Sports Time Radio

Once the NFL regular season ends, but before the playoffs start teams seem to make their coaching changes and this year was no exception. Now we already had head coaching openings with the Jacksonville Jaquars and the Las Vegas Raiders, but there were five more teams who decided to fire their head coach and in three of those cases the general manager is also gone.

Four of the five head coaching firings where expected. The Denver Broncos fired Vic Fangio. The Chicago Bears fired Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace. The Minnesota Vikings fired Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman. The New York Giants allow Dave Gettleman to retire before firing head coach Joe Judge.

These firings weren’t a surprise even though there was some talk that the Giants were going to keep Joe Judge. The one big head coaching firing came out of Miami as the Dolphins have decided to move on from Brian Flores.

The Dolphins ended the season 9-8 just missing out on a wild card spot. Don’t forget this team was 1-7 having loss 7 games in a row this season. Miami then went on to win 8 of their last 9 games this season. A lot of teams and even coaches would just quit on the season after starting 1-7, but the Dolphins continued to play for Flores which makes this coaching change a little odd.

Flores was the Dolphins head coach for three seasons ad while he does have a losing record overall at 24-25 Miami posted two winning seasons in the three years, he was their head coach. The only negative on Flores two winning seasons is that the Dolphins didn’t make the playoffs in either of them.

Now Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross really didn’t give a reason for Flores’ dismissal, but he did say the team would be looking for a high-profile coach to replace Flores. Now most people took this to mean that the Dolphins would go after University of Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh since Ross is a graduate of Michigan, but he said that wouldn’t be the case.

So, if Harbaugh isn’t the hire, then what high profile coach is out there for the Dolphins to pursue?

It’s being reported that the Dolphins have asked the Buffalo Bills permission to interview their offensive coordinator Brian Daboll for their head coaching opening, but is Daboll really a high-profile hire? I’d even wonder if he’s a higher profile name than Flores was when he was hired.

Miami is in a tough division that was dominated by the New England Patriots for many years and now the Bills have stepped up and appear to be set up to stay on top of the division for now. So, no matter who Miami hires as head coach it’s going to be an uphill battle to not only catch the Bills, but the Patriots who’ve bounced back after being down last season to grab a wild card spot this season.

So, who do you think Dolphins should hire as their next head coach? And then who do you think the Dolphins will hire as their next head coach? I’d also like to know if you were surprised like I was when you heard the news of Flores being fired.

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