Dolphins hiring former Lions assistant; 2 defensive coaches won’t return
The Dolphins are hiring former Detroit Lions assistant Brian Duker to be their secondary coach and pass game coordinator, a league source confirmed to the Miami Herald.
Renaldo Hill, who spent this past season as secondary coach and pass game coordinator, and Sam Madison, who was cornerbacks coach and pass game specialist, will not return to the staff in 2024, a source said.
Duker has spent the last three seasons in Detroit. He first joined the Lions as a defensive assistant in 2021 and then was promoted to safeties coach in 2022 before taking on a bigger role leading the secondary. In 2023, he was the defensive backs coach.
From 2018 to 2020, Duker was a defensive staff assistant and coaching analyst with the Baltimore Ravens. Duker got his start in the NFL as a coaching intern with the Cleveland Browns in 2015. He overlapped with new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, who was the defensive line coach. Duker also served as a defensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers in 2016.
Duker is the third known addition to Weaver’s staff, along with former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry, who will be the linebackers coach and run game coordinator, and former Tennessee Titans outside linebackers Ryan Crow, who will take on the same role in Miami. The Dolphins still have a vacancy for a safeties coach with Joe Kasper reportedly leaving to join Vic Fangio’s staff with the Philadelphia Eagles in the same role.
Hill joined Fangio’s staff in Miami last season, leaving his previous position as the Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive coordinator. Madison, a fourtime Pro Bowler and twotime All-Pro selection who played the first nine years of his career with the Dolphins, spent the last two seasons on Miami’s coaching staff.
NFL Network first reported the Dolphins are hiring Duker.
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