The Miami Dolphins announced a change to their coach staff this morning — and although it wasn’t the change everyone is awaiting word on, it still have some potential foreshadowing for Miami’s bigger change awaiting the team’s offense. The Dolphins announced that offensive line coach Steve Marshall is no longer with the team and in his place, the team has promoted Lemuel Jeanpierre.
We have promoted Lemuel Jeanpierre to offensive line coach. We have parted ways with offensive line coach Steve Marshall.
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) January 19, 2021
Jeanpierre was previously on the staff as the Dolphins’ assistant offensive line coach — but now he will get the chance to take control of the unit and look to build upon a promising but imperfect 2020 campaign for the Dolphins front. Given how maligned Miami’s offensive line has been for the better part of a decade, there are impossibly high standards to be lived up to along the line — standards that Marshall’s group simply didn’t hit.
But this is a unit trending in the right direction with plenty of youth. Jeanpierre, who himself played six seasons in the NFL between the Seahawks, Chiefs and Lions, will look to tap into his playing and coach experiences alike to help a Miami line that started three rookies by the end of the season and is looking at more potential personnel changes depending on how the Dolphins choose to handling the pending free agency of center Ted Karras.
For Coach Marshall, his latest NFL tenure comes to a close once again in tandem with that of former Dolphins OC Chan Gailey. With Gailey’s vacancy still open and the Dolphins willing to promote from within for a positional job, one would assume that Miami’s other hire will also come from within. The Dolphins have two candidates in-house up for the offensive coordinator position: TE/QB coach George Godsey and RB coach Eric Studesville.