Right before the start of the Miami Dolphins’ season, the team had to deal with a shakeup on the coaching staff.
Outside linebackers coach Ryan Crow was arrested on domestic battery charges, which were later dropped. The Dolphins immediately placed Crow on administrative leave, later parting ways with the assistant coach, and needed someone to step up to lead his former unit.
Sean Ryan, who officially holds the title of senior defensive assistant, stepped up. According to defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, Ryan was the one to ask for the job, which might’ve saved Weaver from being spread thin by instructing outside linebackers on top of his coordinating duties.
“It was a tremendous experience,” said Ryan on a web conference with reporters Thursday, “and what made it great was the guys in the room, to be honest with you. They work incredibly hard. They care about their jobs. They do it really well. They’re attentive. They’re helpful.”
Ryan can be credited, in part, with edge rusher Bradley Chubb’s comeback from missing the 2024 season rehabbing a knee injury to having 8½ sacks going into Sunday’s finale against the New England Patriots. Along with that, 2024 first-round pick Chop Robinson has grown in his second season, and before Jaelan Phillips was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles, he too was having a bounce-back year from back-to-back season-ending injuries in 2023 (Achilles) and 2024 (ACL).
The shift wasn’t without challenge, of course, given the suddenness of it all.
“It was on the fly,” Ryan said. “Learned a lot. But the way they show up for work every day, it made it just one of the experiences I’ll always relish in my coaching career, to be honest with you.”
What makes Ryan unique as a defensive assistant is, before joining the Dolphins in 2024, just about all his previous coaching experience was on the offensive side. Between college and the NFL, Ryan had coached quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers.
In the pros, he has been with the New York Giants, Houston Texans, Detroit Lions and Carolina Panthers. With the Giants, he was part of two Super Bowl champs, and in Houston was where he connected with Weaver.
His offensive expertise allows him to help defensive players affect offensive players, especially the quarterback for his pass-rushers.
“I think it’s very helpful,” Ryan said. “You look at it and you know what has affected guys that you’ve coached, whether it be, like especially quarterbacks, a big part of our job is rushing those guys and making them uncomfortable. And I try to show them and talk to them about what the quarterback is dealing with and what he’s thinking and how everything that we do affects him and affects how he plays — not only within one play, but leading to the next play and the next series. I think it was pretty helpful in that way, being able to carry over the experience of having the quarterbacks for as long as I have.”
It was actually precisely the vision Weaver had in mind when he wanted Ryan on his defensive staff, bringing him on board after taking the Dolphins’ defensive coordinator role in 2024.
“(He) was brought in essentially to give me an offensive perspective while we’re calling defenses,” Weaver said. “So I had a guy who can see things through the lens of a quarterback.”
Additionally, Ryan did plenty of work with the outside linebackers last season while Crow was on the staff.
“I felt like I had a relationship with those guys,” Ryan said. “I felt like, for them, they would have some comfort with me being in there, because I had been in there. And I thought it would be a transition that would be good for them. And that was the first thing on my mind.”
Chubb’s season speaks for itself, as he reached an incentive in his contract for surpassing eight sacks on the season last Sunday. He has more money tied into whether the Dolphins finish with a top-20 scoring defense. They enter the final week ranked 21st.
Ryan said Robinson improved in taking on different blocks in the run game and built on his strength of rushing the passer by developing new counters.
As the season comes to a close, he also has veterans Cameron Goode and Quinton Bell, both special teams contributors who can step into a rotation on the edge, and has developed Derrick McLendon on the practice squad. McLendon may get elevated to the active roster for the second straight week and possibly remain active for the game this time.
While Broward County prosecutors elected not to pursue the domestic battery case against Crow, the NFL had its own investigation. The team officially parted ways with him in December.
