New Dolphins coach Brian Flores is through with his victory lap.
Now it’s time to go to work.
Via Albert Breer of SI.com, the former Patriots defensive coordinator said his whirlwind last three weeks have finally dawned on him, but he’s a football coach, which means his instinct is to coach.
“I looked around and thought to myself, ‘This is crazy,’” Flores said. “Obviously, I worked for 15 years in New England, and thought about my background growing up in New York, and it hit me. I was excited. I was proud of myself in that moment. But at the same time, when you start to think about your accomplishments, complacency sets in.
“So you slap yourself in the face and say, ‘Why don’t you put on some more tape to watch?’ . . . This is definitely not the finish line for me. This is really the start.”
Flores knows he has a big task in front of him, and brought in a bunch of familiar faces and coaches with ties to New England to make the transition easier. But he also spoke to former Patriots executive Scott Pioli and others about the transition, to try to learn all the things he doesn’t know yet.
“I reached out to everyone and said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna have a lot of blind spots, where are those?’ I had a lot of conversations,” Flores said. “I try to delegate as much as I can. But it’s important I have a say in what’s going on, and that they understand my thinking on whatever might cross my desk. . . .
“Us having all worked together, we work well together, we’re aligned as far as the things we believe, our core beliefs. So that’s good. But I think the entire group, along with the guys that have worked with me in the past, they’re all really good people, really good teachers, don’t have egos. And from that standpoint, everyone’s aligned. And I think they understand the vision we want to have.”
Now comes the hard part, fixing a problem without having a few particular co-workers with him.