Miami Dolphins waiting on Flores no big deal ahead of a rebuild
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins are waiting on Brian Flores to be freed from his New England captivity, ok, the Super Bowl to be over. It’s not a big deal.
When the Miami Dolphins finally announce their next head coach they will have watched six other teams fill their head coaching vacancies and watch those coaches fill their staffs. The other team, the Bengals, like Miami will wait until the Super Bowl is over. They are expected to hire former Dolphins QB coach and OC Zac Taylor.
Miami can only sit and watch but they will have a better idea of who Flores wants on his staff after they speak with him later this week. While other teams have already started the process it really isn’t a big deal to the Dolphins.
First, the Dolphins are rebuilding. In this case the biggest changes won’t happen until the end of February when teams start to release veterans or work out trades for players. The college evaluation process was started before Adam Gase was even on the hot seat. Chris Grier is running the personnel decisions now so Flores really doesn’t need to be in Miami for that breakdown.
Secondly, Flores won’t have to do much in terms of filling in his staff. It seems as though he is targeting coaches with no coordinator experience for at least the DC role. Patrick Graham is the front-runner who has never coached more than the linebackers. He spent several years with Flores in New England so there is a connection.
It’s not a big deal for Flores because these coaches are close with Flores and they can talk whenever they want without penalty from the NFL. Chances are he already has lined up his staff and only needs to wait out the end of the season.
In reality only the Dolphins fan base are sweating out the hires and over the next two weeks the speculation will only continue to grow. The good news is that we should start getting real reports on who he is targeted. Jim Caldwell is expected to be an offensive assistant of some kind and Graham is reportedly the choice of DC. At worst it will be two weeks and we will know the rest.