Josh Metellus and Harrison Phillips stood beside Brian Flores with their arms crossed as he walked to the podium to address the media on Tuesday.
Flores created a malleable position for Metellus that has unlocked his career. Phillips describes the nose tackle as the defense’s “fire hydrant at the dog show” because “you kinda get (peed) on.” Like many of their teammates, they feel Flores appreciates them, so they wanted to return the favor.
“I’m going to let them know,” Metellus said, speaking about the media, “that we’re behind [you].”
“Okay,” Flores said with a short laugh. “Appreciate it, guys.”
Metellus and Phillips had seen Tua Tagovailoa’s comments. Flores had, too. Everyone has. Flores was coaching the Miami Dolphins when Tagovailoa broke into the league, and he was candid about his experience with Flores in a recent podcast with Dan LeBatard. Tagovailoa didn’t hold back when LeBatard asked why he had flourished under Mike McDaniel but struggled with Flores as his head coach.
To put it in simplest terms, if you woke up every morning and I told you [that] you suck at what you did, that you don’t belong doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this right. Then you have somebody else come in and tell you, ‘Dude, you are the best fit for this.’ How would it make you feel listening to one or the other? Do you see what I’m saying?
And then you hear it, no matter what it is, the good or the bad, you hear it more and more, you start to believe that. I don’t care who you are. You could be the president of the United States, you have a terrible person telling you things that you don’t want to hear or probably shouldn’t be hearing, you’re going to start believing that about yourself. And so that’s what sort of ended up happening. It was, it’s basically been what two years of training that out of not just me but a couple of guys as well that have been here my rookie year all the way until now.
Flores said it hurt him that Tagovailoa called him a “terrible person.”
“Look, I’m human,” he said. “That hit me in a way that I wouldn’t say was positive for me. But at the same time, I’ve got to use that and say, ‘Hey, how can I grow from that? How can I be better?’”
That was the common theme with Flores. He uses elements of his background in his coaching, but he feels he has evolved since his time in Miami. Flores came up with the New England Patriots, beginning as a special teams assistant in 2008 and coaching safeties and linebackers under Bill Belichick until 2018.
The Dolphins hired Flores as their head coach in 2019, where he went 24-25 in three seasons. He overcame a 1-7 start in 2021 to finish 9-8, but Miami fired him, replacing him with McDaniel. Flores later said that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross told him he’d pay Flores $100,000 to lose each game. Flores also has an ongoing lawsuit against the NFL and three teams, claiming they discriminated against Black coaches.
Owners often want to tank the season if a team gets off to a slow start to improve their draft position. However, players incur injury risk and have short careers, and head coaches don’t want losing seasons on their coaching record. Therefore, Occam’s razor was that the Dolphins fired Flores because he refused to lose intentionally.
After firing Flores, Ross said Tagovailoa had “no role” in Miami’s decision. Ross reiterated his confidence in Tagovailoa but said the next coach would decide who would quarterback the Dolphins. Under McDaniel, the Dolphins traded for Tyreek Hill, and McDaniel designed an offense around Tagovailoa that allows him to get the ball out in two seconds, making it nearly impossible for defenders to sack him.
Tagovailoa became a franchise quarterback under McDaniel and earned a four-year, $212 million extension in the offseason. Like Kevin O’Connell, McDaniel coached with Sean McVay in Washington. He was also one of Kyle Shanahan’s assistants with the San Francisco 49ers before taking the Dolphins job. McDaniel, 41, and O’Connell, 39, are players’ coaches who collaborate and encourage rather than lord over their players.
The Vikings hired O’Connell to replace Mike Zimmer, a sexagenarian defensive coach who clashed with Kirk Cousins while coaching in Minnesota. Justin Jefferson told ESPN that he had never been in Zimmer’s office. Brian O’Neill and Eric Kendricks said Zimmer’s fear-based culture made it hard for young players to adjust to the NFL.
However, Harrison Smith and Patrick Peterson endorsed Zimmer. The veteran defensive players thrived under him, especially in the secondary. In 2017, Minnesota’s No. 1 defense carried them to the NFC Championship game. Some defensive players, especially veterans, take to harsher coaching.
Defensive coaches don’t always manage offensive players well, though. The Vikings didn’t start Jefferson until Week 3 of his rookie year, and Zimmer didn’t allow Jefferson to break Moss’ record in a lost season. Under the current regime, Minnesota was slowly bringing J.J. McCarthy along in his rookie year to maintain his confidence and ensure he understood the offense.
Flores isn’t Zimmer, and he and Tagovailoa had a different relationship than Zimmer and Cousins. However, if Flores wants to be a head coach again, he would have to coach offensive players and maintain a good relationship with his franchise quarterback. There were eight coaching vacancies last offseason, but none of the teams interviewed Flores.
Tagovailoa’s comments may have made teams less likely to interview him in the future, but Flores has vowed to continue improving as a coach. “I’ve done a lot of reflecting on this situation (and his) communication,” Flores said soberly. “I think there’s things that I could do better, for sure. And I’ve grown in that way.
“I’ve tried to apply the things that I could do better and the things that I’ve learned over the last two, three years. But I would say over the long haul, I’ve had a lot of great relationships over my 21-year career. Here in the league, players, coaches, personnel, equipment, people in the kitchen.
“Really across the board, I’ve had a lot of great relationships. I’m going to continue to do that. But I’m also always looking to get better and involved.”
Minnesota’s players and O’Connell have spoken highly of Flores. Last year, he designed a defense that befuddled opponents until Week 15. We won’t know until the next hiring cycle whether Tagovailoa’s comments will affect how owners think of Flores. Until then, the Vikings have benefitted from having a former head coach who came up under Belichick run their defense.
