Breaking Down Dolphins' First New Coordinator Hire, Front Office Addition

The Miami Dolphins' new braintrust of GM Jon-Eric Sullivan and HC Jeff Hafley are hard at work building out their staffs, and we know of two people who will be joining the Dolphins this season.

The Dolphins are hiring former Buffalo Bills special teams coordinator Chris Tabor to the same position, replacing Craig Aukerman after one season. Additionally, the team is adding Kyle Smith as the assistant general manager.

This comes just hours after Hafley went on The Joe Rose show and said he hoped to have all three of his primary coordinators hired by the end of the weekend.

Let’s dive into Tabor and Smith’s background a bit.

Dolphins Hire Chris Tabor as Special Teams Coordinator

Tabor has roughly 25 years of special teams coaching experience, earning the title of special teams coach for the Missouri Tigers in 2000.

Since then, he’s worked his way up to the NFL and served as the special teams coordinator for the Cleveland Browns from 2011 through 2017 before mult-year stints with the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears as their special teams coordinators.

Most recently, of course, Tabor was the Bills' special teams coordinator this past season. The Bills finished fourth in average yards per kick return (27.9) and had one returned for a touchdown.

Under Tabor’s coaching, backup running back Ray Davis was named a first-team All-Pro kick returner, averaging 30.4 yards per return.

Buffalo fared worse on punts, though, as the team averaged just 6.5 yards per return, but only fair caught 14. Both of those rank near the bottom of the league.

Evaluating the Bills’ kicking game from last season is a little tough. They cycled through kickers and punters due to injuries, but one stat stands out.

Buffalo allowed the fewest punt return yards in the league (118). Despite having punters who weren’t exactly making good kicks, Tabor coached up the coverage team to limit the damage.

The Bills were worse on kickoffs, allowing the 17th most average yards per return this past season. They didn’t allow any touchdowns, so it wasn’t like they were getting gashed.

And despite rolling with multiple kickers, Buffalo made 19 of its 21 field-goal attempts this past season, mostly off Matt Prater’s foot.

The first big decision for Tabor will be what the Dolphins do at kicker. Riley Patterson replaced Jason Sanders last season after Sanders’ preseason injury. Patterson broke Sanders’ record for the most accurate kicking season in Dolphins’ history.

Sanders’ contract is pretty cutable, so we’ll see what Tabor wants to do.

Dolphins Hire Kyle Smith as Assistant General Manager

Smith is the son of former Chargers general manager A.J. Smith and had a brief playing career from 2006 through 2007 before playing professional football outside of the NFL for a few years.

He joined the Washington front office as a scouting intern in 2010, before working his way up to Vice President of Player Personnel in 2020. After that, he jumped ship to Atlanta and held the same title for two seasons before getting promoted to assistant GM in 2023, a title he held until this offseason.

Now, he’ll get the same title with the Dolphins and work with Sullivan as one of his key lieutenants. The Dolphins have five picks in the top 100 of the 2026 NFL draft, and several key internal cut candidates to decide on, so there won’t be a shortage of decisions for Smith to weigh in on.

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