When Dolphins coach Brian Flores hired Jim Caldwell as his assistant head coach last year, it made all the sense in the world, a rookie head coach finding a veteran sounding board and accomplished offensive mind.
It never quite worked out that way, and now it won’t.
According to Cameron Wolfe of ESPN.com, Caldwell won’t return to the Dolphins in 2020, meaning he’ll never coach a game with them. He took a medical leave last July and didn’t return during the season.
He’s apparently well now and ready to resume coaching, and should have plenty of opportunities.
He had a 62-50 record as a head coach in Indianapolis and Detroit (where nobody wins and they’ve gotten markedly worse since he left), making four playoff trips. His teams only bottomed out once (when Peyton Manning’s neck injury forced him to start Curtis Painter and the Colts went 2-14), and otherwise, his teams had winning records in five of his other six seasons.
He’s been linked to some jobs this offseason (mentioned as a candidate for the Eagles offensive coordinator opening), but the 65-year-old didn’t get any interviews this offseason for head coaching jobs.
He may not win the press conference with a stirring TED talk like many of this year’s first-time head coaches, but otherwise it’s hard to find fault with his resume. At a time when some people say they want NFL experience, and some people say they want to develop quarterbacks, it’s inexplicable that his phone’s not ringing.