Who's the Next Coach?

"texanphinatic wrote:

Considering it was Gase determining our QB and OL personnel, I think it's safe to say he was at least part of the problem, not the solution.

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You might be right. Or was he playing the hand that he was dealt? Everything looked good to start the season. He can’t control injuries. Who’s decision was it to put the viability of this OL on a veteran guard who has a history of injuries?

"Galant wrote:

"the Dolphins instead seem focused on five candidates: Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, Patriots de facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores, Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, Cowboys defensive backs coach Kris Richard and Darren Rizzi, who has run Miami’s special teams since 2010.

Rizzi will meet with Stephen Ross and Chris Grier at some point this week. And then, expect an offer to be made to someone, either formally or informally."

Per Beasely - LINK

Please No dennis allen. He didnt do well for the raiders.

"mlb1399 wrote:

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You might be right. Or was he playing the hand that he was dealt? Everything looked good to start the season. He can’t control injuries. Who’s decision was it to put the viability of this OL on a veteran guard who has a history of injuries?

He decided to stick with Ryan yet another year. He had roster control. He is the one that attempted to skimp on OL believing it wasn't necessary based on his experience with Manning and Denver. He's also the one who decided to heavily feature smaller guys who hadn't been used so often. Injuries aren't always freak occurrences.

I think that most critics did their best to take the injuries into account while forming an opinion of Gase, and that we still felt he was coming up short regardless. Offensive production was atrocious, defense was record breakingly bad. The injuries were a contributor, but really just a convenient excuse for other shortcomings and failures to many of us.

Matt Lefluer just became the Packers HC.

"Galant wrote:

With the report from @AdamHBeasley that Brian Flores may be at the top of the #Dolphins wish list, it's time you get to know who he is.

Here's an in-depth look from @frosted_takes on Flores and what he can bring as head coach.https://t.co/wuvW2Yk9hA

— PFSN (@PFSN365) January 7, 2019

I didn't know why, but I am not excited about this.

"texanphinatic wrote:

He decided to stick with Ryan yet another year. He had roster control. He is the one that attempted to skimp on OL believing it wasn't necessary based on his experience with Manning and Denver. He's also the one who decided to heavily feature smaller guys who hadn't been used so often. Injuries aren't always freak occurrences.

I think that most critics did their best to take the injuries into account while forming an opinion of Gase, and that we still felt he was coming up short regardless. Offensive production was atrocious, defense was record breakingly bad. The injuries were a contributor, but really just a convenient excuse for other shortcomings and failures to many of us.

I thought roster decisions were Tannenbaums/Grier’s? If I’m mistaken then I’ll retread part of my comments. My main thing is I don’t think you’re gonna see success or build a winner when you don’t fully commit to 4-5 years to a coach. I also don’t know how you’re gonna be successful when your drafts are shotty, trades don’t pan out(Quinn) and FA signings end up injured(Sitton).

Tannenbaum, Grier AND Gase had a say in players but Gase had final say on the roster.

K. Richard. Or ricci.

"Surfs Up 99 wrote:

I didn't know why, but I am not excited about this.

ESPN had an interesting article on Patriots defenses and how the "bend but don't break" is kind of a misnomer. In essence, it boiled down to the Pats scoring so often it pins teams deep (kickoffs vs punts) and forces them to accrue more yardage, plus they get early leads so often they can go into prevent mode earlier than others. In essence, in the stats that really count, they are a solid unit.

The Pats/BB tree overall has been pretty much a wasteland (I don't value Saban's NCAA career as we are not an NCAA team). Flores is an interesting guy though from looking into him. If I was making a hire I'd definitely want to see how he would incorporate lessons from his tenure in New England while being true to himself and not just being a generic attempt at a copy/paste. I don't need him to be Andy Reid in front of the press, but not being Matt Patricia would help. That kind of thing.

"mooseguts wrote:

Matt Lefluer just became the Packers HC.

Interesting, I would not have pegged him as a likely candidate. Seems they would prefer to keep Pettine as DC too. Definitely an attempt to catch the McVay lighting in a bottle.

Looks like the Jets are going HARD after Baylor coach Matt Rhule. That would be a fairly left field hire. It's been a minute since a college guy had a shot, will be interesting to see if he has success early if that might reopen the pipeline heavily.

"Galant wrote:

With the report from @AdamHBeasley that Brian Flores may be at the top of the #Dolphins wish list, it's time you get to know who he is.

Here's an in-depth look from @frosted_takes on Flores and what he can bring as head coach.https://t.co/wuvW2Yk9hA

— PFSN (@PFSN365) January 7, 2019

:confused2:

That article was literally about how good Gilmore was on a island and how the defense held up... I don't know much about Flores and I am really trying to not pigeon hole him just because he is another BB coordinator, but where is the specialness to Flores that would require hiring a 37 year old, one year coordinator? What am I missing?

"Surfs Up 99 wrote:

I didn't know why, but I am not excited about this.

Because none of them have had success outside of New England. Least of all a none Coordinator. Well 1 year but that’s not really experience IMHO I want more experience

"mlb1399 wrote:

Here’s what I don’t understand. You fire the coach who’s showed some promise but has been capped by injuries and bad drafting to take a chance at someone who looks good because they’ve got a ton of talent on offense(KC) or defense(Bears). Maybe it’s just that I simply don’t trust Ross or any decision he or anyone he’s hired will make.

It’s not the injuries. Every team has injuries. Other teams were hit harder than us. It’s the fact that if the first team wasn’t on the field that production collapsed that made Gase fireable.

I’m old enough to remember the Don shula years when the backups were well prepared and contributed meaningfully. In the famous 1985 MNF football game where we trashed the Bears did you know we had lost 3 of our 5 starting OL by that point of the season? Did that stop us whipping what many call the best defense in NFL history? Don Shula made 3 superbowls either relying primarily on his backup QB or with his backup making very significant contributions to the season (1968, 1972 and 1982)

The point is Gase has had 3 years to acquire and coachup the backups. Many of us forgave Gase in year 1 when the team performed well with the unicorns but badly without them. But in the third season it is reasonable to expect that people you have brought into your system and training regime should be able to contribute. It’s not just the OL, it’s the receivers, its the DBs its the LBs, its the DL, its the QB. Throughout the team the backups did not step up when called on, with the possible exception of RB.

Our offensive and defensive rankings have cratered under Gase. The most positive thing I can say about Gase is that he wins way more 1 score games than usual. So he has outperformed expected W-L record than normal production stats (overall yards gained, yards per play, points, etc) predict by about 2-3 wins per season. Some of that is due to opponents not making as many FGs against Miami as expected, which if anything goes to Rizzi not Gase. Even if it is all on Gase what his special ability is doing, on average, is turning an otherwise 5-11 team into an 8-8 team.

"Pauly wrote:

Even if it is all on Gase what his special ability is doing, on average, is turning an otherwise 5-11 team into an 8-8 team.

See here is where I get confused by the argument.

If Coach X, takes a 5 win talent team and makes them an 8 win team, that is great coaching. It would stand to reason then, he could take an 8 win talent team and make them an 11 win team, no?

I'm not arguing in favor of Gase here, I'm trying to understand the overriding logic and thought processes going on.

"Fin D wrote:

See here is where I get confused by the argument.

If Coach X, takes a 5 win talent team and makes them an 8 win team, that is great coaching. It would stand to reason then, he could take an 8 win talent team and make them an 11 win team, no?

I'm not arguing in favor of Gase here, I'm trying to understand the overriding logic and thought processes going on.

Not really. Going from 5-11 to 8-8 is coaching to the average. Going above that is to go above the average. I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the first argument, but to continue by just adding 3 wins doesn't make sense. Why not just continue all the way to perfect season after perfect season.

"texanphinatic wrote:

Not really. Going from 5-11 to 8-8 is coaching to the average. Going above that is to go above the average. I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the first argument, but to continue by just adding 3 wins doesn't make sense. Why not just continue all the way to perfect season after perfect season.

Not sure what the argument is, but it is CLEARLY a good thing Adam Gase and Ryan Tannehill are the FK up out of South Florida all together soon.

"Fin D wrote:

See here is where I get confused by the argument.

If Coach X, takes a 5 win talent team and makes them an 8 win team, that is great coaching. It would stand to reason then, he could take an 8 win talent team and make them an 11 win team, no?

I'm not arguing in favor of Gase here, I'm trying to understand the overriding logic and thought processes going on.

If he was taking an 8-8 team and turning it into 11-5 then that’s a great argument for keeping him.

The over-riding thought is that the base level production he has gotten over 3 years is roughly 5-11 and not showing any signs of being on an upward trajectory. The offensive rankings have been bad and the defensive rankings even worse. There’s nothing in the base levels of production that indicate Gase can build a sustainably successful offense or defense.

Gase’s teams have only produced good spells when the majority of the starters are uninjured. Relying on your starters to be uninjured and healthy all the time is a hope, not a plan. Coaching up the reserves into being adequate fill-ins for the starters is a plan. When Gase was hired there was a lot of talk about hiring “teaching” coaches. Every team’s coaching staff says it will coach up and prepare young talent. The proof has been shown that Gase and his staff do not do that.

Good long term coaches have teams that improve from low rankings. HoF coaches, on average, have delivered back to back winning seasons by year 3. Gase’s production is not consistent with what has previously been proven to be true about successful coaches.

"texanphinatic wrote:

Not really. Going from 5-11 to 8-8 is coaching to the average. Going above that is to go above the average. I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the first argument, but to continue by just adding 3 wins doesn't make sense. Why not just continue all the way to perfect season after perfect season.

To look at point differential, as one of the many ways to measure a team’s production and from that generate an expected W-L record.
From this article https://www.cmusportsanalytics.com/wins-point-differential-nfl/ it’s shown that for every +33 in point differential you have that increases your expected wins/season by one.

Gase’s teams.
2016
-17 point differential.
Expected record. 7-8-1. Actual record. 10-6.
Outperformed expected wins by 2.5

2017
-112 point differential.
Expected record 4-11-1. Actual record 6-10
Outperformed expected wins by 1.5

2018
-114 point differential
Expected record 4-11-1. Actual record 7-9
Outperformed expected wins by 2.5.

* I have expressed expected record as the closest to an actual NFL record.

There are other methods to calculate expected wins based in overall team performance. All of them suggest Gase is outperforming his expected W-L record in the region of 2-3 wins/season. This example is just what I consider to be the simplest.

Jason LaCanfora believes Brian Flores will be the head coach in Miami. It should be noted that we spent the most time with Flores, his interview bled into the next morning. I believe Rizzi is just a token interview at this point.

"KeyFin wrote:

I think they're locked on Wentz. But how do you cut loose a guy who wins a SB twice in a row? It would be pandemonium as teams try to throw 1st rounders at the Eagles...and hopefully we're not a part of that. I don't mind paying a premium (in money) but draft picks are sacred to me.

If we hire flores I will officially have lost all faith in the miami dolphins organuzation.

"hitman8 wrote:

If we hire flores I will officially have lost all faith in the miami dolphins organuzation.

He might turn out worse for us than Hue Jackson was for the Browns ... but that's a pretty miserable opinion to have and way to look at it. It's not like we are taking a career loser like Dennis 8-28 Allen, or some random person nobody has ever heard of that nobody else even bothered to check in with. It's not like Dennis 10th place Hickey. Those are things to lose faith in, not a guy that many throughout the NFL are excited to see.

As a general pessimist myself, I would certainly be concerned about offshoots of the BB tree, but it's similar to, say, the ol Jeff Tedford QBs all blow ass in the NFL. Well, they did ... until Rogers came along.

"hitman8 wrote:

If we hire flores I will officially have lost all faith in the miami dolphins organuzation.

Flores is a well regarded young coach, who had a good first year as defensive coordinator for the Patriots. He's seen as a rising coach in the league. Ok, BB coaches don't tend to have a great deal of success outside of New England, but if the decision makers like the guy, then that's the risk they take by hiring out of the BB tree.

The other thing to consider here is that this job was unlikely to tempt the so-called top candidates. Why would Bruce Arians or the Harbaughs want to come here, because Dan Marino was once our quarterback and Don Shula was one of the all time great head coaches?

Realistically this team doesn't have a great deal to offer right now. No quarterback and not in a position to draft a franchise changing quarterback, and arguably the free agent pile is thin. I guess Flacco has a ring but he's an uninspiring choice, and Foles is only magic with the Eagles. So quarterback wise there's nothing to attract people here. The OL still needs a lot of work. The offense as a whole needs work. As for the defense, there are some pieces to build around, but there's plenty of work to do on that side of the ball as well. The decision makers might not want to admit it, but this is a rebuild and the top candidates are not going to be tempted by that, especially when better openings are available to them.

So while Flores might not be a sexy choice, unfortunately that's the kind of coach we are going to be hiring. A rising young coach looking for their first head coaching gig. Maybe people want the guy from the Chiefs, but is he really the brains behind their offense? Not really, that's Andy Reid since he calls the plays and designed the offense. So Eric Bieniemy is no better a candidate because he's inexperienced. What about Kris Richard? Ok I'd prefer him than Flores, and he's got more experience, but he did get canned from the Seahawks defense coordinator position and that defense is Rod Marinelli's defense. So potentially none of these guys are ideal candidates, but that's what we are looking at because we aren't in a position to attract better than that. But if we put that aside, all three are rising coaches and well respected. So I think losing faith in the team is extreme if we go for Flores because he's the kind of coach we were always likely to go for at this stage.

"Mike8272 wrote:

Flores is a well regarded young coach, who had a good first year as defensive coordinator for the Patriots. He's seen as a rising coach in the league. Ok, BB coaches don't tend to have a great deal of success outside of New England, but if the decision makers like the guy, then that's the risk they take by hiring out of the BB tree.

The other thing to consider here is that this job was unlikely to tempt the so-called top candidates. Why would Bruce Arians or the Harbaughs want to come here, because Dan Marino was once our quarterback and Don Shula was one of the all time great head coaches?

Realistically this team doesn't have a great deal to offer right now. No quarterback and not in a position to draft a franchise changing quarterback, and arguably the free agent pile is thin. I guess Flacco has a ring but he's an uninspiring choice, and Foles is only magic with the Eagles. So quarterback wise there's nothing to attract people here. The OL still needs a lot of work. The offense as a whole needs work. As for the defense, there are some pieces to build around, but there's plenty of work to do on that side of the ball as well. The decision makers might not want to admit it, but this is a rebuild and the top candidates are not going to be tempted by that, especially when better openings are available to them.

So while Flores might not be a sexy choice, unfortunately that's the kind of coach we are going to be hiring. A rising young coach looking for their first head coaching gig. Maybe people want the guy from the Chiefs, but is he really the brains behind their offense? Not really, that's Andy Reid since he calls the plays and designed the offense. So Eric Bieniemy is no better a candidate because he's inexperienced. What about Kris Richard? Ok I'd prefer him than Flores, and he's got more experience, but he did get canned from the Seahawks defense coordinator position and that defense is Rod Marinelli's defense. So potentially none of these guys are ideal candidates, but that's what we are looking at because we aren't in a position to attract better than that. But if we put that aside, all three are rising coaches and well respected. So I think losing faith in the team is extreme if we go for Flores because he's the kind of coach we were always likely to go for at this stage.

Why don't you mention Rizzi? He is the best candidate given our current situation and whats available. If are really in rebuilding mode then rizzi should be the choice. He is the one best known to us and the one most accepted by the players. He is already here and knows the sutuation better than anyone.

"hitman8 wrote:

Why don't you mention Rizzi? He is the best candidate given our current situation and whats available. If are really in rebuilding mode then rizzi should be the choice. He is the one best known to us and the one most accepted by the players. He is already here and knows the sutuation better than anyone.

I would have no problem with Rizzi being given the opportunity. If he has the players support and has a clear plan and philosophy - great, hire the guy. However, with him being a special teams guy, what would his offense and defense look like?

I know some point towards Harbaugh coming from special teams to Baltimore, but that's slightly different because they already had a clear defensive culture and run first offense. Here in Miami we don't have the same culture defensively, and the offense needs work too. So Rizzi wouldn't be entering into an easy position, he would need to hire proven coordinators to help him.

"Mike8272 wrote:

I would have no problem with Rizzi being given the opportunity. If he has the players support and has a clear plan and philosophy - great, hire the guy. However, with him being a special teams guy, what would his offense and defense look like?

I know some point towards Harbaugh coming from special teams to Baltimore, but that's slightly different because they already had a clear defensive culture and run first offense. Here in Miami we don't have the same culture defensively, and the offense needs work too. So Rizzi wouldn't be entering into an easy position, he would need to hire proven coordinators to help him.

How would you feel with Rizzi as HC and Loggains as OC? That is why I asked earlier if Gase's offensive system is sound. Should we continue on with coaches who want to rebuild and try and do it right with the basically the same offensive system that Gase installed, or go in a new direction on offense?