The process of remaking the entire front office and finding a new Head Coach is over. Just a couple of weeks ago it appeared as if the Dolphins were going to once again not finish cleaning house and keep Head Coach Mike McDaniel, but finally Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross succumbed to the reality that all these half measures taken over the last 17 years with him as the owner haven’t worked. Stephen Ross fired Mike McDaniel January 8th which finally purged the team of former GM Chris Grier’s staff. It was crushing to me that they were once again going to half ass the process, but thankfully Ross finally did what had to be done. He didn’t do it quite right, it seemed as if he misled Mike McDaniel, but I believe that the move was necessary.

After hiring our new GM Jon-Eric Sullivan fwho was VP of Player Personnel with the Green Bay Packers, Sully conducted a thorough Head Coach search interviewing more than 10 Head Coach candidates. One long tenured veteran Head Coach, John Harbaugh was not one of them, Harbaugh had no interest in coming here. One very recently fired candidate, Sean McDermott who was just fired yesterday by the Buffalo Bills was also not interviewed. It became clear that Sully had his man a couple of days ago as Jeff Hafley was coming back for a 2nd interview and the reports were coming in that this was going to be it.

So, without further a do, Welcome to Miami new Head Coach Jeff Hafley!

From the very beginning of the process of finding our next Head Coach, I was fine with once again hiring a coordinator who was going to be a first time NFL Head Coach. Hafley spent 11 years as an assistant coach in College Football for 4 different, beginning with Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Albany, Pittsburgh and then finally Rutgers University. In 2012, Hafley made the jump to the NFL as an Assistand Defensive Backs Coach with the Tamp Bay Buccaneers and then became their Defensive Back Coach in 2013. Hafley then went to the Cleveland Browns for 2 years in 2014 in the same capacity. He then spent the next 3 tears once again in the same capacity for the San Francisco 49ers.

In 2019, Hafley returned to the college ranks as an assistant Defensive Coordinator for Ohio State. In 2020, he was hired as Head Coach of Boston College and remained there until 2023 where he compiled a 22-26 record with one Bowl Game Victory in the Fenway Bowl. Hafley then once again returned to the NFL as Defensive Coordinator for the Green Bay Packers, where he worked with GM Jon-Eric Sullivan, who was VP of Player Personnel with the Packers.

That’s how it all went down, and now we once again start anew, but really, completely anew. This is the first full reset since Stephen Ross has been here, but I’m sure he’s acutely aware of the unrest and dissatisfaction of Miami Dolphins after failing to win a playoff game in over 25 years, the longest such streak in the NFL. I also believe that very late in the process, while Mike McDaniel was still here something clicked during the GM search, perhaps candidates were intimating that they would prefer to hire their own Head Coach, whatever it was that spurred the move, it was the right one. I’ll admit I felt bad for Mike McDaniel because he was kind of hung out to dry, despite the fact that I thought he should have been fired weeks ago.

So, here we are, everything is new and for the moment, happy and serene. Sully and Hafley have an awful lot of work to do. Jeff Hafley has to assemble his coaching staff, his coordinators and assistant coaches. Then together with Sully, they have to evaluate the roster, the cap situation and figure out how they want to make funds available as we are currently over the cap. As Sully mentioned in his interview, he will be making these decisions unilaterally, he will accept input from his staff, but he will ultimately be making all decisions, as he should, and as I have been saying. The GM must have total autonomy to make things work correctly and so there is no ambiguity as to who is responsible for everything. Now that Sully has chosen his Head Coach, Jeff Hafley is now his responsibility.

Not once did I say here that Jeff Hafley was my choice, and if you have a sharp eyes, you’ll notice he was omitted for from the picture gallery of Head Coach candidates in my last article. No mistake that, it was done on purpose because I had hoped that he was going to hire outside of his familiarity so there wouldn’t be that stigma that he hired his buddy, was always going to hire his buddy and the whole search was a sham. I’ll say this, I’m sure Hafley was at the top of his list always, but the Head Coach search wasn’t a sham, and in fact was an excellent experience for a first time to GM to conduct so many interviews, listen to so many different philosophies and ideas from 10 or more candidates. I mean he could interviewed 5 guys and just said let’s call it a day and name Hafley. I believe that he went through the process open minded, and if a candidate impressed him more than Hafley, he would have hired him. Familiarity isn’t always a bad thing, there will definitely be cohesive relationship from the very start, and let’s face it, we need that. I finally feel good about this team, let’s all hope for the best!

GO DOLPHINS!!!