As we figure who to interview...

[Hayden Fox]

I think we need to organize ourselves in terms of who we want to coach this team. I posted this in another thread, but wanted to start as separate discussion.

I have lofted many discussions of possible candidates. It is important to have discussion on various candidates and digest whether they would be worthy of an interview let alone be selected as the new HC

IMO there could be three types of coaching picks that would not be good for the organization.

1. The Mercenary: is willing to coach for an outrageous lump sum of money. (Gruden or Cowher)
2. The Gimmick...an example might be a college guy that his system does amazing things on Saturday, but has little chance of working on Sunday. They have zero or little NFL experience. However, the entire offseason we debate whether it will work next year. (Rob Ryan, Les Miles or Chip Kelly)
3. "The buddy-buddy pick"...seemingly how the Fins always make roster moves. They need some connection in the past. (Brian Schottenheimer, Marty Schottenheimer, Eric Mangini)


I have advocated for a guy with experience, but I want a quality HC. This is what I want in a coach:

Select someone that is going to:
* Lay a foundation of professionalism throughout the ENTIRE organization...that is the football AND business side
* Instill mental toughness
* Perhaps he or someone on his staff has expertise coaching QB's.
* Maybe he will not want to blow up a team that does have some talent and success that last half of the year
* FINALLY, someone that WANTS to lead this team

I know this sounds obvious, but I am not sure it is to Ross. Pick a quality candidate that will not necessarily win the presser in January, but win come this fall.

Some names to interview...
Rob Chudzinski
Mike Zimmer
Todd Bowles
Brian Billick
Jeff Fisher

We shall see what happens.

 

[KB21]

I want someone that has natural born leadership ability that can come in, look right into my eyes during the interview, and convince me that he is the person that will get the Dolphins back to their glory years. At this point, I could care less about what system that coach runs, whether he is offensive minded or defensive minded, or whether the unit he has coordinator or coached has rated highly. Being a head coach is as much about getting into your players heads and convincing them that they can be more than what they are than it is about being able to devise schemes and drawing up plays in the sand. I want a coach that can come in and convince Jake Long, Brandon Marshall, Reggie Bush, Karlos Dansby, Matt Moore, and Randy Starks to buy into what he is doing during that first team meeting. Those are the leaders of this team, and where they go, the rest will follow.

What characteristic defined a young Don Shula? IMO, it is leadership and his ability to motivate his team to be more than they thought they could be.

 

[Hayden Fox]

I want someone that has natural born leadership ability that can come in, look right into my eyes during the interview, and convince me that he is the person that will get the Dolphins back to their glory years. At this point, I could care less about what system that coach runs, whether he is offensive minded or defensive minded, or whether the unit he has coordinator or coached has rated highly. Being a head coach is as much about getting into your players heads and convincing them that they can be more than what they are than it is about being able to devise schemes and drawing up plays in the sand. I want a coach that can come in and convince Jake Long, Brandon Marshall, Reggie Bush, Karlos Dansby, Matt Moore, and Randy Starks to buy into what he is doing during that first team meeting. Those are the leaders of this team, and where they go, the rest will follow.

What characteristic defined a young Don Shula? IMO, it is leadership and his ability to motivate his team to be more than they thought they could be.

Well stated.

 

[KB21]

Well stated.

IMO, you can't see that ability by watching the assistant coach you are looking at on the side lines or basing things off his ability to call plays. I understand the fact that coordinators typically get the head jobs because they have at least shown that they can run a unit, but I have seen some of the best coordinators in the league flop as head coaches and some of the more mediocre coordinators in the league succeed as head coaches. Look at Sean Payton. The three years he was a coordinator with the Giants, the Giants were 15th, 21st, and 22nd in the NFL in scoring, and Mike McCarthy got a head coaching job after his 49ers offense was 30th in the league in scoring.

Cam Cameron was an excellent coordinator whose offense was 1st in scoring in 2006, right before Miami hired him. Look how that turned out.

This is why I am not one that is going to pooh pooh on the idea that Brian Schottenheimer might make a good head coach.

 

[Pachyderm_Wave]

The concepts you see working in the NFL came straight from college, it just took someone with the guts to do it (Belichek) to start implementing it. That's why the NFL is typically a cycle of retread head coaches who get fired and go from team to team to team running the exact same system they were running 20 years ago as a coordinator. There is no innovation at the coaching level in the NFL.... "it's a copycat league".

A longtime friend and mentor of mine who started out as a GA at tiny Jacksonville St. in the 70's, and worked his way up to being a DC in the SEC by the 80's-90's, said that the best piece of advice he ever received when trying to turn around a stagnant program was very simple.... "stop losing"...

What he meant by that was, stop doing all the obvious things that are preventing the program from winning. For Miami, everybody knows what that is.


Players in the NFL don't respond to yelling, or someone throwing their weight around by getting the job based on their playing legacy, without being a coordinator first (Mike Singletary, etc.) or a coach who was handed the job by a friend without being a coordinator first (Tony Sparano, etc.). Players in the NFL don't answer to the head coach, they answer to the owner.

What do they respond to? Competence.

Players in the NFL respond to someone who's capable of putting them in the best position to succeed, and they need to see that trickle from the top down. They know Miami hasn't had a quarterback since Marino. It's not just restricted to message boards. The inner circles of the league know what organizations have competence and leadership from the front office down, and which one's don't. It's not confined to rumor.

Jim Harbaugh knew where to go and where not to go.


Miami doesn't need to hire a "motivator" who's clueless when it comes to what's going on in installation meetings. They need someone who doesn't need to raise his voice, or jump up and down on the sidelines in an attempt to gain respect. They need a coach who's going to talk barely loud enough to hear like Belichek, Jim Harbaugh, and Mike McCarthy do, no matter the situation. A guy the players will have to lean in a little bit to hear what he's saying. THAT'S when you know you've got their respect.

Miami needs to hire a coach who's going to talk it, chalk it, walk it, run it... and then talk it, chalk it, walk it, run it some more. A coach who knows what he wants the identity of his team to be, and is capable of making it happen by hiring the right assistant coaches, and won't fail to make changes until it's too late. Not a grab-bag special the way Sparano was.

They can't hire a coach who subscribes to what Jeff Ireland's 'big picture' is. Ireland is going to have to subscribe to the coach's big picture in order to stick around.

The Mercenary is nothing more than a hire intended to bring a flashy name in order to sell tickets. That will fail. (Already tried it... see the part about stop doing the obvious things that are preventing you from winning)

The buddy-buddy hiring is nothing more than a hire intended to keep things as 'safe' as possible. That will fail. (Already tried it... see the part about stop doing the obvious things that are preventing you from winning)

The Gimmick is nothing more than throwing darts blindfolded. If you hit, you got lucky.... but at least you didn't repeat the obvious things that are preventing you from winning.

 

[LANGER72]

I'll take the Mercenary.
Gruden or Billick.
'Already tried it'. Lame reasoning. Each man has to be rated on his own merits, not the past performance of other men.
'On the job training". We have tried that too.
Men that already know what it takes to win a super bowl are more qualified to be head coach.

 

[Pachyderm_Wave]

I'll take the Mercenary.
Gruden or Billick.
'Already tried it'. Lame reasoning. Each man has to be rated on his own merits, not the past performance of other men.
'On the job training". We have tried that too.
Men that already know what it takes to win a super bowl are more qualified to be head coach.

Of course each man has to be evaluated individually and on his own merit. The point was, don't hire Gruden or Billick just because they have a superbowl ring in order to snow over the fanbase again and sell tickets. Hire them because you were SOLD that they were the best FIT for what you intend to do.... after you've done your due diligence interviewing candidates with less hype.

I don't think the 49ers would've been better off with a coach like Mike Shanahan just because he has 2 superbowl rings for example, instead of Jim Harbaugh... a college coach.

Whoever is hired, needs to be hired because they're the best fit. A superbowl ring doesn't make a coach the best candidate out there.

 

[LANGER72]

Of course each man has to be evaluated individually and on his own merit. The point was, don't hire Gruden or Billick just because they have a superbowl ring in order to snow over the fanbase again and sell tickets. Hire them because you were SOLD that they were the best FIT for what you intend to do.... after you've done your due diligence interviewing candidates with less hype.

I don't think the 49ers would've been better off with a coach like Mike Shanahan just because he has 2 superbowl rings for example, instead of Jim Harbaugh... a college coach.

Whoever is hired, needs to be hired because they're the best fit. A superbowl ring doesn't make a coach the best candidate out there.

I will politely disagree.
It is not about the jewelry, it is about the experience, the process, and the know how.
What ever happens, I will be hoping for the best.