Jets hire Kacy Rodgers as defensive coordinator

Once you are a coach in the AFC East, it seems like you will forever be a coach in the AFC East - or at least will join a second AFC East team. Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, Rex Ryan, Tony Sparano, Todd Bowles, the list keeps on going. And growing, as today, the New York Jets officially hired Miami Dolphins defensive line coach Kacy Rodgers as the team's new defensive coordinator.

The move does not comes as a surprise, as, after former Dolphins secondary coach and interim head coach, following the firing of Tony Sparano in 2011, Todd Bowles was named the new head coach of the Jets, the rumors immediately began to circulate that Rodgers would be his defensive coordinator. Rodgers was one of the few holdovers from the Sparano era into the current Joe Philbin coaching regime in Miami. Rodgers and Bowles were also assistant coaches together under Bill Parcells with the Dallas Cowboys from 2005 to 2008, before moving with Parcells and Sparano to the Dolphins.

Rodgers is a highly regarded coach, having developed Pro Bowl players like Randy Starks, Paul Soliai, and Cameron Wake. He has also worked Miami's younger crop of defensive linemen, players like Olivier Vernon, Derrick Shelby, and Terrance Fede, into highly effective starters or key reserves. In the seven years Rodgers coached the Dolphins defensive line, Miami has the third most sacks, 287, of any team in the NFL (trailing the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles). He now joins a defense that has been bulit by former Jets head coach Rex Ryan, now the head coach with the Buffalo Bills, that finished the 2014 season sixth in total defense.

The Dolphins will now need to hire a new defensive line coach, or they could promote Charlie Bullen from his assistant defensive line coach position.