Miami dolphins hiring of Brian Flores is quietly perfect

On Monday February 4th, the long-awaited rumor will be an actuality, Brian Flores will be the next head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

Additional rumors are flying on who Flores will be bringing with him to South Beach, and the associated list is a little concerning based on what previous coaches have done.

Truth be told, the New England coaching tree, or better yet the Bill Belichick tree has one of the worst ratings for such a classy organization.   The Miami Dolphins are not the first one to poach a coach away from the Patriots, and most definitely won’t be the last.  The crazy thing is that all the coaches that grew up under Belichick have failed – failed miserably – for their associated net new team

For the sake of time, let’s just focus on the defensive assistants that left to become head coaches elsewhere:

·        Romeo Crennel

• 28-55 Record

·        Nick Saban

• 15-17 Record

·        Jim Schwartz

• 29-51 Record

·        Matt Patricia

• 6-10 Record

The only coach that is not in the NFL is Saban, and as a Dolphin fan you know how that story went.   Putting this altogether, any Patriot defensive minded coach that joined a new team to become an NFL Head Coach, has an average winning percentage of 38%.  It would have been interesting to understand how Flores re-acted and responded to the above statistic during his interview.

Despite all this, Flores is set to become the 13th coach in franchise history, and now is assigned to start bringing in his own coordinators and assistants.   Additionally, Stephen Ross has handed sole responsibility of Football operations over to Chris Grier.  Ross and Grier both stated that the Dolphins have to conduct a complete re-build, which is something the Dolphins have been lacking for years, as previous head coaches approached their tenure with attracting free agent players and a draft class, which has resulted in the Dolphins finishing 0.500 mediocrity for the last decade.

Does Flores have previous experience building up a team? The answer is kinda.  The Dolphins should consider this re-build process as an expansion team.  If you look at what the Los Angeles Rams have done, they struck gold with two top ten picks – Jeff Geoff and Todd Gurley.  If you looks at Jacksonville rise to defensive dominance, it was due to the fact that they picked in the top ten for 4 years in a row.  As the Dolphins finished in the middle of the pack, they were always on the outside of the top 10, where the key pure prospects are.

If Grier is serious about a complete re-build,  then it would be ideal to start thinking about trading away or cutting players that will not be part of the program three or four years from now.   It’s ironic, the more your team struggles, the higher the chance they are in getting a tier 1 prospect.    Unlike the previous coaches mentioned, before Flores started coaching he was a scouting assistant.

If you look at the Patriots draft selections, they have always drafted near the end or the bottom of the draft round, but still produce players that work in their system perfectly.  Flores was a part of that success.   Grier must have been attracted to Flores past scouting characteristics and how to build and develop a team through the draft.

On the coordinator side, it seems that Flores is bringing with him assistants that he has previously worked with or has ties to the Patriots.    It has been reported that Chad O’Shea will be the next offensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins.   The problem with this pairing, is that Flores will most likely be the defensive coordinator and will mirror what he learnt from Bill Belichick in terms of formation.

Putting all this together, is Flores vision to replicate the Patriots? The Miami Patriots?  If the goal in the AFC East is to beat the defending champs, the Dolphins will try to counter this by incorporating the exact same playbook on both sides of the ball? That doesn’t make sense.  If anyone knows how to beat their opposing defense, it would be Tom Brady.  If anyone knows how to expose their existing offensive playbook, it’s Bill Belichick.

Flores and O’Shea are not on the same level as these two iconic individuals.  They need to bring something new.  Do they have that in themselves? Dolphins’ fans will soon find out, but it doesn’t tilt in their favor.

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Grier and Flores will work the draft together.  Flores will hand the keys to the O over to Chad O’Shea and potentially Jim Caldwell.  On the Defensive side of the ball, the Flores will lead the game planning and has been linked to bringing in Patrick Graham (Linebacker and Running back coach) from the Packers.   Graham and Flores worked together for New England in 2009.

Each of the candidates are well-respected in the NFL, but can they turn around a franchise? Caldwell, is the only assistant that has every coached a NFL, so I’m sure Flores will lean on him.  For the others it’s hard to decide what type of impact they will have.  Truth be told, Dolphin fans were in love with hiring of Adam Gase as he was the QB whisper, or how Joe Philbin would bring in the Green Bay offense, or how defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle will take the Dolphins D to the next level or how Matt Burke and his Ivy League education will change the culture of the Dolphins D.

All those coaches failed.  Flores hire is possibly the quietest hiring to date for the Miami Dolphins.   Maybe, just maybe that is exactly what the Dolphins need.