Big question for 2019: Did Miami Dolphins upgrade to a better head coach and staff? | Opinion
How valuable is a good NFL coaching staff? And how quickly do you know if you have one?
The questions are relevant because the Miami Dolphins open their 2019 training camp with a practice Thursday. That’s when everyone will begin to understand whether the coaching change owner Stephen Ross made in February was the right move.
Rookie coach Brian Flores and his staff will be on display as much as any player on that field. Their executive decisions will be as vital as a quarterback deciding to throw the out versus the post or a linebacker deciding whether to rush or cover.
In other words, important.
Dolphins fans are quite aware what great coaching is, having witnessed the years of Don Shula winning more games than literally anyone. And they saw what poor coaching looks like, too, most of that coming in this century.
Those same fans were mixed on Adam Gase and his staff the past few years. Mixed here is defined as they loved the guy and his staff in 2016 when the Dolphins won, and didn’t like him and his staff too much the next two seasons when they didn’t win.
The New York Jets liked Gase just fine, thanks, because they hired him about 37 seconds after the Dolphins fired him.
The issue, then, is whether Flores and his staff are an upgrade, downgrade, or are we just running in place?
“Players win games,” Flores told me in an extensive pretraining camp interview this week. “I think any good coach would tell you that. Players win games. Those are the guys that go out there and execute. Those are the guys that go out there and condition and work the fundamentals.
“So players win games, 100 percent. I think it’s our job to put them in a position to succeed.”
Dolphins coaches haven’t always accomplished that task recently. Matt Burke had some cringe-worthy moments as the Miami defensive coordinator the past two years because his defenders were often out of position or showing poor fundamentals.
Even Gase, whose offenses were massively productive and set NFL records in Denver, struggled with things so fundamental as penalties in 2016 and ‘17.
That’s the kind of stuff that turns a fan base against a coach or his staff.
Most fans, I believe, are sophisticated enough to understand the difference between losing for lack of talent and losing for lack of discipline, or fundamentals, or technique. One speaks to a problem with personnel — the players and those who gathered them on the roster. The other speaks to unsound coaching.
And this is where I believe most Dolphins fans are right now: They understand the Dolphins are not a cup overflowing with great talent. But they hope Flores and his staff are so good that they can overcome some of those talent deficiencies.
(I know this because Dr. Mando took the pulse of the fan base while staycationing in South Florida, writing a Dolphins-related book that will be out in 2020.)
So where do Miami fans get off hoping Flores is really, really good and that he might have pieced together a really, really good staff? Well, he has been coaching in New England. And the Patriots staff is known for getting players in the right place and maximizing their talents to, well, win — a lot.
(I remind you the New England staff is also known for having Tom Brady at quarterback.)
The 2020 season will show us if Flores is something of a genius who can make marginal talent go a long way. This we’ll know for sure because he will either do that or not.
The coach, by the way, isn’t promising any such performance. This is what he’s promising:
“The expectation for us is to improve in a multitude of areas on a day-to-day basis from execution, to playing disciplined football to our fundamentals, to our technique, to being ourselves,” Flores said. “We need to improve on those on a day-to-day basis. That’s my expectation. Improve today. Improve tomorrow. Then we’ll build on that and build some consistency and whatever happens after that, I’ll be happy with.”
The Patriots have had a habit under Bill Belichick of starting seasons a little slow and then gradually but inexorably improving as the season progresses. By November and December they are typically playing very well.
Flores wants to accomplish something similar in Miami.
“Build every day, and build day after day after day,” he said. “Hopefully, we build a culture where that becomes a lifestyle, where we’re trying to improve not just on the field but every area. And you have to talk about it. ‘We had a good day today, you got to build on it tomorrow.’ Or ‘You didn’t have a good day today, we go back to work tomorrow and try to improve.’
“There’s going to be ups and downs. But the effort, the urgency, the intensity, I think if you build that in as part of the routine, the rhythm of how you operate on a daily basis, you can improve from that standpoint.”
So what does that mean tangibly? For me, I’ll be watching the defense and specifically the defensive front. Flores is a defensive coach. He was New England’s defensive play-caller in 2018 when they won the Super Bowl.
So I expect a sound if not good defense.
But I look at the front and don’t see a proven pass-rusher. I don’t see how the Dolphins are going to muster consistent pressure on the quarterback.
I tell Flores this and he doesn’t seem too worried about what I see. Apparently, he has coaching tricks that will address the issue.
“I think there’s a few different ways to rush the passer,” Flores said confidently. “It’s not just one guy against another guy. You can call it team rush. Let’s call it team rush. It’s not just one guy against another guy. It’s that way if you want it, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
“I think schematically you can help yourself and try to put your guys in better positions. If you have a guy that can win just 1-on-1, you force the situation to create that. If we feel we have a good matchup we’ll do that. If we feel it’s better to run games or picks, we’ll do that. So we’ll see.”
We start to see on Thursday.
This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 8:23 PM.