In divisional news, the Miami Dolphins have hired Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin as their new head coach
The Dolphins are proud to announce that Green Bay offensive coordinator Joe Philbin has been hired as the 10th head coach in team history.
Will Philbin be a good head coach? It is tough to say. Some coordinators can cut it as the head man. Others can't. Given the candidates, I think this was a good move by Miami. Philbin has a track record of great success building offenses. Even if Mike McCarthy was very hands on in Green Bay and called the plays, Philbin handled a lot of the day to day stuff and by all accounts helped build a very prolific offense. This is the way to do things. You seek people with demonstrated success to fill jobs.
It quite possibly means Miami will be the team to roll the dice on Green Bay backup quarterback Matt Flynn as a starter. Flynn will likely get a nice contract and a starting job based on some good spot starts with the Packers. The jury is still very much out on him. He will be looking to buck the recent trend of high profile backup quarterbacks not doing too well with a new team like Kevin Kolb and Matt Cassel.
Since Philbin is an offensive guy, it means he will probably bring in his own people on offense, which means Miami offensive coordinator Brian Daboll will be available. Cimini thinks the Jets want him as quarterbacks coach.
One of those assistants -- offensive coordinator Brian Daboll -- is on the Jets' radar. They're interested in him as a quarterbacks coach, but he's still under contract to the Dolphins.
Just when you think the worst news you'll ever get is Matt Cavanaugh returning, you hear this. Daboll might be one of the few actual downgrades from Cavanaugh. He isn't a good coach at all. He actually served as Jets quarterbacks coach in 2007 and 2008. Those were not exactly golden years when it came to quarterback play from this franchise. 2008 was the year of Brett Favre, who was clearly already developed, but it's tough to not get on his position coach for Favre's struggles with the playbook early that year. It's the position coach's job to help with that transition. Daboll ended up being Cleveland's offensive coordinator in 2009 and 2010 because he's BFF's with Eric Mangini. Those years the Browns produced the 32nd and 29th ranked offenses. Mangini somehow ended up consulting with the Dolphins before 2011 and got Daboll their offensive coordinator job. Miami rated 22nd.
Daboll might see the Todd Haley passing game coordinator role. In his years running the show in Miami and Cleveland, 84% of teams in the league had more prolific passing games than the ones run by Daboll. It is incomprehensible the Jets are trying to emulate the Miami offense to the degree they are.
If this is true, the team also is treating Cavanaugh very poorly. It's not that I think Cavanaugh is a good coach. I don't. It's not that I think he deserves to come back. I don't. The team either thinks he is the right guy for the job, or it doesn't. If not, there is no reason to leave this guy twisting in the wind. Simply dismiss him and give him the chance to find employment elsewhere. This holding onto him while looking for a better option reminds me a lot of the horrible way Stephen Ross treated Tony Sparano last year while courting Jim Harbaugh.