It's a virtual certainty Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard will be a head coach some day. Becoming one after just one year as a coordinator would have been surprising, but he got an interview for the Miami Dolphins head coaching job during this year's hiring cycle.
It's the timing of the interview that was odd. The same day Sheppard talked to the Dolphins, and the day they also talked to Patrick Graham, they hired former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as their new head coach. The two last-minute interviews then reeked of a scramble to satisfy the Rooney Rule before the Dolphins hired who they planned to anyway.
At the NFL Combine on Tuesday, Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan said Sheppard was a legitimate candidate for the job and he "will be a head coach in this league one day" among some deeper praise for the Lions' defensive coordinator.
Of course no general manager would say someone wasn't a legit candidate when publicly pressed on the topic, but Sullivan didn't have to praise Sheppard to the extent he did.
"I think if you want to build a bully, Kelvin, he can lead men," Sullivan said. "There was a toughness and a command that he had, and his ability to articulate that. And it wasn’t false bravado. I mean, he walked out of the room and we all kind of looked at each other like, 'Wow, that was really impressive.' I have no doubt as he gets down the road in his career, he’ll have a lot of opportunities."
Kelvin Sheppard suggests he was runner-up for the Dolphins' head coaching job
Speaking to Detroit reporters in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Sheppard said his interview with the Dolphins was a "phenomenal experience" with a "first class organization. He also dismissed the idea it was a token interview to check a box.
"Full disclosure, I was in communication with the Dolphins for about two weeks, so I don’t know how it typically goes but I know after the interview I was contacted by three people from that front office," Sheppard said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. "And I’m not going to disclose the things that I was told but I think that’s just about as real as it can get when Hafley calls somebody on my staff and says, ‘Those people were about to hire Kelvin.’ I mean, I don’t know why people would make this stuff up, but I think it’s as real as it can get."
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Sheppard admitted he doesn't know how the process typically goes, but the details he provided back up an idea the Dolphins were genuinely interested in hiring him. Hafley calling someone on the Lions' defensive staff to say it close to happening, if that's true (and Sheppard is not one to exaggerate) adds an interesting layer.
It appears the Lions almost lost a coordinator to a head coaching job in back-to-back offseasons. Take away Hafley's tie to Sullivan from their time together in Green Bay, and maybe it would've happened and Sheppard would be on the ground at the Combine wearing Dolphins' colors.