Dolphins offensive line coach is most-jinxed job in NFL (so welcome, Butch Barry) | Habib
Until Wednesday, the Dolphins were in the market for an offensive line coach, fulfilling their annual rite of February, January and any other months consisting of days and/or weeks. Step right up, Butch Barry. You get to replace Matt Applebaum, who replaced some other guy who also was one-and-done, but you probably already knew that.
Nobody who coaches the Dolphins' line ever lives to see Season 2.
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We’re at the point where it must be asked: What’s the dividing line that separates a bad run of luck from a downright jinx?
Wherever it is, the Dolphins flew past it in the previous 11 years, during which they’ve had eight men in the role fulltime and three more on an interim basis. Some people don’t change their water filters that often.
So let’s just say it: This is the most-jinxed coaching job in the NFL.
Line coach of the Dolphins is Miami’s answer to Chicago’s billy goat curse, Boston’s Bambino and Detroit’s Dick Layne. But who trades Babe Ruth? Didn't those cities ask for trouble? What'd the Dolphins ever do to deserve this?
No Miami line coach in the past seven years lasted more than one season. Coincidentally, one year is an eternity to Pat Flaherty, the 2019 coach. Brian Flores saw Flaherty in action in four training camp practices and decided there would not be a fifth practice. Poor guy didn’t even survive until the first preseason game.
Shocking as that was, it doesn’t come close to the rocky period of 2012-16, when line coaches made national news. First came Jim Turner, his blow-up dolls and Bullygate. A few years later came Chris Foerster and the cocaine-snorting tape.
Decent chance you remember those names. But Jeremiah Washburn? John Benton? That’s Final Jeopardy! material there.
Boston College has its fingerprints on this, too. Turner arrived by way of BC. So too Applegate. And Flores. Today, BC’s line is coached by Dave DeGuglielmo, Miami’s OL coach from 2009-11 who conveniently was in the fold again in 2019 when Flaherty was sacked (the British kind of sacked, not the American). So at least this odd pipeline works in both directions.
There won’t be a test on this because frankly, it took some digging to get all this straight. Lemuel Jeanpierre had the role in 2021, was deemed not ready for it, but was brought back to assist Applebaum, a rookie NFL OL coach, in 2022. In 2018, Adam Gase hired Washburn, who became only the eighth coach to serve multiple tenures in Dolphins history. Washburn had just come from the Bears, and never mind that they’d just ranked 30th in offense and 29th in scoring.
While you’re shaking your head, recall that in 2020, Flores turned to the Memphis Express of the Alliance of American Football to hire Steve Marshall.
Barry has loads of experience coaching the line, but the most recent bit of it is concerning. He coached the Denver Broncos' offensive line, which gave up 63 sacks last season. That's 28 more than the Dolphins allowed. That's more than anybody else allowed. There are extenuating circumstances (injuries, QB hanging onto the ball) and Mike McDaniel knows him well from serving on the same staff in San Francisco, but getting past that 63 figure is going to take a lot of lifting.
Given this team's track record for that job, the benefit of doubt is not a phrase that comes to mind.
All those picks, yet only one landed in the Pro Bowl
The constant change means players are always having to adapt to new techniques. The irony is that throughout their history, the Dolphins have devoted more draft capital to the offensive line (120 picks) than any other position group. Since Turner arrived in 2013, Miami has used 14 picks on offensive linemen. Only one made the Pro Bowl: Laremy Tunsil. For Houston.
You have to go back generations for when it wasn't like this. The championship-era Dolphins had two Hall of Fame linemen (Larry Little and Jim Langer) plus a third who was Hall of Fame caliber (Bob Kuechenberg). They were coached by Monte Clark and John Sandusky, the best line coaches the organization ever had, covering a combined 25 seasons. Imagine: stability.
Decades later, occupying that office was Turner. He was blasted in a report compiled by Ted Wells on the NFL’s behalf following Bullygate. Wells concluded that Turner gave Christmas gift bags in 2012 that included female blow-up dolls for his linemen except for Jonathan Martin, whose bag had a male doll. Turner is an ex-Marine last seen coaching at Texas State.
If you’re looking for redemption stories, try Foerster. As soon as the tape appeared online showing him snorting cocaine through a $20 bill, he resigned under pressure. That very day, he was headed up the highway to West Palm Beach, checking into rehab paid for by the Dolphins.
Foerster later told NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero he had been praying for his secret to get out so he’d begin on the road to sobriety.
“I want this out of my life,” he said. “I can't do this anymore. All this (bleep) I had going on outside of work, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to drink anymore. I don't want to use anymore. And sure enough, two weeks later, the video came out. So you can say it's divine intervention. It wasn't the way I saw everything leaving my life like that. But I knew it was coming. At 55 years old, man, I just couldn't do this anymore."
It has taken a few years and incremental steps, but Foerster found a path with the San Francisco 49ers, for whom he'd coached before. Today he’s their run game coordinator and offensive line coach.
Foerster said he didn’t go to rehab to get his job back. He did it to get his life back.
If you’re looking for a happy ending to this unfortunate tale, there you have it.
Sure would be nice, though, if the Dolphins and Barry can start writing their own upbeat chapter in 2023.
Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at hhabib@pbpost.com and followed on Twitter @gunnerhal.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Dolphins hire newest brave soul for most-jinxed coaching job in NFL
