Flores showed ability to adapt, adjust to changes

With an influx of talent, can coach get team off carousel of mediocrity?

With the 2020 NFL season fast approaching, the South Florida Sun Sentinel takes a look at 10 storylines to watch for in a 10-part series ahead of the Miami Dolphins’ first day of training camp, which is set for Tuesday amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Most of us improve the longer we do a job, or fill a role. When we repeat a task over and over again we eventually figure out a quicker, more efficient way to do it.

Experience allows an issue we’ve already faced to no longer puzzle us. It’s not as problematic as it was the first time around. We problem solve and get to the solutions faster.

NFL coaches are no different. That is why it is reasonable to expect Brian Flores to be more effective as a head coach in his second season with the Miami Dolphins.

Winning five games in 2019 was a decent start for a rookie head coach — who was the fifth straight rookie head coach the Dolphins have had since Nick Saban quit in 2007 and Cam Cameron replaced him.

But those five wins should be the starting point for this rebuilding franchise.

It’s past time for Miami to become a relevant NFL franchise again, and it’s on Flores to get the Dolphins off the mediocrity merry-go-round.

The hope is that he learned some valuable lessons last year that will make him a better coach this season.

The No. 1 lesson Flores should have taken from last year is that talent trumps everything.

Your coaching buddies might be good to hang out with, and the people you want to surround yourself with on the first coaching staff you’ve assembled. But that doesn’t mean they are top-flight NFL instructors or individuals prepared to handle elevated roles.

I say this because it was pretty evident Chad O’Shea and Patrick Graham, two of Flores’ close friends from his New England

days, were in over their heads last season as Miami’s offensive and defensive coordinators.

Flores replaced both after the season.

Your scheme might have delivered the NFL’s best defense during your tenure as the New England Patriots play-caller, but if it’s not accompanied with players that fit Flores’ hybrid scheme the end result will be a watered-down product.

That should explain why Flores’ defense struggled in just about every important aspect — failing to stop the run, incapable of consistently pressuring quarterbacks, and being unable to produce turnovers — last year.

Saying the Dolphins had talent limitations throughout the 2019 season would be putting it mildly, but that is the simplest way to explain Miami’s slow start last year, and the growing pains the roster experienced when the wins finally started coming in the second half of the season.

The talent shortcomings also justify the changes the Dolphins made this offseason to their coaching staff, replacing eight assistants, and the roster overhaul that delivered 13 free agents and 11 draft picks.

The hope is those 24 new players will help create a better talent base for Flores’ team, that the newcomers to his coaching staff will do a better job of teaching them the finer points of football, and improve on their preparation for gamedays with better positional instruction, game planning, and in-game adjustments.

Those were all areas Flores acknowledged his team had some shortcomings with last year, and instead of crossing his fingers and praying they got better, he did something about it.

Flores made changes. He adjusted. He adapted quickly, and that is a trait good head coaches usually have in their arsenal.

WILFREDO LEE/AP Brian Flores led the Dolphins to five wins in 2019. This year, Flores has eight new assistants and has added 13 free agents and 11 draft picks.