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Dolphins News: Kippy Brown Named OC
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Dolphins News: Kippy Brown Named OC
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*** DOLPHINS NEWS ***
Feb 09, 1998: -- Kippy Brown Named OC --

The Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald have both announced this weekend that running backs coach Kippy Brown has been given the offensive coordinator job for the Dolphins. According to both newspapers, sources on the team are telling them that Brown has been offered and has accepted the job of being Gary Stevens' replacement on the team for 1998.

Brown was apparently offered the job on Friday, during the annual draft scouting combine in Indianapolis. Some analysts had thought that JJ was waiting until the scouting combine to talk to some candidates for replacement, but that appears to not have been the case.

Kippy Brown was hired last year by JJ as a replacement for Tony Nathan as the Dolphins' running backs coach. He came to the Dolphins from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he was the running backs coach under Sam Wyche.

Brown has a total of 19 years experience as a coach, with about 6 of those being in the NFL. He played quarterback at Memphis State from 1975-77 before taking a job there as running backs coach in 1978. He moved on in 1982 to the University of Louisville, where he coached wide receiver Mark Clayton before Clayton came to the Dolphins.

He has spent most of his coaching career with the University of Tennessee as a receivers coach, where he coached such players as Alvin Harper, Tim McGee, and Anthony Miller. Further details on his coaching career can be seen at the Dolphins Endzone website at the link listed in "Related Links".

An official announcement of Browns promotion may not come until Wednesday, February 11th, when JJ talks to the press about the Dolphins' plans for the free agency period, which is scheduled to begin on Friday, February 13th.

In addition to promoting Brown, the Dolphins have reportedly hired Dallas assistant Robert Ford to replace Larry Seiple as receivers coach. Ford was the Dallas tight ends coach and has been with the Cowboys since 1991. He will take over for Seiple, who is being promoted to be the quarterbacks coach, a position vacated by Gary Stevens.

That leaves the Dolphins currently without a running backs' coach, but according to the Sun-Sentinel, the Dolphins are expected to hire one soon.

My Comments:

This development is no surprise, having been rumored for weeks. Brown has gotten some good endorsements from some of his former coaches, included Sam Wyche and Bruce Coslet, both of whom are pretty well regarded for their offensive coaching skills.

The most disturbing part about Brown's promotion is that he has no previous coordinator experience. While not necessarily a drawback, depending on how you look at it, it certainly does not fill me with confidence.

Still, given the available candidates, it sounds like Brown is a pretty good one.

In a case like this, we'll just have to take a wait-and-see attitude. It does no good to try and figure out how he will perform based on past experience, because he has no past experience.

It's also hard to rate Brown on the basis of the performance of the running backs this year. While the running numbers were way down from last year, it's hard to blame that on the performance of the running backs. Anyone who watched the Dolphins this year knows that the main reason the running game was so poor was the lack of blocking. Until that gets fixed, there's no way to tell how the running backs can perform.

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Curt Fennell, curt@phins.com, DOLFAN in New Rochelle (almost)
     
   

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Curt Fennell
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DOLFAN in New England