Well, I would put it more like… It burns my a$$ and makes me more of a worthless head coach that I couldn’t do with Tua what McDaniel has done
Jeff Darlington said Flores would text Tua that he sucked. That is so ridiculous I don't know how Tua hasn't trashed him more or sooner.
And he once texted Tua the night before a game, “Don’t blow it.” I was all in on Flores. I was wrong. He’s a piece of sheet.
I agree it's all about the team, we're focused on Tua mainly bc he's the QB and the source of the comments about the previous coaching staff. The only place I have a diff opinion is about replacing Tua, under no circumstances besides injury would the Dolphins ever start White or Thompson.
Didn't Tua's trainer tweet that Flores had Tua tested for PEDs 3 or 4 times because he didn't believe he got in such great shape naturally? Nothing like trying to get your own QB suspended. I was blown away and upset when Flores was fired but man once everything unfolded and the facts came out it all made sense. Then he pulls the race card which made everything 10x worse. I don't care what Flores says he's full of sh!t wishing Tua well. Nobody wanted Tua to fail more than Flores. If Tua turned out to be a bust Flores would have sat back and said told ya so but now he has to eat crow and ACT like he's happy for the man he tried to break.
I wasn’t angry when Flores was fired, but I was a bit surprised though I really shouldn’t have been. The Dolphins endured quite the sh!t show that season, with the tampering revelation, all of the speculation of a Deshaun Watson trade, the countdown to the trade deadline, the refusal to publicly COMMIT to Tua being THE quarterback…it shouldn’t have surprised anyone. What was surprising and shocking to me after his dismissal was the lawsuit and the revelation of pay to lose. With the soap opera that was the Dolphins it was time for a reset. It was clear that Flores wasn’t all in on Tua and made no effort to build around and be successful with Tua, hence the Watson drama. Tua’s success is an indictment against Flores’ ability to build a winning team. He is like a Barry Switzer…come in and take over an already winning team…just don’t touch anything, especially on the offensive side of the ball.
Flores was a good Coach who either didn't understand the business side of the sport or believed he could ignore it, meaning Tua was financially more valuable to the organization than him or any Coach. As for winning the Dolphins are a middling team who can squeak into the wildcard round and lose. Clearly a more entertaining team w McDaniel at HC but are they significantly closer to being a legit contender than they were under Flores? Not really.
I would say so. We might have finally found a franchise QB, which is the single most important piece to the puzzle (among players). That was never happening under Flores. Also, do you realize how good that offense was last year? We were #2 in points scored. Last time we did that well was in 1986 with Marino where we were #1. Flores did not improve the defense as much as McD the offense, and statistically speaking the offense is slightly more important for winning the SB. Consistently making the playoffs is the first step and we made it twice with McD but never with Flores. The next step is to win a playoff game (or get a bye). No reason that can't happen if you keep making the playoffs.
Yes, really. You don't think this team is more capable of being a legit contender than the Flores coached teams ? I have great confidence this team can contend, I never believed that under Flores
Tua was more valuable to the franchise in every possible way just like every starting QB is. They fired him for wildly failing to develop their franchise QB which is something that usually gets coaches fired.
Would you classify adding Hill, Armstead, Williams, Mostert, Achane, Ingold, Berrios, etc as QB development? If not, where do you draw the line between adding better players around the QB vs development in terms of why the offense has improved the last two seasons.
Slightly more capable at best IMO. Confidence is fine but until they go out and prove it on the field...
I saw a handful of games where the offense was dominant vs bad defenses. Against good defenses, especially later in the season when the games really matter, no the offense was not good. Reminiscent of 2022.
Still an improvement. We never had a dominant offense like that since Marino. And the late season collapse is simply the next thing they have to fix, just like last year they demonstrated Tua could play a full season and that 2022 wasn't a fluke. It's a process. Big question is defense. If McD only provides 1/2 the equation we won't make it either, but we're definitely better off now than before.
Yea we went through disecting all the stats last year. Tua played better against common opponents compared to others like Mahomes, Hurts, Herbert, and Allen in just about every instance. It's hard to find many examples of teams playing better against great teams vs. bottom feeders.
Imo the Tua of the 2022 season was better then the one we saw last season. I really hope this year he puts it all together, in staying healthy again without the „cushion“ he was carrying last season. I also wonder if our collaps last year was just because of injuries and how we‘re going to look against the top teams this season especially on the road.
I think we’re more of a contender then with Flores when you simply look at the rosters on the other hand I think Flores did more with less. McDaniel has a harder task though, turning from good to great wich is harder than turning from bad to good imo. That said I‘m happy Flores is gone, when I look at how he behaved after he was fired.
Think about you adding someone like Mostert in there as if anyone would have viewed him as elite talent or that he was on the way to having his best two seasons of his career despite passing 30. But trying to pretend they had an all star team at every position is just trying to deflect from Flores doing very little. Even if texting him he sucked was secretly brilliant motivation they still had 4 offensive coordinators in the three years Flores was here. And same things that apply to Tua apply to Austin Jackson who looked like he didn't belong in the league
McD is also at fault for those collapses. Sometimes it seemed like he didn't know how to gameplan well against certain teams. Regardless, we need to start off really strong this season because the last 4 games are really tough on paper: 3 away games out of the last 4 to end the season, and the only home game is against SF which is a very tough opponent. Those 3 away games are against the Texans, Browns and Jets, all of which are expected to have winning records based on Vegas odds. Great test to see if we can win crucial games late in the season.
I disagree, Flores was not a good head coach. He belittled his 1st round draft pick and either made no effort to craft an offense tailored to the strengths of his 1st round draft pick quarterback or he was unable. The great Don Shula, contrary to what many may know was a DEFENSIVE player and coach and yet he tailored offenses for both the 70’s era Dolphins and the 80’s with Marino, until the hiring of Gary Stevens as the Dolphins first offensive coordinator. In this age of professional football, a head coach is not expected to be a guru on both sides of the ball but he should be SMART enough to hire the RIGHT coordinators. He wasn’t a good enough coach to know WHICH coordinator to go after for Tua, so he promoted from within with co-coordinators…and went over like a fart in the wind.
Flores was a horrible HC. And I see some are still just ignoring context, being lazy, and screaming at the sky.
The team Flores put on the field was painfully boring to watch. Remember, this is entertainment and they were not entertaining. He coached Tua for 2 years. If he could not see that his methods weren't working, then he is an idiot and deserved to be fired. If he could see they weren't working and continued, then he was actively sabotaging his QB's career and deserved to be fired.
Talent wise the Flores teams were clearly inferior IMO. Then you look at the win totals 10 and 9 in Flores' last two seasons vs 10 and 11 wins under McDaniel w a better roster including Tua for a full season in 2023. Win-Loss record is only one metric however if we're calling the previous HC terrible and the new guy good then shouldn't it show up in the standings?
I agree and have said as much in previous posts, the Dolphins are much more exciting to watch under McDaniel. The question I'm asking while we debate Flores' incompetence is how much of the improvement is due to Grier adding Hill, Mostert, Armstead, Achane etc.vs McDaniel having a better relationship w Tua.
Further evidence of offseason changes made by Tua over the years, from someone who knows him pretty darn well: https://www.al.com/sports/2024/08/j...or-the-new-tua-tagovailoa.html?outputType=amp
Flores had an amazing start but fluttered like a vile dictator on the way out. People like that need to be checked
2019 ranks up there as one of my favorite teams / fun in 40 plus years of fandom. Loved Fitz and loved that team. For that reason, and reason alone i cant really hate Flores. The team that was supposed to tank played like ****ing rockstars down the stretch. I just dislike him immensely
There is no doubt that Tua is a better QB now than under Flores. It is due to many factors, relationship being just one of them. Having said that, I don't think Tua would still be here if Flores was still the HC. He was actively trying to get Tua, cut, not resigned, or traded. IMO, Tua is a top 5 or 6 QB in the league. Losing that caliber QB would have been ridiculous. Everybody ranks QBs differently, but the last two seasons, Tua has been top 5 in nearly every category used to rate QBs. I think there are the top 2 or 3 QBs, then a group of 7 or 8 that are good enough that the QB position is not something the team spends too much time thinking about. They spend more time molding the team to the QB. After those guys, there are another 7 or 8 that can play well enough in stretches but the team is keeping an eye out for better options. Below that are teams that are trying to upgrade the position and will over spend to do it. Mixed in are teams that have recently acquired a QB and are giving them time to work it out.
If Flores had his way we would've shipped 3 1st rounders, 2 2nd rounders, and a 230m fully guaranteed contract for Deshaun Watson. He piloted the novel concept of two inexperienced co-offensive coordinators. He lured a 70 year old OC out of retirement after not having been in the league for 5 years. His vaunted defenses gave up 56 points in a win-and-in playoff game in 2020 against a team who had nothing to play for and another 34 in a "win your last two and in" in 2021 game against Ryan Tannehill and the Titans. His defenses folded just as bad or worse than any McDaniel defense has....and that's his "specialty" He had the genius idea of taking the "swiss army knife", ball hawking, but also a menace in the box tackling Minkah Fitzpatrick and sticking him out on boundary CB, negating > 50% of his skillset. Coaching him sooooo "hard" that he forced someone who is universally viewed as one of the toughest SOBs in the NFL to demand a trade and off the team. And I really don't think citing players like Raheem Mostert, who hit the open market and commanded little interest only to re-sign here for like 2.8 per year....Braxton Berrios...Achane (a 3rd round rookie).....and Alec Ingold as evidence of a superior roster makes sense. IMO, these are guys that succeed because of the offense and QB skillset. Final thought....Say what you will about Tua. The guy needs to elevate his play in big spots and against better defenses down the stretch. I'm not sure anyone will argue that. But the fact remains, every single skill position player has been better with him than without him. That goes for superstars like T. Hill (which almost no one thought was possible and there's like a billion receipts to prove it), good players like Mostert, mediocre players like Devante Parker, Mike Gesicki, Braxton Berrios, as well as bottom of the roster guys like Mack Hollins, Jakeem Grant, and Lynn Bowden.
lol… noooooooo It’s gonna be like kind of fun if we win but not really cause we have to wait for the final quarter of the season to see the performance Can we just skip to the final quarter of the season?
