MIAMI – Against all odds, the Miami Dolphins are one win away from making the playoffs.
Something that seemed a long way off last year, after losing the first three games with 117 points in a historically bad start.
Miami had the worst selection in the NFLHe hired players who didn’t have a team and let them play on Sunday. And with that scenario, they managed to win three of the last five games and dream of a better future.
Become a playoff candidate that quickly?
Undeterred, given the endless questions this team had.
But among so many questions, there is a clear certainty, and that is that, after much searching, the dolphins finally found the head trainer indicated in Brian Flores.
Flores is one of five siblings in a family with children from Honduran immigrants. His parents, Raúl and María, moved to the United States in the 1970s to provide their children with a potentially brighter future.
Without a lot of money, but with iron values, that’s exactly what they have achieved.
Flores fell in love with football at the age of 12 thanks to his uncle’s custody, played for Boston College, and got his first NFL recording as a scouting assistant with the New England Patriots in 2004.
Integrity, hard work and clear communication are the three most important values.
And those characteristics made him climb the ladder in New England, where he ended up in charge of defensive calls when Matt Patricia was named head coach of the Detroit Lions.
His managers in the Patriots always speak of Flores as “the person,” more than the coach, and that the respect they have for him is absolute.
After 12 interviews, he finally got the chance he longed for in Miami as a head coach.
The Dolphins have the only African-American head coach and general manager duo in the entire NFL, but aside from their origins, the abilities of both speak for themselves.
The head coach must do everything he can to win on Sunday, and the general manager tries to put together the best possible team, but it would be a mistake to think that the two don’t work together.
Which brings us to this present in Miami, where Flores tries to strike a balance between winning in the present and thinking best for the dolphins’ future.
After the team started at 3-3 and was on a winning streak, Flores decided to give way to veteran quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick for rookie Tua Tagovailoa.
Tagovailoa has alternated well and badly, although the team continued to win, thanks largely to its great defense and some very good special teams.
Twice since then, Flores has sat Tagovailoa when he played poorly to replace him again with Fitzpatrick.
The most recent occasion, last Saturday, when Fitzpatrick led the Dolphins to a crucial victory in light of their playoff ambitions.
As you can imagine, criticism was massive. While some scream that Fitzpatrick is the starter – Flores has already ratified Tagovailoa – others argue that these kinds of constant changes only erode their rookie quarterback’s confidence.
But while the noise can be heard from outside, inside, Fitzpatrick and Tagovailoa, despite the fact that they both want to play, cuddle and cheer each other on, constantly thinking about the team’s well-being.
“It works because Flores is a great communicator,” Fitzpatrick stressed when referring to the ongoing changes.
They say if you have two quarterbacks, you essentially don’t have one. And while this dynamic is highly unusual, I welcome the fact that Flores is turning deaf to criticism for going against the norm, while keeping the locker room afloat, his team in check, and the future in good hands.
Something really hard to do, which seems to be working for him for now.
In fact, I would encourage you to say that if the Dolphins qualify for the playoffs, Brian Flores will be named Coach of the Year, despite having a great competitor in Kevin Stefanski, the los Cleveland Browns.
Aside from the quarterback situation getting all the attention, there’s no denying that it maximized its players’ talent and turned a defense without so many clever names into an elite unit.
Halftime adjustments, not seen in Miami for a long time, are now commonplace.
And for a starting quarterback, there’s nothing better to learn if his team doesn’t depend on him to win games.
Flores is building these dolphins his own way, and will be back next year with multiple first and second round picks in the draft.
Therefore, amid so many unanswered questions, there is an inescapable reality: Brian Flores is a great head coach.