The Dolphins decided to stick with Joe Philbin as their head coach for a fourth season and Philbin has decided to stick with defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle for a fourth season as well.
Philbin said at the end of the season that he hadn’t made any decisions about which members of his coaching staff would return for the 2015 season and wanted some time to evaluate things before making any calls. Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reports that the evaluation period has come to an end with Coyle remaining in charge of the defense.
The Dolphins defense finished seventh and eighth in the league in points against during Coyle’s first two seasons on the job, but slumped to 20th in 2014 as Miami finished with an 8-8 record. The efforts of the defense were particularly poor down the stretch, the second straight year that the Dolphins have seen strong playoff hopes evaporate in the final weeks of the season and the sixth straight year that they’ve been left without an invite to the postseason.
It’s hard not to feel like another year of the same will threaten the continuity that owner Stephen Ross is trying to build on the coaching staff, which makes the charge for Philbin, Coyle and the rest of the coaches quite clear.
