Coach Brian Flores wants improvement, growth out of Dolphins players. And also himself | Opinion
The hardest part of Brian Flores’s job coaching the Miami Dolphins this week and, indeed, this season?
“Media,” the coach says, letting the answer sit for a pregnant second or five.
Then there’s a smile.
And although out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, signaling Flores really doesn’t love doing interviews and daily press conferences, he eventually addresses my question more solemnly.
“I love my job,” he continues. “I get an opportunity to work with a lot of people within this organization — obviously the players, our coaching staff and also our support staff ...
“... Every day is a challenge in this league, but I kind of embrace it and enjoy it. I don’t really think of it as ‘the hardest things about.’ I would say the hardest part of my job is I don’t get to spend as much time with my wife and kids as I would like, but I also try to get as much time with them as possible.
“That’s the honest answer there. But the real honest answer is media is the hardest part.”
Consider this:
Flores this week is preparing the Dolphins to play the New England Patriots, who are diminished and without the enormous presence of quarterback Tom Brady, but still a challenge because Flores mentor Bill Belichick remains in charge.
Belichick had 10 days to prepare his team for Flores and his team.
And Belichick and his coaching staff pretty much out-coached Flores and his coaching staff the first game of the season, a 21-11 New England victory.
Also, the Dolphins have arrived at the toughest stretch of their schedule, playing four teams with playoff aspirations the final four games.
But amid this Flores is joking about inane questions from reporters being the toughest part of his assignment.
That tells me the Dolphins coach has the job pretty well in hand as he nears the end of his second season.
I am not, by the way, alone in thinking this. Because when people who work around the NFL, on other teams who have no immediate stake in what the Dolphins do, talk to me about this team, everyone eventually comes around to this thought:
“Flores is doing a pretty good job, isn’t he?”
Yeah, he is.
Is it perfect? No.
The Dolphins don’t have a perfect record so the coach cannot be anywhere near perfect.
And does good work this year mean everything’s going to be great in the future? No.
Next year might actually be harder than this one, which is a topic for another column on another day after this season.
But so far ... the man players call Flo is doing very well.
And how do we know this? Where’s the evidence?
Ultimately, it’s as clear as Miami’s won-loss record. The Dolphins are 8-5 and in second place in the AFC East, which is a marked improvement from the 5-11 and last-place team they were last season.
But it’s also about more than having a good record and playing meaningful December games.
This season the Dolphins have played 10 rookies and integrated those youngsters into a culture set by Flores and adhered to by some veterans such as Kyle Van Noy and Ryan Fitzpatrick, who are Flores favorites.
And in mixing this cocktail of new and holdover players, some younger and some older, the Dolphins are mostly playing together. Mostly adhering to the Flores marching orders. Mostly keeping their failures and successes private — like Flores wants — even while their wins and losses are quite public.
Winning, by the way, is ultimately the point.
The Dolphins are winning despite having a coaching staff that Flores put together in 2019 and remade for 2020, suggesting making the changes was the right call.
The Dolphins are winning even as they’ve passed the quarterback job from 16-year veteran Fitzpatrick to rookie Tua Tagovailoa at midseason, a handoff some teams fumble with lost games or lost locker rooms or lost leadership.
And, it sounds trite but really isn’t, the Dolphins are also winning amid a pandemic.
So Flores is on the lips of some voters for the Coach of the Year award. I know this because I speak with voters and I am also a voter. And Flores comes up in those conversations.
And we pause now to let Flores tell you what he thinks of my conversations with other Associated Press Coach of the Year voters and our cockamamie award:
“I’m not really into individual awards, especially in a team game like this,” he says. “I think my focus right now is just on this team and helping this team make the corrections and improve on [Sunday’s loss to Kansas City].
“Again, individual — my job is about service. It’s about helping these guys get better. That’s where my focus is.”
Getting better requires growth and even as Flores is trying to get that out of his players, he’s also working to find it in himself.
“I just think anytime you go through experiences, you get better — whether it’s something as simple as scheduling, days off, shells practice versus padded practices, do we defer the coin toss, do we take the ball, do we want to take a timeout in this situation?” he says.
“There’s several things that I guess I’m a little bit more comfortable with than I was a year ago — in a lot of areas. Not just on the field but in my relationships and the relationships I have with our equipment staff and our training staff and our personnel staff. I think I’ve grown from that standpoint.
“There’s so much to this job that to pinpoint one thing and say, ‘Hey, that’s it,’ it’s hard to say that. I’m always trying to get better. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I work hard to get them.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 4:56 PM.
