Like most of you, I, too, was rocked by this morning’s news the Miami Dolphins had fired head coach Brian Flores. This came after Miami defeated the Patriots 33-24 at Hard Rock Stadium yesterday to finish the season 9-8 after a 1-7 start. 

Flores has a ton of flaws as a head coach, and he never quite felt like the coach who would bring Miami to a Super Bowl. With that said, he’s also the first Dolphins’ coach since Dave Wannstedt in 2002-03 to lead Miami to back-to-back winning seasons. 

If the Dolphins are going to fire a coach who was 19-14 in the last two seasons, their plan to replace him better be good. The simple truth is, while I never believed Brian Flores was the answer, I have far more belief in his ability to improve the team in year four than owner Steven Ross’ ability to execute a coherent plan for replacing him. 

Miami and Ross are swinging for the fences by firing Flores, and Ross’ career batting average is awful. 

Early returns on Miami’s plan aren’t great either. It’s been reported general manager Chris Grier will be retained despite Flores’ firing. I’ve defended Grier as an average NFL general manager in the past, but even then, I advocated for his firing if Flores was fired too. 

Stepping away from the specific personnel decisions Grier has made as a general manager, keeping him is a half measure. If you want to change things, then do it. Half measures almost never work in the NFL. 

A lot of the initial reaction after Flores firing was Miami would pursue Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, who has long been connected to Dolphins’ owner Steven Ross, but a report from ESPN’s Jeff Darlington — who is one of the best national voices when it comes to Dolphins’ news — stated Miami was not targeting Harbaugh. 

Ross also stated he wouldn’t pursue Harbaugh in a press conference held this morning. 

So now, Miami is in a spot where the owner has fired the team’s most successful head coach in almost 19 years, retained the average at best general manager, and the most successful coach on the potential market is not a part of their plan, right now. 

I want to be clear there are legitimate reasons for firing Flores, and Miami’s recognition that his way of winning was not sustainable long-term makes perfect sense. 

His inability to develop offensive talent and hire a competent offensive coaching staff is a fireable offense given how offense and quarterback-driven the current NFL is. Not to mention his handling of the quarterback situation during Tua Tagovailoa’s rookie season, which reportedly created a rift between the two. 

Quarterbacks are more important than head coaches in today’s NFL. I have plenty of questions about whether Tagovailoa is a true franchise quarterback, but Miami invested the fifth pick in him, and it was clear his marriage to Flores wasn’t working. 

His stubbornness and adherence to the “Patriot Way” consistently distanced high-caliber players and reportedly made agents question whether they should deal with Miami. There were constant reports of him not being approachable. That type of coaching isn’t going to fly in a league that is increasingly becoming a player’s first league like the NBA. 

Moving on from Flores is fine. He’s not the next Bill Belicheck, but this also feels like when the Lions fired head coach Jim Caldwell and retained general manager Bob Quinn after the 2017 season. They hired Matt Patricia and immediately went from a fringe to backend playoff team to an NFL laughing stock. 

Detroit swung for the fences and failed miserably. 

I’d love to sit here and applaud Ross for realizing Miami can upgrade from Flores. However, there is just no reason or history to believe they will get this right. If they get it wrong, Miami will be in for another rebuild just like the one from 2018. They’ll have to tear down the roster, search for a new quarterback, and search for yet another head coach. 

None of this is groundbreaking. It isn’t meant to be. You could say this any time a team fires their head coach. What you can’t say every time fires a head coach, is that they finished with back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in franchise history in almost 19 years.

Ross is like a gambler who usually loses, gets a small taste of success, and now wants to push all of his chips into the center of the table. It might result in homerun, but given his track record, there’s no reason Dolphins’ fans should expect anything other than a strikeout.