Dolphins may gain edge in draft from coaching game
Brian Flores and his Dolphins coaching staff will get unrivaled access to Senior Bowl prospects this week. It can only help come the 2021 NFL Draft.
Senior Bowl practices begin Tuesday in Mobile, Alabama, and buried deep in the game’s media policy are three sentences that help explain why Brian Flores agreed to coach the all-star showcase:
“In case of inclement weather, practice will be moved to the covered practice facility,” game organizers announced. “The indoor field will be a controlled environment and will be cleared of all nonessential workers via COVID protocols. Thus, NFL personnel will be limited, non-practice related staff will be reduced, and media members will not be able to attend.”
Or put another way: While 30 NFL teams might be essentially locked out of practice if the weather turns nasty, the Dolphins and the Carolina Panthers
coaching staffs will have all the access to some of the draft’s top prospects they could want.
So it was a bit of serendipity that, despite being 18th in line to coach the 72nd Senior Bowl, the Dolphins are working the game. Flores and Senior Bowl executive director
Jim Nagy go way back, and both men are doing the other a favor by having the Dolphins’ staff in town.
More than a dozen NFL teams either weren’t ready from an organizational standpoint to take on the responsibility, or simply didn’t want to go through the trouble of doing so during a pandemic.
But Flores, who is entering his third offseason as Dolphins coach, believed the benefits outweighed any inconvenience.
And the benefits are considerable.
By this time next week, he and his staff will probably have more information on Alabama stars Devonta Smith and Najee Harris than any team in the league.
Nagy kindly assigned
Smith, the stud wide receiver who should be in play for the Dolphins with the No. 3 overall pick, and Harris, a bell cow running back who would instantly improve the Dolphins’ offense, to the National team — which the Dolphins’ staff will coach.
(Smith won’t participate in on-field work due to a recent finger injury.)
But that’s just part of the value. Even if all practices are held outdoors, COVID-19 protocols will limit the face time that NFL teams get with prospects this week.
Plus, since the NFL Scouting Combine has been dramatically scaled back in 2021, clubs might be in the position this April of having to decide between a bunch of players they hardly know.
Not so for that Dolphins. If, for example, a running back like Michael Carter (North Carolina) or an edge defender like Daelin Hayes (Notre Dame) stand out this week in both meetings and practice, Flores and general manager Chris Grier
would presumably be more inclined to take them over equally talented players.
The Dolphins last coached the Senior Bowl in 2010, and three months later selected four players who played in the game: defensive lineman Jared Odrick, linebacker Koa Misi, guard John Jerry and linebacker A.J. Edds.
All signs point to the Dolphins beginning practice Tuesday without a successor to Chan Gailey in place. It will be fascinating to see who handles offensive play-calling duties this week — George Godsey and Eric Studesville, the team’s internal offensive coordinator candidates,
make the most sense — but here’s some important context:
The National team wouldn’t be running the Dolphins’ new offense, even if Flores had made a hire prior to this week. Game rules mandate that the offensive and defensive schemes must be quite basic.
On offense, just three personnel packages are allowed — 21, 12 and 11 — and motions and shifts are forbidden. On defense, blitzes are likewise banned.