Analyzing All Sides of Jeff Hafley Becoming Dolphins New Head Coach

The Miami Dolphins’ extensive head coaching search is over.

The Dolphins are working to finalize hiring Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as the franchise’s 12th full-time head coach, according to multiple national reports. Hafley’s hiring comes after a second in-person interview Monday.

Of course, the big connection is Hafley’s overlap with General Manager Jon-Eric Sullivan, who also came from the Packers. It seems like the Dolphins are trying to bring the entirety of Green Bay’s process and winning to South Florida.

This really should come as no surprise to fans since Hafely was the odds-on favorite for a while, and reports that Miami had centered on him as the lead candidate started popping up over the weekend.

Dolphins fans seem to have a lot of reservations about Hafley, but his resume — compared to most candidates this cycle — is honestly pretty good.

Jeff Hafley’s Coaching Resume

Hafley’s latest and most robust NFL success has come in the last two seasons as Green Bay’s defensive coordinator. However, he also spent time with the Buccaneers, Browns, and 49ers as a defensive backs coach.

Some fans have scoffed at the job Hafley has done with Green Bay’s defense, but the numbers are fairly promising. In 2024, the Packers ranked fifth in total defense and sixth in scoring defense, their best marks since their 2010 Super Bowl team.

This year, Hafley’s unit finished 12th in yards per game and 11th in points allowed per game. A lot of that drop-off came in the second half of the season, following Micah Parsons’ ACL tear. The Packers

Hafley’s unit also improved in key stats like third-down percentage, defensive success rate, and turnovers since his arrival in 2024.

There are some holes to poke in those numbers, and we’ll get to that, but the other important part of his resume is his coaching tenure at Boston College.

Hafley spent four seasons as the head coach at Boston College. While his 22-26 record won’t impress many, NFL teams probably aren’t overly worried about it.

What they do care about is what it means for Hafley’s transition from leading one side of the ball to leading an entire team. That is not a foreign concept to him. Hafley knows how to manage competing interests, run team meetings, and use his time effectively.

In fact, given how crazy NIL and the transfer portal have gotten, it’s actually probably harder to manage an entire team in college football — don’t forget about recruiting, too.

Hafley made Boston College bowl-eligible in three of his four seasons, which is absolutely a win for that program. Former NFL head coach Bill O’Brien is 9-15 in two seasons at BC and hasn’t been bowl-eligible in either.

That’s a hard place to coach, and Hafley was more successful than most in an era in which Boston College can’t compete with other teams’ budgets.

Hafley’s other college stop was a good season as the Ohio State Buckeyes’ defensive coordinator.

Hafley has had success in the NFL and college, along with already understanding what type of team Sullivan wants the Dolphins to be — that’s not a bad resume.

What are the Drawbacks of Hafley?

There’s a lot to like with Hafley, but he’s not a perfect candidate by any means.

The easiest hole to poke in Hafley’s resume is how Green Bay’s defense performed the last two seasons. The 2024 team was pretty reliant on turnover luck, netting a whopping 31 takeaways.

In 2025, the team’s success fell off a cliff when Parsons got injured. Green Bay’s defense struggled to end the season, losing games against the Bears, Ravens, and Vikings. It held the Vikings to 16 points, but that was a meaningless game.

Then, of course, you have Green Bay’s complete collapse in the wild-card round against Chicago. Hafley’s unit had zero answers for Caleb Williams in the fourth quarter, leading to one of the worst postseason collapses in NFL history.

If defensive play-calling was your top trait for the Dolphins head coach, then candidates like Jesse Minter and Chris Shula were probably better options. But they have their own flaws, too.

The other drawback with Hafley is one that he shares with every defensive head coach — the question of who will run the offense.

Hafley can pull someone from the LaFleur coaching tree, which has branches into the Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay coaching trees. Finding an initial offensive coordinator isn’t really the issue. Keeping that person in Miami, if they’re successful, it's definitely an issue.

Dealing with “brain drain” is hard, and whoever Hafely hires will likely be working with a young quarterback in the next two seasons. Again, this problem isn’t unique to Hafley, but it’s a problem either way.

Ultimately, there are reasons to get excited and be skeptical of Hafley. What many don’t realize is that we’re viewing all of this information through a keyhole.

So much of what makes a good head coach happens behind the scenes. In rooms we will never enter and conversations we’ll never be a part of. It’s fine to be skeptical of Hafley, but acting like he’s some terrible, unqualified candidate is just not based in reality.

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