Darren Rizzi leaving Dolphins; Danny Crossman to serve as special teams coordinator

The Miami Dolphins will be without Darren Rizzi for the first time since 2009 when they open the 2019 season. Rizzi joined the Dolphins as the team’s special teams coordinator in 2010, holding the position through multiple head coach regimes, and eventually adding the title of associate head coach in 2017. As the Dolphins prepare to hire Brian Flores after the Super Bowl as their next head coach - a position for which Rizzi interviewed but was not hired - it now appears that Rizzi is headed somewhere else in the league.

Rizzi, who has some of the best sideline facial expressions ever seen, is in “advanced talks with another team,” according to the Miami Harold’s Barry Jackson. The decision for Rizzi to leave Miami seems to be a mutual decision as the Dolphins were not looking to retain him and Rizzi did not want to stay in Miami after being passed over for the head coaching position.

ESPN’s Field Yates indicated the Dolphins will hire Danny Crossman, who served as the special teams coordinator for the Buffalo Bills from 2013 to 2018, the Detroit Lions from 2010 to 2012, and the Carolina Panthers from 2007 to 2009, as their new special teams coordinator. He also reported former Detroit Lions quarterbacks coach George Godsey will be hired as the team’s new tight ends coach - a position he held with the New England Patriots from 2012 to 2013 - and former New York Jets wide receivers coach Karl Dorrell as the new wide receivers coach.

Dorrell worked as the Dolphins’ wide receivers coach from 2008 to 2010 and as the team’s quarterbacks coach in 2011.