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Why I’m cool with firing Flores.

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by Pauly, Jan 13, 2022.

  1. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    I was originally going to make a thread about not jumping aboard the Flores train, but events got ahead of me. I wasn’t going to advocate firing Flores, more to take a skeptical view of him. I’m not going to address the behind closed doors stuff about relationships with Tua or Grier because that’s all speculation and interpretation.

    As cbrad has shown getting 2 consecutive winning seasons in your first 3 years is a very good indicator you have a legitimate strong HC. So why am I not so convinced about Flores?

    Well the 17 game season is one reason. Simply put but my quick eyeball of records roughly 15 to 20% of teams finished at 8-8 in a 16 game season. Combine with the near impossibility of going 8-8-1 that means that instead of around 40% of teams having a winning record in a given season around 50% of teams will have a winning record. So going 9-8 to get the winning record just isn’t as impressive.

    People point to finishing the season 8 of 9 as being reason to be up on Flores, but he was also the architect of the 7 game losing streak.
    Why I put the 7 game losing streak on Flores.
    1) Having 2 OCs, with both having play calling duties. This is plainly stupid and was abandoned at some point in the season, I can’t identify when it changed but it seems about midway through the season.
    2) The defense only coming to life after Flores took over playcalling. This begs the question of What the hell was Josh Boyer doing and why hadn’t Flores stepped in to right the ship beforehand?
    3) The reliance on cover-0. Cover-0 works best when you have a lead, but our D struggled to stop anyone after they had taken the lead. It’s fine when you’re facing bottom dwellers, rookie QBs and a running back masquerading as a QB, but sooner or later you have to put on your big boy pants and stop a good team that has taken a lead.
    4) Our running game. When your best RB for the year is the guy who got cut from the Texans and the Jags, and only got promoted from the practice squad because of COVID that tells me there was a serious problem identifying and using RBs, and that falls on the HC.
    5) The OL. Flores has had 3 years to rebuild the OL. Instead he’s hired 4 different OL coaches and put the worst pass blocking line in football together.
    NB - As for the RB and OL situation Grier has to shoulder some of the blame for that, but by the same token at some point Flores has had to have looked around at the RB room and OL room and said to Grier, I’m good with what we have.

    Going 0 for 2 in playoff defining games. It isn’t just that we lost to the Bills last season and the Titans this season, it’s the utter shambolic mess that happened in those 2 games.

    As for the Tua-Herbert debate, this strikes me as similar to the Saban saying he preferred Brees over Culpepper after the event. There was no contemporaneous reporting of Flores pounding the table for Herbert at the time, and the reporting has only surfaced after events have shown what the best choice was. Also comparing our OC and OL situation with the Charger’s situation makes me think that if the draft choices were flipped the Chargers would still have the better QB.
     
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  2. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    For the heck of it, I'll counter your points...and this is the big one. Yes, we did start 1-7 and Flores is absolutely liable there. But let's be honest, those first five games were brutal and many of us expected to be 0-5. The late-season Dolphins might have won 1 more in the first five, then they would have closed out a few of the later embarrassments (Jax, Falcons, etc). The real problem for me was mid-season.

    I also think context is important here and the strength of our team is the cover zero. With Jones and X playing hurt, our defense couldn't function and we didn't play to our strengths. The offense stunk all year (more so w/ Tua out) so I don't think that would have changed a lot. But yeah, we had 3 or 4 that got away from us...but we seem to do that every season.

    This is 100% poo-poo. At the midway point, we had the worst offensive line in the league by a wide margin. We led the league in drops. We had no running game. We were missing three of our starting receivers. Plus Tua was out for a decent stretch.

    Anyone who thinks you can draw up x's and o's with no semblance of an offense is not a football person. It literally can't be done consistently at a high level. We had two offensive coordinators because you couldn't promote one without slighting the other, so we just promoted them both in title. But they put in some massive work getting the "O" to be able to move the ball...it just shouldn't have been possible. So they went with full time run blocking and short passes; pretty innovative honestly.

    The D came to life when X and Jones were healthy enough to get back to being a shutdown corner. The entire defense runs through them and if they aren't 100%, we can't dial up the pressure. It is what it is...but this was certainly not Flores's fault. If anything, he deserves credit for switching things up and getting that level of production in the 2nd half of the season.

    I'll also throw in here that a 1-7 team never had a winning season- it just doesn't happen. What we saw the 2nd half of the season was magic.

    I completely agree here. But again, you work with what you have. It stopped the Ravens and the Pats, so it's not only bottom dwellers that felt its wrath.

    We were keyed in on RB Williams from North Carolina and the Broncos hopped over us to grab him. It stinks, but would you have passed on Philips to grab him, Etienne or Najee Harris? And what if we grabbed Etienne, who was out for the entire season? It isn't fair to play devil's advocate after the fact...and it's not fair to blame a HC for who was drafted in the late 1st round.

    I've seen several times that Flores couldn't find anyone to hire this last year- either they said no, or Grier said no because they were too expensive. It is on record that the front office just didn't see this as an area of investment...and it killed the year. That is ultimately on Flores but come on, you don't fire a HC for that when it's clear he got some heat for suggesting a big upgrade.

    We won't ever have the full truth here, but it is obvious that Flores has issue with starting Tua both seasons. Maybe he backed that pick, or maybe he didn't. But let's remember that there's around a 50% bust rate in the 1st round...it happens. Tua is not a bust yet though and once we actually build some semblance of an offense, I think he's going to be just fine.

    Again though, going back to my earlier point- this offense was complete shambles to the point where coaching couldn't fix it. We were starting players who had no business starting in the NFL. There's no way that's solely on Flores, but we can say that the 9-8 record certainly was. For that reason, I'd give him the two more years on his contract that we'll be paying him regardless.
     
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  3. OwesOwn614

    OwesOwn614 Well-Known Member

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    My frustration with the situation is simply that I want some stability after 20 years of mostly losing football. Two seasons with a winning record after proving how difficult that is to accomplish were refreshing. Firing the coach responsible for it, whether he had warts or not, just signifies how dysfunctional this franchise is. I invest a lot in this team and I'm geeked when there's a little bit of momentum, either in a game or overall and I don't care about the reasons, firing a coach is a sign that we suck. Again.

    Forget the seven game losing streak. Forget the seven game win streak. In the end, your record tells the world who you are and we were a 9-7 team. Not great, but on balance, a good team. We never had a chance in the playoffs with our OL and lack of a rushing attack, so I'm not too upset about missing out on the tourney. Besides, just like last year in Orchard Park, which I saw as our playoff game - win and we're in - we laid a collossal team egg in Nashville. We couldn't win when we needed to, so why cry about missing out on the same scenario in the playoffs? All we needed to do was beat Atlanta or Jacksonville or not lose to Las Vegas and we would be playing this weekend.

    Was Flo the greatest coach? Nope. Was he a good leader? Yes and no. His players followed him, so yes; he regularly cut, traded, or tore down players when he thought they could play better - sometimes when they weren't playing bad - so, loyalty to his guys wasn't exactly his strong suit. In the end, his dismissal was probably justified for reasons we'll never be privy to knowing. But ultimately, firing your head coach is a sign of failure and dysfunction. So I'm unhappy we fired our coach, but not as unhappy that we fired Brian Flores.

    Time for a new avatar.
     
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  4. OwesOwn614

    OwesOwn614 Well-Known Member

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  5. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Nearly everything you list, you’re pointing your finger at the wrong person.

    Who signs, releases, trades and drafts players? Chris Grier

    Who’s created such a toxic environment that no legitimate experienced NFL head coach has been here since 2003? Chris Grier and company.

    While Grier has had some hits with personnel signings, he’s had more misses and squandered more opportunities in the draft than any other team. Look at how many veterans we lost in the off-season that could have, and did provide that on field leadership last season. The “kids” were on their own on the field without their “big brothers” out there. It took a while for that to finally meld.

    As for coaches, Flores was set up for failure with the toxic environment in Miami. There was NO great position coaches banging on the door to come to Miami. No great coordinators. Everyone knows the front office in Miami is a pure sh#t show and no self respecting position coach is going to want to be part of it. Look at just how many players we have that go to other teams and have phenomenal careers.

    Are there some games we should have won that we didn’t? Sure, but there are some games we won that we shouldn’t have either. That’s why you play the game but with any football team, it all starts with coaching but when you have such a toxic environment, you can only attract so much.

    Flores was the best thing this team had in nearly 20 years. It’s too bad the front office couldn’t just do their job, sit back and let Flores do his
     
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  6. mlb1399

    mlb1399 Well-Known Member

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    Here’s why I’m not:
    1. If you’re going to make a change, Chris Grier is public enemy number 1(since you can’t fire an owner). He’s been here since 2007 and until Flor came along, not only were we not competitive, we didn’t win. He’s had multiple drafts that were complete misses and got the QB decision wrong.

    2) architect of the 7 game losing streak? I don’t even know what this means. He chose to get Tua injured, have both of our Cb’s injured banged up, Davis, Parker, Dieter. He doesn’t get a free pass but injuries killed us. The drop off between Tua and Brisset was substantial. This is the problem with drafting a QB with an injury history like Tuas. Almost every season you’re going to be relying on a back up. This is a QB driven league and that’s a huge hit to your chance of winning.

    3. I don’t understand the co-offensive coordinator thing either. This is the one knock on Flo, he struggled assembling a staff.

    4. The defense. Our whole Cover 0 scheme depends on having 2 corners who can play man with no one up top. Clearly having Howard and Jones not healthy impacts this. Not to mention our run stuffing DT. And relying on a rookie pass rusher playing a new position. IMO, outside of getting people healthy, the development of Phillips was one of the keys to our defense and our winning streak. In the nfl, if you can’t rush the QB, you’re not gonna win a lot of games.

    5. There’s no problem with the cover 0 defense. They were a lot more competitive after they got healthy against Buffalo in game 2. No matter how good your defense is, the nfl is an offensive driven league and some games you’re just gonna have to put up some points and we don’t have the OL or the QB to do that.

    6. The run game and OL. I think these 2 go hand in hand. If you can block, a lot of RB’s can have success. Look at Ten against us . I watched Jackson before he was drafted and thought he was garbage. I’d say we only had 1 quality OL this year. Maybe some of that is on Flores but this has been a recurring issue prior to Flores being here. To me that’s on Grier, which refer to point 1, we fired the wrong person.

    7. I would have liked to see us more competitive in those games too. But I don’t think you can compete with elite teams on defense alone. This offense sucks. Some of that is on Flo but Grier has made some terrible decisions as GM. He’s had way too many misses. Tua had horrible games in both of those contests. Four fumbles and 2 INT’s, you’re not gonna win a lot of games with that level of play . Some of this is on our OL, but the reason there’s 20+ pages on whether Tua is the problem, is because his play hasn’t silenced the critics which means he IS part of the problem.
     
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  7. ExplosionsInDaSky

    ExplosionsInDaSky Well-Known Member

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    Flores is a defensive guy. Yet our defense was awful for half the season and bad again whenever we played a good team. However, every win that we have gotten over the last two years...All 19 of them...have been because the defense has made outstanding plays throughout the game. I think Flores deserves credibility for that, but the offense was never going to improve with him calling the shots. With that said, it takes talent in order for an offense to be good. I don't think Ross or Grier have a definitive answer on Tua yet. It's obvious that they want to improve and most likely focus on the offense this offseason.
    As of right now, the Flores firing looks bad to me personally, but if our offense improves, the blocking improves and Tua improves, the I'll be cool with this.
     
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  8. OwesOwn614

    OwesOwn614 Well-Known Member

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    There's a lot of chum in the water right now.
     
  9. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    This is getting ridiculous. We won five games after Thanksgiving. How the hell are we going to win five games if Flores was not talking to his staff?

    I lose more respect for Grier and the Dolphins with each passing day. You know these garbage hit pieces are being put out there by them.
     
  10. TheHighExhaulted

    TheHighExhaulted Well-Known Member

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    You can't believe that Mr. Personality Brian Flores could actually do something like this? Have you ever watched one of his press conferences. He has the personality of a rock.
     
  11. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    You don't need personality to coach a football team. Bellichik has zero personality as well. I still don't believe he completely stopped talking to his staff. Maybe the water boys, but not the coordinators. How are we going to win five games if he's not communicating with anyone?
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
  12. TheHighExhaulted

    TheHighExhaulted Well-Known Member

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    You can't compare Brian Flores to Bill Belichick, sorry.
     
  13. texanphinatic

    texanphinatic Senior Member

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    Yeah but he's got rings. You can be that way when you win that way. Flores - and all the prior Pats assistants - do not. But they like to come in acting like they do. It's a definite pattern. McDaniel, Obrien, Patricia, Flores.

    The things coming out about Flores are not surprising and, while there certainly may be some embellishment, I absolutely suspect more than a grain of truth.

    I strongly feel people's dislike of Grier is clouding the narrative on Flores.
     
  14. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    Well, actually. Flores won four rings with the Patriots, and he played a large part in them winning those rings, so he gets to be that way if he wants to. He has actually done something.

    As opposed to Grier who is nothing but a grifter daddy's boy who's only significant accomplishment is being very good at licking Ross's balls.

    Yeah I do dislike Grier and for good reason. He's a cancer in the organization.
     
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  15. TheHighExhaulted

    TheHighExhaulted Well-Known Member

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    He played a large part in winning those four Super Bowl rings? Give me a break.

    He was an assistant scout for the first one. He was a safety coach for the second one. He was a linebacker coach for the third one. And, supposedly he called defensive plays for the fourth one.

    Nevermind them having the greatest head coach and quarterback of all-time.
     
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  16. OwesOwn614

    OwesOwn614 Well-Known Member

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    I added a few to your list. All of them come in with the hoodie and attitude but not the Brady.

    Hmmm... I just figured out why finding a generational QB is the hill that Flo chose to die on.
     
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  17. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    I’m starting to think that it’s BB being HC/GM that curses his assistants when they go to a different organization and have to learn how to manage a relationship with a GM for the first time.
     
  18. Dolfanalyst

    Dolfanalyst Active Member

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    This is a team that was just one of only three teams in the league (Lions and Giants were the others) that didn't receive a single vote for any of its players for the league all-pro team.

    I suspect Flores and company were hamstrung by that deficiency in talent, and the RPO offense and cover-zero defense were schematic attempts, on both sides of the ball, to solve that problem.

    If that's the case, then a 9-8 record is quite an accomplishment. The teams with roughly equivalent talent -- Lions and Giants -- were 4-13 and 3-14.

    Now, that doesn't mean Brian Flores didn't exhibit some sort of deficiency (in coaching or interpersonally or what have you) that makes roughly .500 the best he can do in the league, and if that's the case then he should be fired. I think that's unclear at the present time, but I do think that in appraising the job Flores has done the team's very low level of talent should be strongly considered.
     
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  19. Pennington's Limp Arm

    Pennington's Limp Arm Well-Known Member

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    And now we find out Flores told Tua the Dolphins should have drafted Mac Jones.

    Great way to ostracize both of your most important players on offense with one boneheaded comment. (This tears down Waddle too)

    Terrible leadership. It’s one thing to yell at a guy about getting things right. It’s a whole different thing to say you wish he was replaced by a division rivals mediocre rookie QB… and you’re own college backup!

    I think he has New England derangement syndrome. This proves it…. If it wasn’t already proven by him trying to bring in every available player who ever touched the Patriots roster while he was working there.

    Good riddance. He was never going to figure out how to get a competent offense in place anyways.
     
  20. Fireland

    Fireland Well-Known Member

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    The Mac Jones story wasn't true. It was clarified that he didn't actually say that.
     
  21. Pennington's Limp Arm

    Pennington's Limp Arm Well-Known Member

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    Well then.
    How dare the media not be honest…
     

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