Ranking the Chicago Bears head coaching candidates being interviewed
Chicago Bears Coaching Candidate: Brian Flores, Former Miami HC
When the Miami Dolphins first fired Brian Flores at the end of the season, I was on record stating that I thought he’d make a great coach and one I’d consider interviewing for the Bears vacancy. He seemed to be a coach who could get the most out of his players. He was a no-nonsense coach who would never allow a losing team to celebrate a win as Matt Nagy did with Club Dub after the 2018 season. Club Dub is fine when the team is winning, but not constantly losing.
The idea that Ed Dodds hates complacency and it seems Brian Flores is the same way made me think that although there isn’t a direct connection, the idea of Dodds and Flores together would be pretty amazing. It would be a tandem like we haven’t seen here in Chicago in quite some time. The problem is, I then learned more about the ins and outs of the Dolphins staff over the last three years.
In his first season, the Dolphins won five games while trying to “tank for Tua.” This had more to do with Flores in my opinion than anything. That was a team filled with mostly second-string players, yet they flushed out five wins anyway. The Dolphins were still able to land Tua Tagolailoa, but it’s on record that Brian Flores wanted Justin Herbert instead. There was a disconnect here between Flores and Dolphins GM Chris Grier. I’ll give Flores the credit for wanting the better QB.
That said, Chad O’Shea was the OC of the Dolphins that first year, but things didn’t stick. Flores handled the 2019 quarterback situation in a strange way — bouncing back and forth between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tua Tagovailoa. This is not a great strategy and is similar to what we saw here in Chicago this year. Chan Gailey was the OC that season, but he too didn’t cut it. This year, the team used two offensive coordinators in a failed plan. George Godsey and Eric Studesville ran the offense and the team struggled offensively again. Not good.
When it comes to being a head coach, you don’t need to be the X’s and O’s guy. You need to be able to run a staff and put your coaches, assistants and players in a place to succeed. We just saw Urban Meyer run out of town for his inability to build strong relationships, it seems Flores falls from that same tree. He has too many red flags and strained relationships and I honestly would have him lower if not for his positive results. Granted those results came against some pretty weak competition to help his record look better than it should — see Matt Nagy of 2020.