The Miami Dolphins’ defense has made improvements in several areas over the last several weeks, and just about everybody has chipped in.

And that includes a new coach who’s technically not a member of the coaching staff.

Defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver introduced the media Thursday to this mystery man: longtime NFL defensive assistant Bill Shuey.

Shuey isn’t officially a member of the coaching staff, but Weaver says he’s been a valuable contributor in helping coach the outside linebackers. Shuey has been assisting Sean Ryan, who began the season as a senior defensive assistant but took over coaching the outside linebackers after assistant Ryan Crow was arrested for a domestic assault incident and later placed on administrative leave.

“We had a little bit of adversity there early in the year with what went down with our outside backers coach,” Weaver said. “Sean Ryan really stepped in. And since we’ve had Bill Shuey step in as well, too, and help with some of that. I tried to put some of that on my plate, but it’s really just spread way too thin. From a coaching perspective, between coach Ryan and coach Shuey, I think they’ve been doing an outstanding job with those outside backers, just in terms of technique and fundamentals.”

CROW DEVELOPMENT

Head coach Mike McDaniel said early in the season the Dolphins would await the results of an NFL investigation before making a decision on Crow, who saw prosecutors decline to press charges, and it appears that decision has been made.

While no announcement ever came from the team, Crow no longer appears among the Dolphins coaches on the team website.

Shuey was part of Doug Pederson’s coaching staff with the Jacksonville Jaguars as outside linebackers coach the past three seasons (2022-24) after four seasons with the Chicago Bears, but wasn’t retained when Liam Coen took over as head coach and was out of the NFL when Weaver came calling.

“We were extremely fortunate that now I think he’s on here as like a coaching consultant,” Weaver explained. “I don’t know exactly what his role is. But Bill is a guy, when I was in Baltimore, we interviewed him for the outside backers job and I thought he did an outstanding job. So we were fortunate that he was on the street and still living in Jacksonville.

“So I made a call. I actually had to talk to Mike (McDaniel) and Brandon (Shore) and everybody at the time and just said, hey, we kind of need this add. This would help us. And he was coaching his kid’s flag football teams. So it was funny. It was during the Cleveland week. I think he got here on Friday, and he traveled to the game, still didn’t know much of the guys. Like, the guys were like, who the heck is this guy? Right? And he had a locker when we were at the Brown stadium and (offensive assistant) Max McCaffrey was like, goes up to (equipment manager) Joe Cimino. And it’s like, man, I think there’s some random guy in the locker room because he didn’t even know him yet. So, yeah, he hasn’t been here very long, four or five weeks, but his impact has been felt for sure.”

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