Dolphins bring back former standout cornerback Sam Madison as assistant coach
The Miami Dolphins are bringing back the one of the team’s all-time greats, Sam Madison, as an assistant coach.
Madison will join new coach Mike McDaniel’s staff as cornerbacks coach/pass-game specialist, a league source confirmed to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The news was first reported by ESPN on Wednesday night.
Madison was a four-time Pro Bowl selection for the Dolphins, playing in Miami from 1997 to 2005. He also played three seasons with the New York Giants and won a Super Bowl with them. Madison had 38 interceptions in his career.
The former Dolphins great spent the past three seasons as secondary/cornerbacks coach with the Kansas City Chiefs. He won another ring as a coach in the 2019 season, which ended with a Chiefs’ victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl in Miami. McDaniel was on the 49ers’ coaching staff for that game.
Prior to coaching in the NFL, Madison also was an assistant coach locally in South Florida with high school powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas.
Madison takes the role that was originally being retained by Charles Burks, but Burks is departing for a similar role with the Cincinnati Bengals, as ESPN reported and a league source confirmed.
A ballhawk in his day, Madison will now coach a unit that is led by three-time Pro Bowl and one-time All-Pro Xavien Howard, who has 27 interceptions in his first six NFL seasons, including a league-leading seven in 2018 and 10 in 2020. Howard and fellow cornerback Byron Jones are the Dolphins’ two highest-paid players. The position group also has 2020 first-round pick Noah Igbinoghene entering his third season and will have offseason decisions to make on restricted free agent Nik Needham and unrestricted free agent Justin Coleman.
With Madison replacing Burks, the Dolphins still have an opening for a safeties or overall defensive backs coach, which was vacated by the firing of Gerald Alexander.
McDaniel has worked quickly in the week and a half since landing his first head coaching job, nearly filling out the whole primary coaching staff and even bringing aboard his former Yale teammate, Chandler Henley, as assistant quarterbacks coach.
In a video released by the Dolphins when McDaniel first arrived in Miami, McDaniel can be heard naming Miami legends of the past as he walked through the hallways, seeing players’ pictures on the wall. Madison was one of the former players named, along with running backs Larry Csonka and Ricky Williams.
In addition to his four Pro Bowls (1999-2002), Madison earned two first-team All-Pro selections (1999, 2000) and two second-team All-Pro selections (1998, 2001). He led the league with seven interceptions in 1999 and had a career-high eight in 1998.
Madison and Patrick Surtain formed an all-time great cornerback combination between the late 1990s and early 2000s. A Louisville alum, Madison was a second-round draft pick for the Dolphins in 1997.