The fall, rise — and mini-humbling — of Dolphins cornerback Nik Needham
Here’s what we learned this week about Dolphins cornerback Nik Needham and his head coach:
1. Needham can play, as evidenced by his interception and game-ending tackle against the Colts last week.
2. Brian Flores will shut down Needham (or anyone else) if he celebrates success a little too much.
Needham might have tiptoed that line on Twitter over the last few days.
Since his breakout game, the rookie corner retweeted more than two dozen of his game highlights or well wishes from friends or members of the media.
Which leads us to Flores, who sent a not-so-subtle message to the rookie corner Thursday: We’re not crowning you yet.
A relatively innocuous question — How does a young player such as Needham build on success? — got a pointed answer during Flores’ news conference.
“You forget about everything you’ve done,” Flores said. “Forget about the last couple of games and the success you’ve had. I know he’s getting — I don’t know much about social media, but people are saying he’s this or that.
“And yeah, your friends, your family, they’re going to congratulate you and that’s great. But again, you start listening to all that a little too much, I don’t know,” Flores continued. “Maybe it’s one more text and one minute less on film. You’ve got to try to put that away and focus on the task at hand, which is preparing for Buffalo. The receivers they have and our scheme and trying to get that right so that we can string them together because the world will make you think you’re this superstar. Maybe you are. But it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is those guys in that room, in that locker room.”
Message received? Seems that way.
“[Flores is] just basically preaching [about] complacency,” Needham said. “Saying some people are surprised we won two games. He’s like ‘forget that, we’re trying to win. We’re trying to win every week.’ So he’s just preaching that. To keep working hard and get better each week. He says that’s a problem in the league sometimes. People win and they start to relax a little bit. It’s human nature. He said we’re not really doing that. But he reminds us of that and hounds us on that to keep that on our minds.”
Flores, who is halfway through his first season as coach, reveals more about himself every week. And while most comparisons to his old boss, Bill Belichick, are lazy and inaccurate, there are a few similarities.
Irritation with some reporters’ questions? We have seen that a couple times in the last few days.
Knowing the importance of keeping players grounded? No doubt.
It’s fitting that Needham’s star turn comes at the five-year anniversary of the rise and fall of Jonas Gray, perhaps the greatest one-week wonder in recent memory.
The Patriots running back — who also spent some time in the Dolphins’ organization — came out of nowhere to rush for 201 yards and four touchdowns against the Colts on national television in November 2014. Sports Illustrated put him on the cover that week.
A star was born. And then flamed out spectacularly.
Just days after his breakout game, he slept through a meeting — a massive no-no in Foxborough. That was enough to remain in Belichick’s doghouse the rest of the season; the Patriots cut him the following offseason. Gray’s career never recovered. He is now out of the league.
By all accounts, Needham’s biggest sin has been overexuberance on Twitter, but he would do well to stay humble. That shouldn’t be hard. UTEP was the only school to offer him a scholarship, he went undrafted in the spring and was cut late after a rough preseason with the Dolphins.
Upon his release, Dolphins coaches told Needham he had to transform his body — he was a little too fond of junk food — and Needham listened. He lost a dozen pounds by eating spinach, and his speed has been much improved.
The arrow is up. It’s up to him to keep it that way.
“What’s next? Who do we play this week — Buffalo. That’s next,” Needham responded.
Good answer.
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 3:56 PM.
