The Miami Dolphins officially hired Patrick Graham as defensive coordinator on February 8th, 2019. Graham has had numerous experiences as an assistant in college and in the National Football, but Graham was never an assistant for any school in division one. Graham became a graduate assistant at Wagoner for two seasons from 2002-2003 and shortly got his first official coaching job as a defensive line coach for one season at Richmond. The next season Graham remained at Richmond but got a new job on the other side of the ball as a tight end’s coach for two seasons from 2005-2006.
After the 2006 season, Graham joined Charlie Weis staff in South Bend to become a graduate assistant at Notre Dame for two seasons from 2007-2008. Brian Flores and Coach Graham began their ties to each other when Graham accepted his first NFL opportunity as a coaching assistant with the New England Patriots, shortly he would be promoted to defensive assistant. The promotions kept coming for Coach Graham in 2011 while he would be promoted to linebackers’ coach for one season and then for the next two seasons, he would become the defensive line coach for two seasons from 2012-2013. For the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Graham would take back over as linebacker’s coach again, during that time Graham did earn one Super Bowl ring.
For the next two seasons, from 2016-2017 Graham moved on to the New York Giants to serve as defensive line coach under Ben McAdoo. After McAdoo’s short stay in New York Graham moved on to Green Bay for one season as linebackers’ coach and running game coordinator to serve under Mike McCarthy. However, Mike McCarthy would be fired before the season even ended and former Miami Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin took over as interim head coach. Philbin and the rest of the staff would not be retained, and the Packers team management would look for new leadership.
Patrick Graham would earn his first defensive coordinator job in South Florida for the upcoming 2019 season on Brian Flores staff and personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how the Dolphins look defensively next season.
