Miami Dolphins hires San Francisco 49ers hostile organizer Mike McDaniel as the head coach by replacing Brian Flores

The Miami Dolphins declared Sunday night the hiring of San Francisco 49ers hostile organizer Mike McDaniel as the team’s head coach, replacing Brian Flores.

McDaniel, 38, was most recently the offensive coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers, which advanced to the NFC championship game this season before losing to the Los Angeles Rams.

McDaniel’s recruiting marks the finish of an almost month-long search since the Dolphins fired Brian Flores on Jan. 10.

Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore was the other finalist for the job.

McDaniel, who recognizes himself as multiracial, joins the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, Washington Commanders’ Ron Rivera, and the New York Jets’ Robert Saleh as the league’s just minority head coaches. The 49ers will get two third-round draft selections (one in 2022 and one more in ’23, per a league representative) as compensation under the Rooney Rule for developing a minority assistant who was hired for an NFL head-coaching job.

McDaniel, 38, gets his first head-coaching job at any level in the wake of spending 15 seasons in the NFL and two in the UFL. He spent one season as San Francisco’s offensive coordinator after being advanced in January 2021. In that season, the 49ers had the league’s seventh-best offense as far as yards per game and created an All-Pro in wide receiver Deebo Samuel.

Since joining the 49ers in 2017, he served as the team’s run game coordinator and run game specialist, as per the team’s website, and prior was part of the coaching staff of the Atlanta Falcons’ squad in the 2016-17 season that advanced to Super Bowl LI.

McDaniel started his NFL career as an intern for the Denver Broncos in 2005, then, at that point, enjoyed three seasons as an offensive assistant with the Houston Texans under Gary Kubiak. He spent one more three seasons as an offensive assistant and a wide receivers coach for Washington – – on a staff that included current head coaches Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers, Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams, and Kyle Shanahan of the 49ers.

McDaniel followed Shanahan, at the time an offensive coordinator, to one year with the Cleveland Browns, where he was a wide receivers coach, then, at that point, enjoyed two years with the Atlanta Falcons, where he was an offensive assistant. Shanahan became the 49ers’ head coach in 2017 and recruited McDaniel as the run game coordinator before elevating him to offensive coordinator in the last offseason. In McDaniel’s five seasons in San Francisco, the offense has positioned eleventh in rushing yards, with the fifth-highest percentage of runs that get at least 10 yards.

McDaniel is additionally multiracial, making him the first head coach of color hired this cycle.

Flores, who is Black, sued the Dolphins association earlier this week alongside the NFL and two other NFL teams alleging racial discrimination.

The NFL and every one of the three teams denies bad behavior, with the league referring to the claims as “meritless.”

Generally, 70% of the players in the NFL are Black, yet just one head coach in the league – – Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers – – is Black. There are two other non-Black minority coaches – – one of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent and one of Lebanese descent.

McDaniel is likewise the first minority recruit of this coaching cycle as he is biracial. In light of the Rooney Rule, the 49ers will get two third-round compensatory picks for creating McDaniel as a minority assistant coach, as per NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.

With the Dolphins settling on their decision, the only open jobs that remain are the Houston Texans and New Orleans Saints.

McDaniel will become the Dolphins’ 11th head coach, interim or otherwise, starting around 2000, after they employed only three head coaches in their 34 earlier years of existence. They fired Flores after he went 24-25 in three seasons, including two of the franchise’s seven winning seasons this century.

Flores filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, Dolphins, New York Giants, and Denver Broncos last week over the interview processes in New York and Denver and his firing by Miami. In that claim, Flores asserted that owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per misfortune during the 2019 season. Ross denied the allegation last week.