Upon receiving the first possession of the ballgame, it was clear that Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford knew exactly how to beat Brian Flores and his defensive scheme, immediately hitting Puka Nacua downfield on what would become an opening drive resulting in a touchdown.

In fact, if not for a foolish Beaux Limmer unnecessary roughness penalty, the Rams could likely have been up 14-0 in the blink of an eye.

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There is no nice way to put this. Flores has been outcoached by the two best offensive minds in the NFC on four separate occasions this season. The Vikings collapse has some wondering if Flores is ready for another head coaching opportunity, especially when general managers and owners reflect on his first head coaching tenure.

As of writing, there are six head coaching vacancies in the NFL. The teams looking for a new leader are the Jets, Jaguars, Raiders, Bears, Cowboys and Saints. It remains to be seen where Flores stands in his candidacy for an open job, but according to several sources around the NFL, Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, and Mike McCarthy are likely to receive job offers soon, which would leave about three jobs remaining.

Here's the problem -- Flores' reputation in terms of being a head coach is not that great. In three years as Miami's head coach, Flores went 24-25 with two winning seasons. The problem is that he never made the playoffs and his replacement, Mike McDaniel is 28-23 in three years with two playoff appearances. However his on field performance is not the issue when it comes to his hiring.

Flores had a public power struggle with Dolphins' GM Chris Grier that led to his firing. One of the things alleged that sparked the struggle was that Flores wanted to move on from Tua Tagovailoa and Grier did not.

Tagovailoa has publicly stated Flores was verbally abrasive to him, going on to detail his experience to Dan Le Batard, stating "If you woke up every morning and I told you that you suck at what you did, that you don’t belong doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this right."

To make matters worse, the quarterback that Flores wanted to be there was Deshaun Watson. As mentioned by Marcel Louis-Jacques and Adam Schefter, Flores wanted Watson during the 2021 season. Watson was facing multiple allegations of misconduct at the time. Due to a looming suspension, unknown in length, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross did not execute the trade and we all know what happened next in regards to Watson's performance on the field and actions off of it.

Flores also did not design a proper development plan for Tagovailoa to eventually become the starting quarterback. He simply threw a rookie Tagovailoa into the starting role, against Aaron Donald and the 2020 Rams with Chan Gailey as his offensive coordinator, and essentially gave Tagovailoa the NFL version of "good luck."

While Tagovailoa played well in a victorious effort, the cracks in his game quickly appeared and defenses adjusted. This was in 2020. At that time, before his hiring by Flores, Gailey had been out of the NFL since 2015 and immediately retired after the 2020 season. Due to this, there's a good chance the Bears, Raiders, Saints, and/ or Jets will not be interested as they either have or are expected to have a young quarterback on their roster within the next two years. But for Flores, it gets worse.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, who was Miami's starter at the time before unexpectantly and unceremoniously being benched by Flores for Tagovailoa after starting the 2020 season with a 3-3 record stated Flores "became unrecognizable," and that in Miami, Flores "burned a lot of bridges there, I think he alienated himself from the entire staff."

Fitzpatrick also stated that it would be unlikely that one of Flores' former assistants in Miami would be willing to give him a good reference. Flores would proceed to randomly throw Fitzpatrick back into the game when Miami was losing throughout the 2020 season, ruining Tagovailoa's confidence and growth.

So if Flores has a bad track record with NFL executives, with owners, with young quarterbacks, and with players in general, what does he bring? He brings a solid defensive scheme and experience. The problem is McVay and Stafford shredded that scheme twice in a calendar year, just like Ben Johnson and the Lions did.

Well, one could make the argument that Flores was using veteran players, castoffs, undervalued players, undrafted free agents, and unknown names, molding them into an effective defensive unit. That is his selling point. The issue is that Rams DC Chris Shula can make the same point to an even worse degree than Flores and when the entire country was watching, Shula's defense shut down a McVay-esc offensive scheme while Flores' got exposed, likely elevating Shula's candidacy over him.

So if Flores has in this hypothetical scenario, two job openings remaining and conversations regarding the issues stated above are being spoken about, where does he go? He may still pull a job after all but that window in 2025 looks to have been shut by Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/rams/ as Did Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford Cost Brian Flores a Head Coaching Job?.