There are two successful head coaches in the Division who would probably say their roles as assistants or coordinators did prepare them. One of them is only slightly older than Mayo.
Optimistic. Life is too short.
McDaniel is the 6th straight guy the Dolphins have tried who came from a coordinator/position coach background. The other 5 (Cam Cameron, Tony Sparano, Joe Philbin, Adam Gase and Brian Flores) were all spectacular failures.
A lot of the stuff being said about Mayo today are the same things said about Flores a few years ago. Guys loved him in the Locke room, super smart, defensive genius, young, energetic. Hasn’t really worked out for him as a coach.
For every McDaniel (assuming he’s for real and not just a product of great talent at QB/WR) there’s a dozen guys who were supposed experts, geniuses, beloved position coaches/coordinators who flop
The idea that Mayo will fail, or at least his strong points don’t necessarily point to success, is simply an exercise in probability. The vast majority of NFL coaches fail or are replaceable. Very few good coordinators turn into head coaches with longevities in
More than half the league has hired a new coach in the last 3 years and some of those spots have been turned over multiple times.
Mayo, like almost every coach before him, will end up being as successful as the talent around him dictates. Which is why the decision to pair him with internal personnel guys seems so poorly thought out.
If they trot out BOB, the rest of the offensive staff (or most of them), Wolf, Groh and don’t make any substantive additions, then it really comes down to Kraft thinking Bill and Bill alone was the problem. Perhaps he has reason to think that, perhaps he has access to the scouting reports and draft board the team prepared and it turns out BB went rogue on all the bad picks. But looking in from a fan’s perspective it’s bizarre to me that all our hopes for a competitive team come down to running it back with all the same guys and hoping that all of Bill’s strengths remain via his underlings and all his weaknesses go out the door with him. It just seems incredibly unlikely