Dolphins To Hire 4 Assistants, Part Ways With Darren Rizzi

One of the other candidates for the position Brian Flores will soon take, Darren Rizzi‘s near-decade-long stay with the Dolphins will come to an end.

The Dolphins will not retain their longtime special teams coordinator, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports. Miami will instead hire former Buffalo ST coordinator Danny Crossman to take over in that role, per ESPN.com’s Field Yates (on Twitter).

Additionally, former Texans OC (and 2018 Lions quarterbacks coach) George Godsey will be the Dolphins’ new tight ends coach, and former Fins wideouts coach Karl Dorrell will be back for a second stay in this job, Yates adds. Pat Flaherty will join the staff as offensive line coach, Alex Marvez of Sirius XM reports (on Twitter).

Flores wanted to move in another direction for his new team’s ST coach, per Jackson, who adds Rizzi also did not want to come back after being bypassed for the HC post. Rizzi, who has received significant interest on the market this offseason, may have a new gig soon. He is in advanced stages of negotiations with another team, Jackson notes.

While Flores’ arrival will mean most of Miami’s assistants will be new hires, running backs coach Eric Studesville will be back, per Marvez (on Twitter). So will defensive backs coach Tony Oden, Jackson adds.

In the event of a Rizzi exit, the Dolphins placed Crossman on their radar weeks ago, Marvez tweets. The Bills fired him after a six-year tenure as their ST coordinator. The Dolphins have been Rizzi’s only NFL employer, hiring him in 2010 and promoting him to ST boss a year later. Miami led the NFL with 11 punts blocked in that span.

Matt Patricia‘s continued overhaul of the Lions’ staff meant more Jim Caldwell-era holdovers were out. Godsey stayed on during Patricia’s first season, moving to quarterbacks coach in 2018. Flaherty had worked with Tom Coughlin in 14 of the past 15 years, mentoring the Giants’ O-line for 12 seasons and spending the past two slates working with the Jaguars’ blockers.

Dorrell was Miami’s receivers coach from 2008-10. Conversely to how things have been moving this offseason, with Adam Gase and Dowell Loggains going from the Dolphins to the Jets, Dorrell will head from the Big Apple to south Florida. He coached New York’s wideouts during each of Todd Bowles‘ four seasons. The Packers interviewed Dorrell for their WRs job, which remains vacant.

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