NEW YORK — Brooklyn’s Brian Flores is returning on Sunday to the site of the alleged “sham” head coaching interview that he received with the Giants more than two years ago.

On the surface, the Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator will simply be drawing up pressure packages to try to outsmart Brian Daboll’s offense in their season opener at MetLife Stadium.

“I’ve known Brian Daboll for a long time, and he’s as good an offensive mind and really a football mind as there is,” Flores said this week. “Week 1, everybody’s got some new wrinkle, everyone’s got some new play they can’t wait to run. I got a couple myself. That’s part of the excitement of it.”

The football is only a footnote, however, to Flores’ ongoing legal battle with defendants including the Giants, Houston Texans and NFL in the U.S. District 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals over alleged discriminatory hiring and firing claims.

Flores originally claimed in a lawsuit filed in Feb. 2022 that the Giants had decided on Daboll as their next head coach days before they interviewed Flores for the job.

The lawsuit revealed alleged text messages from then-Patriots head coach Bill Belichick congratulating Flores for getting the Giants job, only to find out he had the wrong Brian.

“I hear from Buffalo & NYG that you are their guy,” Belichick allegedly texted Flores.

“Coach, are you talking to Brian Flores or Brian Daboll,” Flores allegedly wrote back. “Just making sure.”

“Sorry — I f----- this up,” Belichick allegedly responded. “I double-checked and misread the text. I think they are naming Daboll. I’m sorry about that. BB”

Flores then “spent Monday evening, Tuesday and Wednesday (including a dinner with Mr. [Joe] Schoen) knowing that he was walking into Thursday’s interview with no chance to become the Giants Head Coach,” the lawsuit said.

He knew, according to the lawsuit, that he was only being “treated as a box to ‘check off’ due to his race” and “a formality to be observed” to satisfy the Rooney Rule requiring Black and minority interview candidates.

The Giants called Flores’ allegations “disturbing and false” in a lengthy statement on Feb. 3, 2022. Co-owner John Mara then said in March 2023 that the Giants’ hiring process was “fair” and based on “a lot of factors, none of which had to do with race.”

Mara also said of Belichick at the time: “I haven’t spoken or communicated with Bill since we played them in the preseason last summer,” Mara said last March, “and to my knowledge, nobody in our organization communicated with him.”

In March 2023, a judge compelled three of the lawsuit’s claims by aggrieved plaintiffs against the Miami Dolphins, Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans to arbitration due to the coaches’ contractual statuses at those times.

However, the judge sent the rest of the case to open court, where the Giants and other defendants can be exposed to discovery and a jury as the firms of Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis, Elefterakis & Panek proceed toward trying to correct alleged inherent inequities in the NFL’s hiring practices.

Attorneys for the NFL and the teams have appealed that decision to try to prevent depositions of figures such as Belichick and Giants GM Joe Schoen to occur outside the privacy of arbitration — where commissioner Roger Goodell of all people has the ability to serve as judge and jury.

So that’s where the lawsuit and legal fight stands, as far as Flores and the Giants are concerned entering Sunday’s game:

Both sides are waiting for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to invite oral arguments. Then the judge will decide whether to uphold the prior decision and send it to court, reverse the decision and send the whole case to arbitration, or send it to court with altered terms.

Flores, 43, the former Miami Dolphins head coach, for his part has climbed right back up the coaching ladder on merit into a second season as the Vikings’ defensive coordinator.

The Giants know he’s a good coach. The lawsuit demonstrates that, too, alleging that now director of player personnel Tim McDonnell, Mara’s nephew, texted Flores during that 2022 search that McDonnel hoped he would “come in and win the f’ing job.”

Flores aired plenty of alleged dirty Giants laundry, though, including a note about Daboll’s alleged frayed relationship with Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott.

“Ironically, during their Jan. 11, 2022 text exchange, Mr. McDonnell also suggested that if Mr. Flores were hired as the Giants Head Coach, Brian Daboll might be interested in leaving Buffalo to serve as his Offensive Coordinator,” the lawsuit wrote.

The suit cited an alleged text message from McDonnell to Flores that read: “Heard Daboll isn’t happy with Sean [McDermott] in Buffalo ... might be able to get out if he doesn’t get a head job ... thoughts?”

Instead, Daboll is in year three as Giants head coach and now has taken over play-calling full-time running the offense. So on Sunday he’ll be coaching directly against Flores, a fellow former Belichick Patriots disciple who continues to battle Daboll’s Giants and the NFL in court.

Daboll said Flores runs “a pressure defense.”

“He pressures often, sometimes the entire game,” he said this week. “I think BF-Flo has done a really good job there.”

Pleasantries at the podiums. An all-out battle on the field and off it.

Burns (ankle) limited friday but will play

Edge rusher Brian Burns (ankle) was added to the list of players limited in practice on Friday, but no Giants players have an injury designation for Sunday’s opener.

Burns, backup quarterback Drew Lock (abdomen), linebacker Micah McFadden (groin), wide receiver Gunner Olszewski (groin) and safety Dane Belton (back) all were limited in Friday’s practice.

The Vikings also have no injury designations for the game after wide receivers Jordan Addison and Jalen Nailor were upgraded to full practice participants.

Coughlin, Johnson part of strange roster juggle

The Giants unexpectedly cut special teams ace linebacker Carter Coughlin on Thursday and re-signed him to the practice squad on Friday. That wasn’t the weird part, though.

They then cut fullback/tight end Jakob Johnson from the practice squad, marking the third time since Johnson’s Aug. 16 signing that the Giants have cut him. And Daboll said as of Friday, the team was not filling the vacant 53rd spot on the roster.

“No, we didn’t do anything with that yet,” he said.

Will the Giants sign someone for that spot before Sunday’s game?

“We’ll talk about that stuff tonight,” he said.

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