While I'm not the least bit thrilled over Flores's firing, if it's true that he continued to lobby for Watson, I can't put that on Grier.
Yeah I'm not buying all this BS on Flores right now, seems alot like damage control and PR spin from the team. Reading some of these articles now you'd think there was a full blown mutiny in that locker room because of Flores. If that was the case a team that lost 7 in a row wouldn't respond by winning 7 in a row thereafter; they'd have packed it in and quit on that coach. The fact we never saw that makes some of these stories a bit puzzling to me. I don't understand Stephen Ross and his half measures though. How many more times is he going to search for a coach/gm separately. Why on earth would he think keeping Grier is in the best interest of the team given the waste of draft picks so far? Iggy? Jackson? Heck even Tua is a big question mark at this point. Doesn't make sense to me.
Something doesn't add up - Ross will leave the QB question up to the new HC - but he didn't listen to Flores during the rebuild draft last year?
Fair point. It may come out that Flores was 100% against Tua and all those "Tua is our QB" comments to the media was him avoiding any negativity. But at the same time, we've won 8 of the last 9 and Ross is saying this firing was over communication and consistency. 8 of 9 isn't consistent? What else actually matters in the grand scheme of things? It sounds like the front office is spinning this like we couldn't bring in better positional coaches because Flores is impossible to work with. That could be true and if so, that is a big deal. But the coach and the GM have to work together on everything, and it sounds like Flores wasn't getting much of a say on a lot of the cuts and signings. Was Flores over his head as a 1st time head coach? YES!!! But he received very little help from the front office in terms of the roster he had to field. It sounds like instead of calling some of those line picks busts, Grier is saying Flores is the bust and the reason they didn't develop (that's just one example, obviously not the whole story). There is a partial truth to that line of thinking but I don't believe it to be "true".
Yes. Last year makes sense if Flores was not onboard with Tua but Grier or Ross wanted him in and forced the issue. Will any new HC want a piece of that?
Word is players are commenting on this and are NOT happy. I haven't seen anything yet but it could be instagram.
I get that. But at the same time, we can't pretend that Flores never had any missteps. How he handled the Kenny Stills situation, for example, was needlessly petty. Plus, we can't ignore the fact that he's been pretty bad at hiring offensive line coaches. Again, not thrilled with thus decision, but I can't say that all of it is B.S.
That is what I have been hearing all year from the rumor mill. I disregarded it, however, it looks to be true. Flores was not good at building relationships with veterans and building an offense.
I wouldn't think so...and this was the exact reason why I didn't want to fire Adam Gase. It wasn't specifically Gase, it was the message it sends to future hires when you're stuck in a rebuild cycle for 20+ years. When you're known as a "rinse and repeat" franchise, nobody wants to go there and have their career basically end a year or two after it starts. If we don't get Harbaugh, I can't imagine any other veteran volunteering to step in and take over.
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you- we just don't know. Flores definitely had some mis-steps and some setbacks trying to make this young team work. I do know, however, that Flores pushed hard for a top line coach last offseason and he was told that it wasn't necessary to pay a big salary there. It was reported maybe around March 2021? Not sure, I'll try to dig it up. But it was saying that he was pretty much denied and then there was nobody else worth bringing in that would be an upgrade over the then-current assistant line coach. But who knows- it's he said, she said stuff in the front office. That could be 100% legit or a complete lie.
I saw Lynn Bowden Jr. was upset on Twitter. He may or may not be a Dolphin player. He quickly deleted the tweet.
Well, remember that he benched Tua a few times for Fitzpatrick the season before as well. I can't speak to last year, but it was crystal clear he wanted Fitz starting over Tua two seasons ago. Then we didn't even try to re-sign Fitz and Gailey walked, so this "rift" started a lot earlier than a lot of us fully realized. Again, not saying Flores wasn't a part of the problem there...but it was pretty clear he wanted Fitz as the QB1.
I saw tweets indicating Tua’s finger was fine and was never in question. It said Tua was golfing the Monday after he ‘injured’ the finger. In other words nobody was worried about the finger. Definitely not Tua. Flores straight benched Tua and Flores/team used the finger as an excuse to hide the benching. Turns out some of this Tuanon crap was actually true?!?!
I am completely out of words, it should not be shocking to anyone that the stadium is always empty and ran by other teams fans.
Another thing that happened is that when the Dolphins were 1-7 they were legit one of the worst teams in the NFL when it came to defense. After the Ravens game it looks like the players were relieved that they finally got back to what worked. As if they were asking for the staff to play them a certain way, and it took 7 games to finally get around to it. Maybe that was Flores being stubborn as well. I don't know. I am shocked. I liked Flores, but I can't pretend to not hear that Flores was rubbing people the wrong way all season.
This is the part that shocks me the most. As I said earlier that team never quit on him. So this stuff now about disconnects with players etc smells funny. Smells more like PR spin from Grier and company to make flores the scapegoat without the honesty and transparency as to why. To me; it's Tua. My guess Flores wanted to go another direction, it seems to have been reported he wanted Herbert instead earlier in the season. So this is Grier calling the shots here and Ross being too stupid to understand what's actually happening. Flores' game management, time management and staff management wasn't good at times, but he never lost this team's confidence regardless of what the stories are today. There's not much logic here unless you wanted Flores to nuke his offensive staff and he refused, or you simply didn't think he could build a better staff given he's been through what, 3 in 4 years? or 4 in 3? Relationships... so you saddled your HC with a QB he didn't want and now we're blaming the coach for that bad relationship? Yeah... maybe you need to look at the GM here. If we're making a decision based on a bad relationship now between the HC and GM, that's a two way street like every relationship is. There's not much logic to this choice. If you want to fire someone; fire both not another toxic half measure where the root of our problems is still employed.
I don’t know. I think our OL would have been serviceable had we kept Karras and Flowers. Our tackles would still be an issue but at least the interior would be good. Grier has taken 2 tackles and they both rank among the worst starting OT’s in the nfl over the last 2 seasons . Flo can bear some of that blame but sometimes your Gm just drafts crappy players.
I'm of the opinion that the two aren't mutually exclusive. But maybe that's just me. Positive vibes doesn't mean falling in line. Just ask the Natzis.
I do not agree. Of course, some players are going to like the coach. However, when it comes to the stuff about disconnect, we have been hearing that all year.
I think it has something to do with that we had GMs who left here and did a decent/good job elsewhere but never a coach. I don’t know, but it feels like we‘re doing the wrong thing again, just like we have come accustomed too… I liked Flo + he‘s the first coach to have 2 winning seasons in a row, for quite some time. I really wonder who Grier brings in as HC…
Darlington on sirius nfl radio basically says this is a decision of Grier and Ross's doing. Likely Ross making it on the advice of Grier due to a now dysfunctional relationship between Grier and Flores; in particular over the QB position... Tua in the draft. Watson after the fact. I think it's pretty clear now. Flores had no interest in Tua. Grier had no interest in Herbert. Tua wasn't working out and Flores wanted Watson to help the team win. Grier doesn't; lines are drawn and Grier has won the power struggle over Stephen Ross' feeble little brain. The joke in the front office ranks in Miami continues. When we kept Grier and hired Flores the plan was to streamline it and remove the dysfunction with two guys who will work together; right? Riiiight... The main root of the dysfunction still exists in Miami and that's Chris Grier.
I have head increasingly in the last few weeks that Flores is incredibly hard to work with all the way around. If he was in fact the one pushing for Watson all this time when I assumed it was Ross, well, I'm glad he is gone. You just cant make a move for a guy that may not be available for potentially 2 more years.
It's a disconnect between the HC and GM though; not the players. At least not the core. They can say all they want; but the real story here surrounds the power struggle between Flores and Grier that started and ended with the QB position and it likely goes directly back to drafting Tua over Herbert.
And what's made Flores difficult and tarnished the relationship is the decision of the GM (and likely owner) overruling him on the QB decision to draft Tua. That's becoming quite clear in all of this.
Yes. Flores was a Grier hire. If this didn't work out then Ross has to look at Grier too. If Grier drafted a QB that his HC didn't want, you have to look at Grier.
There were some players like Flowers, Van Noy, and Lawson. Maybe even McCain. There were rumors last offseason that Flores has a disconnect with veteran players. Omar even said in an interview that Flores really needs to learn how to coach veterans. Same with Big O. I heard that before Flores was fired. So it is not a new spin.