Former championship UM coach explains how Flores’ unusual plan can work. And Tua on Smith
A six-pack of Miami Dolphins notes on a Friday:
▪ How unusual is Brian Flores’ decision to have co-offensive coordinators (George Godsey, Eric Studesville) working under a head coach who doesn’t call the plays himself?
So unusual that we couldn’t find a situation exactly like this (on offense) in the NFL in the past 15 years. There have been several teams recently that had run game and pass game coordinators instead of offensive coordinators, but in those cases (including the Rams and 49ers), the head coach called the plays. And when the Chiefs had co-offensive coordinators in 2016, coach Andy Reid called the plays.
The Dolphins’ arrangement isn’t uncommon in college football — Clemson and Alabama have had co-coordinators in recent years — but can it work in the NFL?
I asked an accomplished coach who has done it — Dennis Erickson, who won two national championships at UM, coached the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers and served as co-offensive coordinator with Brian Johnson at Utah when Erickson decided to come out of retirement in 2013.
Erickson said he believes co-coordinators can work on the NFL level, but that Flores needs to designate a playcaller, and stick with that person, so there’s no confusion. Erickson doesn’t believe having one coach call some plays — and the other coordinator call other plays — during the same game would be ideal.
Erickson also doesn’t believe changing the playcaller from week to week would be a good idea.
“That would be hard going back and forth,” Erickson said. “How many times do you see a coordinator calling plays for five weeks and then the head coach wants to take over?”
But Erickson said the co-coordinator who isn’t calling plays should be encouraged to suggest plays to the playcaller during games.
According to a source inside the organization, Flores hasn’t informed the staff which of the two coordinators — Godsey or Studesville — will call the plays.
The expectation among some internally is that Godsey will be the primary playcaller, in part because he did it for 19 games with the Texans in 2015 and 2016, while Studesville has never called plays before. But that is by no means definite, and Flores could throw a curveball. Godsey and Studesville shared playcalling duties at the recent Senior Bowl.
Erickson said he believes the Dolphins’ arrangement will work provided the co-coordinators get along (they do) and there’s good communication and a clear designation of responsibilities.
“Everybody is going to have to be involved” in offensive game-planning, Erickson said.
“They will all be on the same page on game day. When you have game preparation, [Flores will say], ‘You [one coordinator] will do the run game and you [the other coordinator] will do the pass game.’
“It’s fine if they work together. If you are going to run the football, the guy handling that can talk to [the other offensive coaches] about schemes blocking-wise. The run game has got to be connected to play-action passing. I see them splitting it up. But they’ve got to come together in preparation” and jointly craft a game plan each week.
Erickson said Flores will need to make several decisions in delineating responsibilities. One example: “With all these RPOs, who’s in charge of those?” Erickson said. “With a run-pass [option], who makes that decision?”
As for game days, “the head coach has to make a decision [in advance] on who’s going to call plays,” Erickson said. “He’s going to be involved more on defense so you’ve got to make a decision.
“It’s hard to have two people be the playcaller, but one can make suggestions. I think the quarterback coach [Charlie Frye] also has to know what’s going on [more so because] Tua [Tagovailoa] doesn’t have a lot of experience.
“You need one of the coordinators down on the field so he and the quarterback coach can talk to the quarterbacks and receivers. Normally, the offensive line coach has to be downstairs because he has to deal with the whole group. I called plays myself and I did that downstairs. [But] a lot of times people calling the plays are upstairs, and it’s a little better. He’ll have someone up there with him. In the NFL, it shouldn’t be all that hard because you have microphones” to communicate.
Erickson said his one year working as a co-offensive coordinator at Utah (under head coach Kyle Winningham) went smoothly, without any conflict or confusion. “[Co-offensive coordinator] Brian Johnson called the plays and I was upstairs communicating a lot. I have ideas, suggested plays. That worked well. There was a lot of respect for each other.”
Erickson said for co-coordinators to work, “you can’t get into a jealousy war. That would destroy it. But I would think Brian Flores wouldn’t hire them if he didn’t know it would work and they didn’t agree to work within that concept.
“You’re not changing the world here. It’s a couple pairs of eyes, and they talk about what’s going on as you’re putting in a run game and passing game. You will be running the same plays [weekly, but with variations]. You might have three or four plays in the run game that are different formations but the same play. Don’t make it complicated.”
Erickson, 73, lives in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and still has interest in coaching. He was Salt Lake City’s coach in the Alliance of American Football before the league folded during its first season in 2019.
▪ Though both Studesville and Godsey are well respected, it’s difficult to know what the Dolphins are getting because Studesville has never been a coordinator and Godsey’s coordinator experience is limited to 16 games for Houston in 2015 and three in 2016 before coach Bill O’Brien took over playcalling duties early that season, ultimately parting ways with Godsey after that 2016 season.
With Godsey as Houston’s playcaller in 2015, the Texans were 19th in yards per game (347.8) and 22nd in points (21.2). But the caveat is that Houston’s offensive talent, aside from receiver DeAndre Hopkins, wasn’t great.
At quarterback, Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett, T.J. Yates and Brandon Weeden all made starts. Alfred Blue was the most used running back and he averaged just 3.8 yards per carry.
Godsey, 43, was the Dolphins’ tight ends coach in 2019 and 2020 and also served as game-day quarterback coach for the second half of the 2020 season.
Studesville, 53, has served as a running backs coach for five NFL teams, including the Dolphins since 2018. Early in his career, he was defensive coordinator at Wingate (1994) and Kent State (1995 and 1996) and went 1-3 as the Denver Broncos’ interim head coach in 2010.
▪ One Dolphins staffer said there was surprise internally about Flores’ decision, and some wonder whether appointing one person would have been the preferable approach.
Flores assuredly will explain the mechanics of how this will work to his staff, but it’s unclear if he will ever offer details publicly.
Days after the news was leaked to ESPN and NFL Network at the exact same time Tuesday, the Dolphins still haven’t announced or confirmed the co-coordinator decision.
▪ During his media tour this week, Tua Tagovailoa did more gentle lobbying for former Alabama teammate DaVonta Smith, dismissing concerns about his size (6-1, 175 pounds).
“A lot of people say Smitty is too small and he doesn’t weigh enough,” Tagovailoa told NFL Network. “You guys see the film. This guy can play.”
Smith remains a strong candidate for Miami’s pick at No. 3, with LSU receiver Ja’Marr Chase among others likely to get consideration.
▪ What specifically to credit coaches for — beyond discipline areas such as penalties and creative playcalling — isn’t always clear-cut.
But here’s an area where Flores and his staff deserve credit: Miami’s plus-nine turnover margin, which was third in the league:
“Everyone says all 32 teams defensive-wise say, ‘we’ve got to get turnovers.’ Obviously that’s the key to success, we’ve got to get it,” safety Eric Rowe said. “Everyone talks about it, but I think from this training camp and last year, we really made it a focus where — I don’t know if y’all remember me telling y’all in training camp that we had that game going on between safeties and corners and who can punch the ball out, who can try to get the interceptions.
“It was just a focus every single day and that carries on in the season. It helped us well. So next year we have to start from — if we can do OTAs — but if we can’t, we have to start from training camp again. We can’t just talk about it. We’ve got to do it all over again because we can go from the best to the worst from year to year.”
Xavien Howard and other Dolphins players deserve the most credit for the turnover margin. But for reasons Rowe explained, coaches do too.
▪ What about the idea of the Dolphins moving down slightly from No. 3 to pick up more draft inventory and drafting elite UF tight end Kyle Pitts, who had 43 catches for 770 yards and 12 touchdowns in eight games?
The Dolphins already have one seam threat in tight end Mike Gesicki, and one NFL scout said he sees considerable overlap and wouldn’t do that, with the Dolphins having a glaring need at wide receiver.
“Pitts can run, adjust to the ball, scare the [expletive] out of safeties but can’t block a lick,” the scout said. “He rarely plays conventional tight end. He’s a glorified receiver.”
Here’s the link to my five other Dolphins stories this week and my ongoing four-part series on the state of the Miami Heat franchise and where they go from here.
This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 2:26 PM.
