Shocked, but not shocked, right?
Just as we were starting to believe Brian Daboll was the Dolphins’ big catch, he’s not.
The Dolphins decided to wait until early next week for second interviews and to hammer out things.
The Giants did not.
They kept working at it.
And so Friday night, they landed their man.
The Dolphins landed bupkis.
Daboll won’t be Dolphins coach: Dolphins coaching search will go on without Brian Daboll
Giants hire Daboll: Breaking: New York Giants, not Dolphins, hiring Brian Daboll
Daboll opted to join the Giants, landing a left-right combination on Dolphins past and present. Daboll’s decision also means that ex-Dolphins coach Brian Flores won’t have a homecoming in New York.
If you’re a Dolphins fan, you have to pray that what this appears to be and what this actually is are two different things.
You have to pray that the man who should be their No. 1 target in the No. 1 move they will make for the next few years wasn’t allowed to slip away by overconfidence or naïveté or miscalculation.
You have to hope that they had a handshake agreement that Daboll wouldn’t do what he just did before the Dolphins could deliver their pitch, and that the finger should be pointed at Daboll.
Maybe he put the Dolphins on hold and never picked back up.
Yeah, that must be it.
Or maybe one of the two other candidates absolutely blew them away.
If this were a number of the NFL’s elite organizations — or if this were Pat Riley and the Miami Heat — they’d get the benefit of the doubt. The Dolphins? Sorry.
They haven’t even achieved the state Chris Grier promised they’d reach the day he became general manager: the end of the dysfunction. If they’d reached that most elementary goal, Flores wouldn’t be looking for a job and the Dolphins wouldn’t be looking for a coach.
Still a chance Dolphins get lucky
Look, selecting an NFL coach is a crapshoot, maybe even more so than navigating the NFL Draft. So there’s a chance the Dolphins will still stumble into a lucky break. Whichever 30-something offensive coordinator wins Miami’s coaching derby — the 49ers’ Mike McDaniel or the Cowboys’ Kellen Moore — could prove to be the young genius the Dolphins will paint him to be.
But let’s be clear: Either would be hired on speculation rather than a track record like Daboll’s.
McDaniel doesn’t call the 49ers’ plays. Head coach Kyle Shanahan does. Moore ran the league’s No. 1 offense this season, but he was working with five Pro Bowl players, which he wouldn’t have in Miami. Plus, four seasons back, he was still playing in the NFL.
Either McDaniel or Moore would arrive in Miami as the guy who isn’t Daboll, just as Tua Tagovailoa is the quarterback who isn’t Justin Herbert. The comparisons are only natural.
Neither coach would have the automatic connection with Tagovailoa that Daboll would have via their national-championship season together at Alabama.
In Daboll, Tagovailoa immediately would have known his head coach was in his corner, something he didn’t seem too sure about before. Remember the quote of the year contender, “I don’t not feel wanted”?
Bills, Allen flourished under Daboll
If it were up to Daboll, Tagovailoa’s second-half heroics as a freshman in the 2018 national championship game wouldn’t have been nearly the surprise that it was. TideSports.com reported that Daboll preferred Tagovailoa over Jalen Hurts, Alabama’s starter that season. What isn’t known is how much of a factor his frustration may have played in his decision the following season to become the Buffalo Bills’ offensive coordinator.
What’s perfectly clear is what happened next. Just look at Buffalo’s offensive ranking the past four seasons under Daboll: 30th, 24th, 2nd, 5th.
Look at Buffalo’s scoring offense: 30th, 23rd, 2nd, 3rd.
Adam Gase arrived as the quarterback whisperer. Daboll’s record with Josh Allen doesn’t whisper, it shouts. In four seasons Allen has doubled his passing yardage to 4,407 and tripled his touchdown passes to 36. He went from raw talent to the Pro Bowl.
Now, Daniel Jones, not Tua Tagovailoa, gets that expertise.
“My immediate goal is to assemble a coaching staff — a strong staff that emphasizes teaching and collaboration and making sure our players are put in the position to be their best and, ultimately, to win games,” Daboll said in a message the Giants posted to their fans.
He added, “I have a pretty good idea where our fan base’s feelings are right now, and I get it.”
He’s not the only one who can relate. Dolphins fans have a good idea what it feels like, too.
Only Giants fans didn’t just get hit with another haymaker.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins left at the altar as Brian Daboll opts to coach NY Giants