When long-time New England Patriots assistant Brian Flores took over as the Miami Dolphins’ new head coach in 2019, he immediately started to import some culture from his former team. He brought assistant coaches with him and also started signing players who previously worked with the Patriots.
The New England-South Beach pipeline was only getting set up during Flores’ first year at the job: defensive backs Eric Rowe, Aqib Talib and Ken Webster were the most prominent ex-Patriots brought in that season — all players who either had played a limited role as of late or, in Talib’s case, had not been with the organization for quite some time.