February 5th, 2019 at 10:39am CST by Zachary Links
The Dolphins believe that Brian Flores is the right man to turn their franchise around and they showed their confidence in him in the form of a unique contract. Flores’ deal is a fully guaranteed five-year pact, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (on Twitter).
For the most part, this year’s other head coaching hires inked four-year contract with a team option for a fifth-year. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the Dolphins felt compelled to go the extra mile in order to secure their top candidate. In addition to the Dolphins, the Browns, Broncos, and Packers also considered the former Patriots de facto defensive coordinator.
The Patriots ranked 21st in yards allowed but seventh in scoring this past season, and they’ve only had one non-top-10 scoring defense in the past 13 seasons. Of those 13 years, Flores was with the organization for eight.
The Dolphins have their new head coach. After the Super Bowl, Brian Flores‘ agent finalized terms on a contract to make the Patriots’ defensive guru the new head coach in Miami (Twitter link via Ian Rapoport of NFL.com).
Terms of the deal are not yet known, but the industry standard is a four-year deal with a fifth-year team option, so that’s likely the structure of Flores’ pact. At 4pm ET/3pm CT on Monday, the Dolphins will introduce their new coach to the public.
The Dolphins agreed to hire Flores nearly a month ago, but league rules prohibit teams from hiring coaches who are still active with their clubs during the playoffs. Last year, the Colts were burned by a gentleman’s agreement with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, but the Dolphins were comfortable enough with Flores to move forward without a signed deal.
The Dolphins’ defense is much more of a fixer-upper, but owner Stephen Ross, GM Chris Grier, and the rest of the Fins front office has confidence in Flores. He’ll take over for offensive guru Adam Gase, who was hired as the Jets’ new head coach in January.
Once the Super Bowl ends, the Dolphins are planning on announcing Brian Flores as their new head coach. Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reports that the Patriots linebackers coach will fly to Miami on Monday morning (on owner Stephen Ross‘s private jet, no less), and the two sides will then presumably finalize a contract and announce the hiring (via ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Twitter).
As Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com points out, this is especially notable following last year’s fiasco between Josh McDaniels and the Colts. Following the Patriots’ Super Bowl loss to the Eagles, McDaniels visited New England’s team facility, and it was subsequently reported that the offensive coordinator would instead by sticking in New England.
Naturally, the Dolphins don’t want to find themselves in a similar scenario, and Florio suggests that Miami would be wise to assure that Flores doesn’t even get on the Patriots plane back to Massachusetts. Of course, nothing has suggested that Flores will renege on his presumed deal, but you also can’t blame the Dolphins organization for being a bit wary.
Flores has seen some success in New England, and he most recently served as the team’s de facto defensive coordinator (although he didn’t hold that official title). The Patriots ranked 21st in yards allowed but seventh in scoring this past season, and they’ve only had one non-top-10 scoring defense in the past 13 seasons (Flores has been with the organization for eight of those campaigns). As our own Zach Links pointed out, the Dolphins are hoping Flores will restore order on the defensive side of the ball after having moved on from the offensively-minded Adam Gase.
February 1st, 2019 at 10:04pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg
While Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has played a large role in hiring Miami’s coaches in the past, that wasn’t the case this time around. Ross identified and hired Adam Gase on his own, but had nothing to do with bringing in new coach-in-waiting Brian Flores, sources told Armando Salguero of The Miami Herald. Instead, it was new GM Chris Grier who is solely responsible for hiring Flores, Salguero writes.
Salguero writes that Grier and Flores are longtime friends, and that now ex-Dolphins coaches told him it was “no secret within the organization that Grier was focused on Flores as the favorite to be Miami’s new coach even before interviews began.” Flores, the current Patriots’ defensive play-caller, and Grier both started as scouts in their respective organizations and Salguero writes that their paths crossed frequently, sparking a friendship. Miami is reportedly all-in on tanking in the 2019 season, and it’ll be very interesting to see how Flores fares.
Here’s more from around the league:
While the contract Odell Beckham Jr. signed this offseason “became the new financial benchmark for wide receivers”, it “didn’t dramatically reset the market as some, including myself, anticipated”, opines former NFL agent and current CBS Sports analyst Joel Corry. In his piece, which is worth a read, Corry breaks down this offseason’s wide receiver market, and he thinks 2019 will be the year the market is truly reset. Corry writes that Julio Jones, Tyreek Hill, and Amari Cooper will likely all land new deals this offseason.
Speaking of wide receivers, commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about Josh Gordon during his annual Super Bowl press conference. Goodell said ““right now the focus is what can we do to help Josh (Gordon) to get to that place (where he can play football)”, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). Goodell’s comments suggest that Gordon, who stepped away from the Patriots earlier this season, could eventually play in the league again even though Goodell slapped him with an indefinite ban. It won’t come easily, but it appears Gordon’s NFL career isn’t dead yet, just on life support.
A few pipelines have led to the Broncos this offseason. Following’s Ed Donatell Chicago-to-Denver move alongside Vic Fangio, another 49ers staffer will take a key job on the Broncos’ staff, joining new OC Rich Scangarello. T.C. McCartney, an offensive assistant with San Francisco, will become Denver’s new quarterbacks coach, Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic tweets. McCartney interviewed on Tuesday, per Mike Klis of 9News (Twitter link), and represents a unique addition to the Broncos’ staff. The 29-year-old assistant is the grandson of former Colorado Buffaloes head coach Bill McCartney. It will be T.C. McCartney’s first NFL time as an NFL position coach.
But the latest pipeline to lead to the Denver staff is the most interesting. The Broncos will hire another former Wagner College assistant, with Rob Calabrese set to become a Broncos offensive assistant, per Klis. Scangarello and Calabrese worked together at the Division I-FCS, Staten Island, N.Y., program in 2016, with Calabrese succeeding Scangarello as Wagner’s OC and serving in that capacity for the past two seasons. (Fun fact: former Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton is an assistant at Wagner.)
Here is the latest from coaching staffs around the league:
Although Jim Tomsula‘s Redskins contract had expired, the parties look to have worked out another agreement. Tomsula will return as Washington’s defensive line coach, the team announced Tuesday. This will be the former 49ers HC’s third season instructing Redskins defensive linemen.
Washington did some staff rearranging Tuesday, shifting Kevin O’Connell to OC and Matt Cavanaugh to an advisory role. Ken Zampese met with the Redskins about O’Connell’s old QBs coach job, per Alex Marvez of Sirius XM Radio (Twitter link). The Browns fired Zampese from his quarterbacks coach post after one season, which included overseeing the development of Baker Mayfield. He previously served as the Bengals’ OC. Prior to that promotion, Zampese worked as Cincinnati’s QBs coach from 2013-15, the first of those years overlapping with Jay Gruden‘s Cincy tenure.
The five teams that coveted former Dolphins special teams coach Darren Rizzi — the Bills, Jets, Lions, Packers and Vikings — are no longer in the running for Rizzi, Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald tweets. But two other teams are interested. Rizzi and incoming Dolphins HC Brian Flores met recently and decided to part ways, per Salguero (on Twitter).
Former Dolphins DC Matt Burke will land on the Eagles‘ staff, according to ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter (on Twitter). Burke succeeded Vance Joseph as Miami’s DC and held the job for two seasons, both of which ending with the Fins being among the worst at preventing points.
Patriots assistant Brian Flores will have his second interview with the Dolphins on Wednesday night, a league source tells Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald (on Twitter). The interview, in all likelihood, will be a discussion about the future rather than a true interview. Flores has already been tapped as the team’s next head coach, but the hire cannot be formally made until after the Super Bowl.
In 2018, the Patriots ranked 21st in yards allowed but seventh in scoring. The Pats have only had one non-top-10 scoring defense in the past 13 seasons and Flores has been a part of their past eight defensive coaching staffs. After moving on from the offensively-minded Adam Gase, the Dolphins believe that Flores will help restore order on the other side of the ball.
With the NFL now in the two-week waiting period until its final meaningful game, 30 of the 32 teams are going through offseason motions. And some of those teams are still deciding on coordinators.
Unless another Patriots assistant reneges on an agreement post-Super Bowl, or Zac Taylor makes an 11th-hour decision to remain in Los Angeles rather than taking over in Cincinnati, the eight NFL teams in need of head coaches made their choices.
So, which franchise best positioned itself for long-term success?
The trend being offensive innovation to keep up with some of the ahead-of-the-curve offenses, six of the eight teams hired offensively oriented coaches.
By a substantial margin, the Cardinals won the outside-the-box trophy. After washing out as an NFL quarterback in the mid-2000s, Kliff Kingsbury spent more than a decade as a college coach. The 39-year-old groomed some sought-after NFL talent in Patrick Mahomes, Case Keenum and Davis Webb, while also bringing Baker Mayfield to Texas Tech for a short stay. But he finished his stay in Lubbock, Texas, with a sub-.500 record. The Cards addedVance Josephand Tom Clements to be his top assistants. Because of their unconventional hire, the Cardinals will be one of the most interesting teams in 2019.
Bruce Arians‘ CBS stay lasting one year will bring one of the more interesting coaches in modern NFL history back to the sideline. Tampa Bay’s new coach is the oldest ever hired, at 66 years old. Arians will be tethered toJameis Winston, and it does not sound like he has issues with that. Arians hired several former Cardinals assistants to help him attempt to snap the NFC’s longest active playoff drought. Arians led the Cardinals to their best season, record-wise (13-3 in 2015), since the franchise has been in Arizona but is also barely a year removed from retiring.
The Packers and Browns opted for OCs, the former seeing a major difference inMatt LaFleur‘s vision than those of the other coaches that interviewed. Cleveland made the biggest continuity move of this year’s HC-seeking octet,promoting Freddie Kitchens over candidates with more experience.
LaFleur’s Titans offense regressed from Mike Mularkey‘s final unit, with Tennessee ranking 27th in points scored last season. But the 39-year-old coach, who will be working with ex-Jaguars assistant Nathaniel Hackett in overseeing the back end of Aaron Rodgers‘ prime, trained under Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan. Kitchens rose from position coach to head coach in less than three months, but Mayfield’s performance in the second half of the season was obviously different from his play under Hue Jackson and Todd Haley.
Taylor and Adam Gase round out the offensively geared hires, the former being perhaps the highest-variance candidate among the non-Kingsbury wing.
Although Taylor was the Dolphins’ interim OC in 2015 and McVay’s quarterbacks coach this season, he spent 2016 running a Cincinnati Bearcats offense that ranked 123rd (out of 128 Division I-FBS teams) with 19.3 points per game for a 4-8 team and was the Rams’ assistant wideouts coach as recently as 2017. Gase led the Dolphins to the playoffs in 2016, but Ryan Tannehill‘s issues staying healthy and living up to his draft slot limited the former Broncos and Bears OC. The Jets saw enough to add the formerly in-demand assistant, who may be ready to bring longtime coworker Dowell Loggainswith him to the Big Apple.
Denver and Miami went with defense, with the Broncos having no competition for 2018’s assistant coach of the year and, arguably, this decade’s top DC.
The Dolphins cancelled their Vic Fangio summit, and he will be in charge of elevating a Broncos team that finished with back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since the early 1970s. John Elway‘s plan to reinstall Gary Kubiak as OCalso hit a snag, with the longtime friends’ disagreement on staffing leading to the Broncos hiring 49ers QBs coach Rich Scangarello. The Dolphins will become the fifth franchise to hire a Bill Belichick-era Patriotsdefensive coordinator (or de facto DC, in Brian Flores‘ case), following the Browns (Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini), Jets (Mangini), Chiefs (Crennel) and Lions (Matt Patricia). Flores helped the Patriots to yet another top-10 ranking in points allowed — their 15th in the past 18 seasons — and another Super Bowl berth.
Vote in PFR’s latest poll and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section!
The Cowboys‘ offensive coordinator position is now vacant after the team parted ways with Scott Linehan several days ago, and we learned that tight ends coach DougNussmeier may be the favorite to replace Linehan. However, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com suggests that Dallas could look to promote quarterbacks coach Kellen Moore — whom Rapoport described as “fast-rising” and “impressive” — to the OC job (Twitter link). If that happens, RapSheet suggests that the team could add another one of its former QBs to the coaching staff by hiring Jon Kitna, most recently the offensive coordinator for the AAF’s San Diego Fleet, as the new quarterbacks coach.
As Jerry Jones mulls the coaching credentials of his former signal-callers, let’s take a look at other coaching rumors from around the league:
Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports believes that the Redskins‘ failed pursuit of Todd Bowles and Gregg Williams does not bode well for head coach Jay Gruden‘s future in Washington. La Canfora writes that owner Dan Snyder put the “full-court press” on Bowles, and if Bowles had said he would only join the Redskins as a head coach, Snyder may have gone for it. Gruden will return in 2019, but if he does not lead the Redskins to a playoff berth, La Canfora would not be surprised if Snyder reaches out to Bowles and Williams again, perhaps to discuss a head coaching position.
If the Patriots prevail in today’s AFC Championship Game, the Dolphins will meet with New England de facto defensive coordinator and future Miami head coach Brian Flores during the week before the Super Bowl to discuss staffing and other issues, per Rapoport (via Twitter). The Fins can formally commit to Flores as their next HC at that time.
The Bengals have been very hands-off with their presumptive new head coach, Zac Taylor, but Rapoport (video link) says that is only because the team is closely adhering to league rules regarding coaching hires (Taylor, of course, is the Rams’ quarterbacks coach, and the Rams’ season isn’t over yet). Rapoport says Cincinnati still fully intends to hire Taylor, and he names Jack Del Rio as a potential defensive coordinator on Taylor’s new staff. La Canfora agrees that Del Rio is a DC target, and he adds John Fox as another possibility. Both JLC and RapSheet say that Raiders QB coach Brian Callahan is a top choice for offensive coordinator.
Former Cardinals tight ends coach Jason Michael will join the Colts in the same capacity, a source tells Albert Breer of The MMQB (on Twitter). Michael served as the Titans’ offensive coordinator from 2014-15 and was the team’s QB coach from 2016-17.
The knee injury that Patriots QB Tom Brady has been battling this season is an MCL sprain, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, who reports that Brady sustained the injury when going out for a pass against Tennessee on November 11. However, Brady has no structural damage, and Rapoport says the 41-year-old will head into today’s playoff game as healthy as he has been since the start of the season. He will likely not require any offseason procedures.
Let’s round up a few more east-related rumors:
The Dolphins are simply waiting for the Patriots‘ season to end so that they can finalize a deal with New England de facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores to become their next head coach, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.com. No one anticipates this turning into another Josh McDaniels situation, and Flores is fully expected to join Miami. Schefter also says that Miami is already planning its rebuild and is looking to the 2020 crop of rookie QBs, which is expected to include Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Oregon’s Justin Herbert.
Albert Breer of SI.com names Patriots defensive line coach Brendan Daly as a potential replacement for Flores on New England’s staff, while Mike Reiss of ESPN.com sees former Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano — who was rumored to be a candidate for the Pats’ DC job last year following Matt Patricia‘s departure — as a logical choice. Rapoport (video link) agrees with Reiss.
Dolphins LB coach Frank Bush is expected to follow Adam Gase to the Jets, and while DL coach Kris Kocurek may do the same, Alex Marvez of SiriusXM NFL Radio says that four to five teams are interested in Kocurek’s services (allTwitterlinks).
Baylor head coach Matt Rhule, whom the Jets reportedly preferred to Gase, confirms that he did not join Gang Green because the team wanted to pick his staff for him. Per Jake Nisse of the New York Post, Rhule said, “[a]t the end of the day, I’m never going to be in an arranged marriage.”
Longtime Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee is technically under contract through 2019, but the club could save $7MM against the cap by cutting him, and given the emergence of quality younger options and Lee’s injury history, it is difficult to imagine that Dallas will bring him back under his current deal. Lee, of course, could retire, and Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News says that the 32-year-old will sit down with his family and make a decision on his football future, though Lee did not provide a timeline for that decision.
After the Cowboys‘ playoff loss to the Rams last night, which saw defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli‘s unit get thrashed, Marinelli was unwilling to address speculation that he could step into an advisory role while Kris Richard takes over as DC. Per Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas Morning News, Marinelli said, “[w]hy do people keep asking me the same question? I can’t figure it out? Can somebody tell me why everybody asks me that?”
Matt LaFleur‘s defection to Green Bay leaves Tennessee without an offensive coordinator. They have not conducted any known interviews and are operating deliberately. GM Jon Robinson and Mike Vrabel have met several times this week discussing what the best course of action should be, so interviews are likely coming soon. Whichever way the Titans go, they will be asking Marcus Mariota to learn a fourth offensive system in his five-year career. Ken Whisenhunt ran the Titans’ offense in 2015, before being fired, then Mike Mularkey took over before giving way to LaFleur. Robinson appears to want to retain some of LaFleur’s concepts, however.
“I think if that can happen so that there is some carry-over, some familiarity there, so that not just Marcus but all of our players on offense, the less that we have to put on their plate to learn the different terminology, the different concepts, if there’s carry-over, then I think they can build upon what they’ve kind of gone through the last year,” Robinson said, via Eric Bacharach of The Tennesseean. “So we’ll do our best to try to keep as much continuity as possible carrying over into the offseason and certainly into next season.”
Here is the latest from the AFC:
Eric Berry, Spencer Ware and Malik Hooker are out for today’s Chiefs–Colts divisional-round game. Berry is still dealing with the heel trouble that has sidetracked his career, and Ware is out with a hamstring malady. Hooker started against the Texans but missed practice this week with a foot ailment.
The Ravens’ Greg Romanpromotion partially stemmed from ensuring he would not accept another OC role in the AFC East. The Dolphins sought the former Bills offensive coordinator for their OC role, Albert Breer of SI.com tweets. HC frontrunner Brian Flores had Roman on his staff list. Another name to pop up on Flores’ early list: Kliff Kingsbury. The now-Cardinals HC appears to have had a path to Miami as Flores’ play-caller, Breer adds (on Twitter). But despite his sub-.500 Texas Tech record, Kingsbury received a much bigger promotion than the Dolphins had in mind.
Jets staffer Tyler Tettleton will join the Browns as an offensive quality control coach, per Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports (on Twitter). Tettleton was a graduate assistant at Oklahoma for two years during Baker Mayfield‘s tenure in Norman.
