The Miami Dolphins have their new general manager, but they don't have a new head coach. Those interviews are ongoing. One name that has percolated in recent days is Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak.
Miami will interview him in the coming days, and some see him as a potential fit for the Dolphins. He should be a fit; he comes off the same coaching tree as Mike McDaniel. That isn't the change the Dolphins need, but it is the exact type of thing Stephen Ross would do.
There is a lot to like about the young OC, but there are also reasons to want to stay away from him. For the Dolphins, making a change at HC only to bring in a guy similar to the one you fired doesn't make a lot of sense.
Klint Kubiak may be nothing more than a Mike McDaniel retread that keeps the status quo for Miami Dolphins
The best thing about Kubiak is that he carries his father's name. Gary Kubiak was a successful HC and OC in the NFL before retiring. Now, his son is carrying on in his place.
The younger Kubiak has done a great job with the Seahawks' offense and has made Sam Darnold look fantastic. The Seahawks earned the number one seed in the NFC, in no small part because of Kubiak's offense.
Despite his great offensive output this year, Dolphins fans should be taking a more cautious approach to his hiring. For starters, the Dolphins need to rebrand their offense, not put a Band-Aid on it and call it done.
Kubiak, an acorn off the Mike and Kyle Shanahan tree, runs an offense similar to the style run by McDaniel. The zone blocking scheme is the same. If the Dolphins want to run a similar style of offense, then why didn't they just keep McDaniel? They could have beefed up the line or fixed the holes and let him ride.
Many see McDaniel as more of a forward thinker than Kubiak, so again, finding the same type of coach doesn't make much sense, unless McDaniel was so horrible at his job, and the roster was fully built already and not needing major changes. The Dolphins' offense has to be changed, especially up front.
Another issue is his coaching experience. The Dolphins will, more than likely, hire yet another head coach without HC experience. Ross has never filled the vacancy with a person who had experience at the job. His attempt at doing so, Jeff Fisher, blew up in his face.
Kubiak's NFL coaching career began in 2010, when he handled offensive quality control for the Vikings. His dad gave him his first real NFL coaching job in 2016 when he was an offensive assistant and QB coach. Kubiak served one year with his father and then the final two with Vance Joseph as the HC.
His first OC job came with the Vikings in 2021, a position he held for one year before returning to the Broncos as a passing game coordinator and QB coach. He would serve the same role with the 49ers in 2023, jump to the Saints for one season as OC in 2024, and then to the Seahawks as OC this year.
The reality is, Kubiak is not ready to make the jump to HC yet, and if a team is going to take a chance, it shouldn't be the Dolphins. Miami has to find a new direction, not rehash the same one that has been inconsistent the last four seasons.
If the problem for the Dolphins was personnel, McDaniel should have stayed, and Jon-Eric Sullivan could have worked to improve the pieces that were not adequate, but if we are to believe that McDaniel was the problem, what is there about Kubiak's experience that says he can do better?