Miami Dolphins line up four more interviews to wrap up busy week for coaching search

The rest of the week will be busy with interviews for the Miami Dolphins as they try to fill their coaching vacancy.

The Dolphins will spend Thursday and Friday interviewing Dan Quinn, Kellen Moore, Vance Joseph and Thomas Brown for their opening, NFL Network reported. This follows an interview with Mike McDaniel, which was scheduled for Wednesday, and previous interviews with Brian Daboll and Leslie Frazier.

Miami will interview Quinn and Moore on Thursday, and Joseph and Brown on Friday.

Those coaches are the coaches the Dolphins reportedly requested to interview, although it’s always possible more candidates could emerge later in the process or have not been reported.

What to know about candidates

Quinn and Moore just finished their seasons Sunday as their Dallas Cowboys fell to the San Francisco 49ers, 23-17, in the first round of the 2021-22 NFL playoffs.

Dan Quinn, Cowboys defensive coordinator

Quinn, 51, just finished his first season as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator after he spent the previous six years as coach of the Atlanta Falcons, leading them to an ill-fated appearance in Super Bowl 51. He also won Super Bowl 48 as the Seattle Seahawks’ defensive coordinator, which helped him land his job with the Falcons.

Kellen Moore, Cowboys defensive coordinator

Moore, who was a Heisman Trophy finalist as a quarterback for the Boise State Broncos in 2010, just finished his third season as Dallas’ offensive coordinator, and dialed up the league’s highest-scoring offense in this year. The 35-year-old was also the Cowboys’ quarterbacks coach for a year before being promoted to OC and has led the NFL’s top-ranked offense in two of his three seasons as coordinator.

Vance Joseph, Cardinals defensive coordinator

Joseph’s season finished Monday as his Arizona Cardinals fell 34-11 to the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the NFL playoffs. The 49-year-old just finished his third season as the Cardinals’ defensive coordinator and was previously the Denver Broncos’ coach for two years, never winning more than six games in a season. His Arizona defense, however, was the 11th best in the league this year, in terms of both scoring and yardage, and he also has a tie to the Dolphins: He was Miami’s defensive coordinator for one season in 2016 before the Broncos hired him away to be their coach.

Thomas Brown, Rams assistant head coach

Brown, 35, should also be a familiar name in South Florida: The Rams assistant head coach spent three seasons on former coach Mark Richt’s staff with the Miami Hurricanes, serving as both the offensive coordinator and running backs coach. Brown then spent one year as the South Carolina Gamecocks’ running backs coach before Los Angeles hired him for the same position in 2020. He’s still the Rams’ running backs coach, but he earned a promotion to assistant head coach last year. He has never been a coordinator at the NFL level or a playcaller at any level, as Richt called plays for the Hurricanes throughout his time in Coral Gables.

The other three to interview for the job are McDaniel, Daboll and Frazier. McDaniel’s interview was scheduled for Wednesday, while Daboll and Frazier interviewed in person Sunday after they helped lead the Buffalo Bills to a 47-17 rout of the New England Patriots in the first round of the playoffs Saturday.

Mike McDaniel, 49ers offensive coordinator

McDaniel, 38, is in his first season as the 49ers’ offensive coordinator after spending the previous four years as their run game coordinator. San Francisco had the No. 7 rushing offense in the NFL in the regular season and the No. 7 offense overall, in terms of total yardage.

Brian Daboll, Bills offensive coordinator

Daboll, 46, is in his third season as the Bills’ offensive coordinator and was also quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s offensive coordinator with the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2017. Daboll helped develop Josh Allen into a superstar quarterback and his Buffalo offenses have ranked in the top five in the NFL in each of the last two seasons.

Leslie Frazier, Bills defensive coordinator

Frazier, 62, is in his fifth season as the Bills’ defensive coordinator and has previous head coaching experience as the Minnesota Vikings’ coach from 2011-2013. In New York, his defenses have ranked in the top five in three of the last four seasons. He also went 21-32-1 as coach of the Vikings, making the playoffs once.