An AFC East coach doesn’t think Cam Newton will start Week 1: Let’s investigate who that coach is

Brian Flores used to work for Bill Belichick on the New England Patriots.

If there’s any head coach in the AFC East who has a firm grasp about what could be going on inside of Bill Belichick’s head, it might be arguably his greatest disciple ever in Miami Dolphins’ head coach Brian Flores. The former Patriots defensive coordinator is entering his season leading the Dolphins and poised for a plucky playoff push.

Though he was already in Miami Gardens by the time New England drafted Jarrett Stidham in the fourth round out of Auburn in 2019, there’s a great chance Flores still has friends in One Patriot Place, including Belichick himself. They may be coaching rival teams in the same division, but you can sense the respect Belichick and Flores have for each other. To them, it’s about the work.

From what we’ve seen out of Flores in his one year as the Dolphins head coach, he is a total no-nonsense type of guy. You need that to be a successful head coach in a port city like Miami with a ton of distractions. The South Beach flu is a very real thing, as it’ll bite the ass of any 20-to-30-something ballplayer who wants to have a good time at night before venturing to Hard Rock.

Would Flores say something this dumb? It seems a bit out of character, but no head coach in the division is better acquainted with The Patriot Way outside of Foxborough than Flores. These comments may be seen more as praise of Stidham than as ridicule of Newton, though we’re never going to take them that way. As with Sean McDermott, Flores can’t be totally crossed off either.