Dolphins’ Flores Coach of the Year? And the case for Fitzpatrick to be starting QB in 2020
In this strangest of Miami Dolphins seasons, two things to consider have arisen that both would have seemed sheer lunacy only five weeks ago.
Before stating these two things and then explaining I should first emphasize that I do not have a concussion and have not been drinking.
1. Brian Flores should be considered for NFL Coach of the Year.
2. There is a circumstance and a case to be made why Ryan Fitzpatrick might still be the Fins’ starting quarterback beyond this season.
Let me explain quickly, before anyone has time to draw up papers to have me committed under the Baker Act.
First, Flores.
He won’t win Coach of the Year, of course. Might not even get a vote, because voters are lemmings beholden to formulaic thinking. And for this award you start with what coach improved by the most wins. That’s why the 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan (4-12 to a current 10-2) or somebody like that will win, as expected.
But Flores should be considered, by outside-the-box thinkers, because nobody else inherited his situation, or has made more of less. It isn’t even close.
At 0-7 he was the captain of the S.S. Tanktanic. His team was a laughingstock. Epic bad. His own front office undercut him by trading away top players for future draft picks. Those not mocking the Dolphins were excoriating them. ESPN’s Domonique Foxworth (needing a ladder to scale that high horse) called the overt tanking “morally reprehensible” and “unethical.”
All Flores did was take a winless, laughed-at team bound for 0-16 and kept it believing in itself. Now Miami is 3-9, with a few more winnable games ahead starting Sunday at the Jets and old coach Adam Gase.
Flores has given a season-long master class in Even Keel, his players marveling at his consistency.
“I really try to tune out all the noise ,” he said this week. “That’s why I don’t have any social media or watch much television. I watch tape of our next opponent.”
Flores was raised a Patriot by Bill Belichick. In 15 seasons those teams had a regular-season record of 196-56, made 14 playoffs and won four Super Bowls.
He went from that luxury to this barren roster, didn’t cave and wouldn’t let his players, either.
“I’ve been impressed with how they’ve dealt with adversity,” Flores said of his guys. “They keep coming hard. They keep fighting.”
That’s Flores and the culture he is building here, even amid the rubble and trades and losses.
Somebody else will win coach of the year. But what Miami’s guy has done with the brutal hand he was dealt needs to be respected.
OK. On to Fitzpatrick and the quarterback spot.
This 37-year-old man with the lumberjack beard has proved, again, why he has survived 15 NFL seasons across eight teams. He is an affable, always smiling leader whose love of playing is infectious.
He has earned the right to be kept by Miami in 2020 as a backup. But the idea he might start next season is worth consideration.
On merit, first, he is capable to lead a team. He has led this one. Today Fitzpatrick’s QBR rating of 64.1, measuring overall efficiency at the position, ranks No. 8 in the league. And that is despite the worst offensive line and the worst running game in the NFL!
A strategy worth considering for Miami is to go with Fitzpatrick one more season and instead devote draft capital in 2020 to the team’s many other urgent needs such as O-line, an edge rusher and a running back.
What we are seeing from Fitzpatrick gives the Fins the luxury to seriously weigh such an option. Miami could then turn its eye to the quarterback-of-the-future in the 2021 draft, when the available first-round bounty will include Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, Ohio State’s Justin Fields — and maybe Alabama’s Tua Tagovailao, who has been pondering bypassing the ‘20 draft ever since his season-ending hip injury on Nov. 16.
The idea of Miami not targeting a QB in the 2020 draft, once unthinkable, has been made plausible by the performance and leadership Fitzpatrick is showing.
To my media brethren who vote for awards: Dig deep, and don’t forget the one man who rejected his own team’s “morally reprehensible” tanking and led it to keep fighting and to win.
And to the Dolphins’ braintrust planning for 2020: Do not ignore the newfound freedom you now have entering the spring draft. It comes courtesy the man with the smile and the lumberjack beard.
This story was originally published December 4, 2019 at 1:53 PM.
