. Many times.
Here’s the reality. No company that has been sued for wrongful termination will admit it. The witnesses will have locked into their stories months before it’s time to take the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Proving that the party line is essentially a lie requires a relentless pursuit of circumstantial evidence to contradict the predictable denial of discrimination, retaliation, etc. (For example, if the plaintiff was fired for violating a specific workplace rule, it’s useful to show that others violated the same rule, without being fired or even disciplined.)
This means that, in the Flores case, his lawyers will aggressively pursue deposition testimony from a wide range of witnesses from the league office and the various teams that have been sued (so far, the Dolphins, Broncos, Giants, Texans, Cardinals, and Titans). Plenty of the witnesses (starting with the Commissioner and any owners) will not react well to being verbally poked, prodded, and pressed for anything beyond the predictable default position: “we didn’t do anything wrong.” These witnesses will emerge from the deposition process feeling anywhere from frustrated to flat-out pissed off.
Flores (along with the other plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton) will deal with the same kind of thing. The lawyers representing the NFL and its teams will look for anything they can find to make them look bad. They’ll dig and dig and dig some more to make the process as uncomfortable as it can be. They’ll throw mud at the wall. They’ll throw mud directly at the plaintiffs. They’ll try to catch them in any potential misstatement, big or small, that could then be characterized at trial as a lie.
In the deposition process, there’s a wide range of latitude when questioning a witness. With no jury present, the lawyers don’t have to worry about being so aggressive (to the point of being openly hostile) that it may alienate the people who will decide the case.
This is what I’d typically say to anyone who was interested in suing a current or former employer: “Think of the worst thing about yourself that you wouldn’t want other people to know. You don’t have to tell me what it is. Just think of what it is. Then, think of what would happen if that thing became public. And then assume that, at some point during this litigation, it will.”
The unofficial playbook for lawyers defending corporate clients against claims of illegal employment practices includes turning the tables on the plaintiff in the hopes of making the plaintiff look as bad as possible when it’s time to present the case to a jury. It gets messy. It gets ugly. And, like the Commissioner and owners who are questioned by Flores’s lawyers, Flores will emerge from his deposition feeling anywhere from frustrated to flat-out pissed off.
That’s how it goes. The discovery process becomes the legal equivalent of a street fight. Which could be bad for the league, the teams, and/or Flores, Wilks, and Horton.
As the snippets of deposition testimony come to light, it will be very good for my current business.
Free agent edge rusher Von Miller has expressed a desire to play in 2026. The market, though, has been “quiet” so far, Miller said Wednesday.
Miller’s wish is for a reunion with the Broncos, who traded him to the Rams during the 2021 season. Parker Gabriel of The Denver Post reports that the Broncos haven’t shown interest in signing Miller, but that hasn’t stopped Miller from working General Manager George Paton and head coach Sean Payton.
“I lobby. I do lobby,” Miller said, via Parker. “I lobby publicly. I lobby privately. I do lobby. I think there’s no question the type of environment I bring to a locker room and to a team. I don’t like to pat myself on the back, but at 37 years old I can still roll out of bed and rush the quarterback. I’m still a great guy in the locker room. I bring great energy, and I’m going to make sure everybody is ready to go.”
Miller made nine sacks with the Commanders last season, his most since 2021 when he made 9.5.
“Last year I played 37 percent of the defensive snaps,” Miller said. “Thirty [percent] with the Denver Broncos, and I feel like I can do the same exact thing I did with the Washington Commanders.”
Miller won a Super Bowl with the Broncos, earning MVP honors in the process, and another with the Rams. He would like nothing better than to bring another Lombardi Trophy back to Denver.
He said he would help Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper, and Bonitto recently said it would be “amazing” to be able to learn from Miller.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t start. Obviously, I wouldn’t play special teams,” Miller said. “But I will say, the type of room that we would have, the outside linebackers with me, Nik Bonitto, we’d be a force. Whatever coach we have going on, I would just contribute to that. The defense that we’d have. I’d love to bring back those Super Bowl 50 vibes.
“I would love to assist and be a vice president to Bo Nix and Courtland Sutton. I’ve been the guy and also I’ve been the vice president as well. I’d love to contribute to us getting back to the glory land, holding up that trophy and confetti falling again. For me, my whole entire life, I’ve helped guys be the best version of themselves and I’d love to do that back here with the Denver Broncos back home.”
Tuesday’s decision by the Supreme Court to not accept the NFL’s petition for appeal in the Brian Flores case means that all of his claims will be decided in court, not in arbitration.
And Flores recently added some new factual allegations to the various legal theories raised in his four-year-old litigation against the league and various teams.
In the third amendment to his initial civil complaint, Flores has added specific allegations of retaliation against the NFL.
The 483-paragraph, 106-page document includes at paragraphs 298 through 312 allegations that the NFL has retaliated against Flores since the filing of his initial lawsuit.
“Despite it being widely understood by the public and sports media that Mr. Flores should be considered one of the elite Head Coach candidates, Mr. Flores has not been offered a Head Coach job since starting this lawsuit,” the new complaint alleges at paragraph 311.
From paragraph 312 of the new complaint: “The NFL teams’ failure to hire Mr. Flores is consistent with an NFL Head Coach hiring process that is [sic] has for decades treated Black candidates disparately to white candidates and led to significantly disparate impact. It is also consistent with a culture of retaliation in which NFL teams close ranks against those who raise complaints of discrimination.”
The new factual allegations did not result in an additional cause of action; the existing lawsuit already includes multiple specific claims for retaliation.
As to the concept of retaliation based on the failure of teams to hire Flores as its head coach, the current complaint lists only one team — the Texans. In 2022, Houston made Flores one of three finalists for the job (along with Josh McCown and Jonathan Gannon) before hiring Lovie Smith instead. Flores claims that the decision to not hire him was motivated by the filing of his lawsuit against the NFL and multiple teams.
Although no specific other teams have been accused of failing to hire Flores in retaliation for filing and pursuing his lawsuit, the discovery process could lead to evidence that would support a finding that Flores was not given proper consideration by one or more teams with vacancies during the 2023, 2024, 2025, and/or 2026 hiring cycles.
The contention that the NFL maintains a “culture of retaliation” shows that Flores suspects his failure to get more interviews and/or any offers resulted from retaliation. Time will tell whether other specific teams are added to the case as defendants.
Flores’s current claims target the Dolphins, Texans, Broncos, and Giants. (His co-plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, have sued the Cardinals and Titans, respectively.)
Obviously, Flores won’t be able to force any team to hire him. His aggressive legal arguments won’t make that any easier. Throughout the litigation, however, he has chosen doing what he believes is right over what would be expedient for his career.
And so he’ll continue to serve as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, while waiting for a head-coaching opportunity that may never materialize. In the end, the NFL and/or specific teams could be on the wrong end of a verdict that requires them to pay Flores as if he has been a head coach since 2022.
Even if Flores never becomes a head coach again.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal in the case brought by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (and Steve Wilks and Ray Horton). The decision allows his case to proceed in court — and, in theory, to culminate with a public trial.
Both sides have issued comments in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“We respect the Supreme Court’s decision not to grant review,” a league spokesperson said. “Regardless of the forum, we are fully prepared to defend ourselves as this matter proceeds.”
Said Flores’s lawyers: “We are pleased that the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal. The NFL must now accept that its commissioner cannot be the arbitrator over discrimination claims against the league and its teams. We look forward to litigating these claims in court.”
Obviously, the league wants the forum to be its in-house arbitration process. It keeps things secret, and it tips the scales of justice in the league’s favor.
But, no, the NFL won’t suddenly surrender. It will aggressively challenge Flores at every turn, with the goal of securing a victory without having to take the case to trial.
When will that happen? It could take months. Maybe years. After all, it took nearly 52 months to get the case past the threshold question of whether the claims will be resolved in court or in arbitration.
