Greg Cote: Dolphins hire Jeff Hafley. Timing was bad. Is coach good?

Greg Cote, Miami Herald on Jan 19, 2026

Published in Football

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MIAMI — The Miami Dolphins and owner Stephen Ross have once again demonstrated that prior NFL experience at being a head coach is not a job prerequisite in Miami. Or even preferred, evidently.

So welcome to town Jeff Hafley, former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator now tasked with making relevant again a Dolphins franchise that has not won a playoff game since 2000, longest such drought in the league.

Miami has not hired a head coach previously in that role in the NFL since Dave Wannstedt in 2000; yes, the last coach to win in the postseason here.

Hafley’s hiring completed the Fins’ transformation to Green Bay South. That he would get the job to replace fired Mike McDaniel seemed increasingly foregone since Miami hired Jon-Eric Sullivan, Packers vice president of player personnel, as its general manager just more than a week ago.

Star-name veteran head coach John Harbaugh became available in leaving Baltimore, but Miami showed negligible interest. Betting odds linked the Fins to Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula (grandson of Don), but sights were locked on Hafley. Just Monday, the Bills unexpectedly fired longtime coach Sean McDermott, but even that did not dissuade Miami’s intentions.

The news of Hafley’s hiring with a five-year deal was reported by multiple news outlets Monday before being confirmed at 8:12 p.m. ETby the Dolphins, who almost surely preferred to withhold an announcement until later in the week to avoid the big news being dwarfed by Monday night’s Miami Hurricanes national championship football game against Indiana at Hard Rock Stadium.

Likewise in the odd timing category, Florida Panthers’ star Matthew Tkachuk returned from injury to make his season debut Monday night. Thankfully, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra did not announce his retirement at halftime of the Canes-Hoosiers game.

The awful timing of the Dolphins’ choosing Hafley (if not the reporting of it) was forced by circumstances.

Miami had to satisfy the NFL’s Rooney Rule, requiring the interviewing of minority candidates for any head coach opening before hiring Hafley. Those two minority candidates were Patrick Graham and Kelvin Sheppard, the last of whom was interviewed late afternoon Monday.

Miami then moved very quickly to hire Hafley so that he might cancel a flight to interview for the Tennessee job opening, avoiding the risk of losing him to the Titans.

The Rooney Rule, born of need, is great in concept, but not in execution of practical enforcement. The Dolphins apparently had zero real interest in Graham or Sheppard, but were simply going through the motions to fulfill a league requirement.

As for an instant opinion on the Hafley hiring, nobody including the Dolphins can know today if it will work out.

One skepticism is that the Dolphins for most of this quarter-century have failed to identify and hire a “next great” coach from among men with no prior NFL experience at the job. Another doubt is cast because the Packers’ defense was mediocre this past season, not great, and suffered a fourth-quarter collapse that eliminated the Packers in the first round of the playoffs.

That inauspicious departure from Green Bay and the lack of NFL head coaching experience to form any proven track record are valid reasons to doubt Hafley until he proves why we shouldn’t. So is Miami’s dismal track record and inability to strike gold across the litany of hires from Cam Cameron to Tony Sparano to Joe Philbin to Adam Gase to Brian Flores to McDaniel.

Plus marks for Hafley: Green Bay knows how to win. He’s from the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. And he looks and talks the part, running laps around the departed McDaniel in the macho/coach-stereotype departement if that matters to you.

Maybe Hafley will end that near two-decade pattern of failed hires by Miami. He might make a brilliant head coach. Let’s see.

Until he does, this team’s recent track record on hiring has earned the skepticism — and that’s on the Dolphins more than on the man they just hired.

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