MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The NFL is looking into Brian Flores’ allegation that Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per loss during the Miami Dolphins’ tanking season in 2019. If and when investigators sit down with Josh Boyer — who was the Dolphins’ defensive backs coach that year before Flores elevated him to defensive coordinator in 2020 — they apparently won’t get any kind of smoking gun out of Flores’ longtime colleague and friend.
Dolphins’ Josh Boyer on Brian Flores’ bribing allegations
Speaking to reporters for the first time since new coach Mike McDaniel decided to keep Boyer on as defensive coordinator, Boyer was asked by PFN if he felt any pressure from ownership to lose in 2019. Boyer’s response?
“No. I’ve never felt that. That’s never come up for me. Every conversation that I’ve had is, ‘Put guys in the best position to succeed and try to win the game.’ For me personally, that has never come up.”
Boyer was surprised by Flores’ accusation
When pressed further on the topic, Boyer said he was surprised to hear Flores’ accusation.
“There’s a lot of things that are out there that are surprising,” he said. “I know that there are some things that are out there that are not true — that’s surprising to me. Things that get reported, and people say things.
“I kind of try to do the best I can,” Boyer continued. “I think it’s a good philosophy of life — control the things that you can control. Put in a good day’s work and try to build relationships and get better. Yeah, there’s a lot of things that happened that are surprising and that you don’t expect, but at the end of the day, none of it’s detrimental to winning football games, if that makes sense.”
Boyer later insisted that he called plays in all 17 games for the Dolphins in 2021. Additionally, he effectively shot down speculation that Flores took over DC responsibilities after a slow defensive start to the season.