MIAMI — There are names we know — John Harbaugh, Kevin Stefanski and Robert Saleh — because of what they have accomplished, or haven’t as NFL head coaches.

Names we know because of whose bloodlines they have in Chris Shula, the grandson of Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, and Klint Kubiak, the son of Gary Kubiak, the former head coach of the Houston Texans and Denver Broncos.

And then there are individuals we aren’t familiar with, such as Green Bay’s defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, who will require research for those of us who don’t wear foam blocks of yellow cheese on our heads for game day.

Either way you slice it, owner Steve Ross will make yet another mistake if he hasn’t learned from his traumatic past of four previous hires.

Tony Sparano, whom Ross inherited, Joe Philbin, Adam Gase, Brian Flores and Mike McDaniel are the ghosts who haunt this franchise.

Those are the names you had to learn, once loved, and eventually despised until their removal.

Considering that the Dolphins are still a dysfunctional mess (this can’t be debated because I’ve covered every team during Ross’ 18-year reign over the franchise) even Stevie Wonder can see that Ross has had a traumatizing run of bad hires.

Some worse than others considering Joe Philbin came off more as a mortician than NFL head coach. But there were a few redeemable qualities each had, and Ross should be looking for these traits in all of his candidates.

Sparano was a man’s man who carried himself like a member of the Sopranos family. He was a motivator, able to make his players run through a brick wall for him.

Sparano, who died in 2018 after having an 18-year career as an NFL assistant, had a hard exterior. But there was a soft side to him that let you know he cared.

However, Sparano ruled with a stern fist. His teams weren’t flashy, but they were disciplined and tough.

I remember there was one season during the Sparano, Jeff Ireland and Bill Parcells era where the franchise consistently churned the bottom of its roster, cutting at least one player a week, whacking an individual who made a mistake in a game.

It was a ruthless approach, but one kept the players on their toes, and pushing themselves. Sparano’s teams didn’t beat themselves, and they were physical. Miami’s next coach should aspire to have the toughness and discipline of Sparano’s Dolphins.

As previously stated, I often wondered what Ross saw in Philbin.

He clearly wasn’t a quarterback whisperer despite working with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers as Green Bay’s offensive coordinator.

Phibin wasn’t an innovative playcaller, and he struggled to motivate and connect with his players.

However, Philbin put together one of the best coaching staffs Miami’s had since Jimmy Johnson’s tenure.

Dan Campbell was the standout of that group, and has created an impressive turnaround of the Detroit Lions since 2021. But Campbell wasn’t the only member of Philbin’s staff who developed into an upper-echelon NFL head coach.

Zac Taylor has led the Cincinnati Bengals to a 52-63-1 record, and is viewed as one of the best quarterback developers in today’s game because of the work he has done with Joe Burrow.

While other coaches and franchises might take credit for Taylor’s success and development, it was Philbin who provided Taylor his big break.

Philbin’s staff also featured Ben Johnson, whose Chicago Bears just won a wild card round of this year’s playoffs with yet another miraculous fourth-quarter comeback. Johnson, who worked under Campbell in Detroit, is a Coach of the Year candidate for the one-season turnaround he has led the Bears to.

And Darren Rizzi, one of the NFL’s top special teams coordinators, and Kacy Rodgers, a longtime defensive coordinator in the NFL, were also part of Philbin’s staff. In fairness, Campbell, Rizzi and Rodgers were holdovers from Sparano’s staff, but Philbin deserves credit for knowing how to identify coaching talents, and in my opinion putting together a quality staff is usually a head coach’s toughest battle.

Adam Gase also had a number of good assistants on his staff, but his greatest strength was knowing how to play the political game, inside the locker room, and out of it.

Gase worked a room and the people like a politician, which explains his fast rise in the NFL. Ross liked Gase because he made the Dolphins’ billionaire owner popular with the cool kids in NFL circles.

Gase was sold to the franchise as a quarterback whisperer, but we quickly learned he was merely Peyton Manning’s study buddy.

Gase’s work with Ryan Tannehill, and then Sam Darnold when he took over the Jets as New York’s head coach, revealed he couldn’t make a quarterback better than he was.

Gase also paid very little attention to defense, which has been a troubling trend with all of Miami’s offensive hirings during Ross’ tenure.

It would be nice to have a coach who can coach both units, both sides of the ball for once. But that goes back to Shula days as well.

Ross strayed from his offense obsessions when he hired Brian Flores in 2019 as Gase’s replacement after learning the locker room had quit on Gase after discovering he betrayed them in numerous instances, and was more about serving self than team.

Flores came from the Bill Belichick coaching tree, which we have since learned produces rotten fruit based on how all of Belichick’s underlings fail their team.

It’s the classic case of, “do what I say and not what I do.”

Flores watched Belichick abuse players and coaches and thought he could get away with it without championship rings. While Flores’ defense was creative and innovative, assistants fled from him like he was contaminated by radiation. And while Flores was the one coach Ross hired who had an alpha persona, which is needed to lead more than 60 of the roughest and toughest athletes in each city, he consistently rubbed people the wrong way by treating and talking to them like a bully.

Even though his teams were relatively successful, Flores got whacked by Ross because he was insubordinate, difficult to work with and struggled to keep a quality coaching staff.

McDaniel was the polar opposite of Flores in many ways. He treated people wonderfully, with respect, and knew how to defuse any situation with his deadpan humor and intellect.

You would struggle to find many enemies of McDaniel (there are some).

However, that doesn’t mean he always did a great job. His Dolphins struggled for most of his four seasons. Either they fell apart in the final month of the season (his first two years), or got off to dismal starts (his final two seasons).

Players gravitated to McDaniel, who has a style and swagger to him that will be missed. But you would struggle to find someone who would describe him as an impactful leader.

He was running with the pack, not the leader of it.

However, the best attribute of McDaniel is that he was always learning, evolving and connecting. Those are traits Miami’s next coach could certainly benefit from.

Even though the Ivy League graduate was probably the smartest person in every room he was in, he never came off like it, which is rare for his profession.

McDaniel’s teams needed strong leaders, which was likely because he wasn’t one. Ross’ next coach needs to be an alpha male, a leader of men.

And if we can help it, I would love for him to be a former head coach.

The one thing all of Ross’ selections have in common is the fact they are first-timers when handed the Dolphins job. Ross once told me he prefers taking that approach in all his businesses because the newcomer has worked his whole life to be in that position, and will typically work harder to succeed.

They have never had that kind of power, and responsibility before. But it also means they don’t know what they don’t know, and will make mistakes experienced coaches have already learned from.

The problem with head coach newbies is they don’t know what they don’t know, and are learning on the job.

That description certainly applied to Ross too early in his tenure as an NFL owner, but at this point he’d run out of excuses for poor hires.

And hopefully this won’t be another name we add to the pile.

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