Dolphins assistant coach, former safety Renaldo Hill finds value in time under Vic Fangio, coordinator experience
MIAMI GARDENS — The acquisitions of new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and star cornerback Jalen Ramsey are no doubt the marquee offseason moves that could help fix a Miami Dolphins defense that vastly underperformed in 2022.
But much more under-the-radar and possibly not far behind could be the move to bring Renaldo Hill in as the defense’s passing game coordinator and secondary coach.
Hill, a 10-year player as a safety in the NFL, including three with the Dolphins, jumps into this new role on the staff after gaining defensive coordinator experience with the Los Angeles Chargers the last two seasons.
“Over the moon to have the opportunity to add a coach of his caliber,” coach Mike McDaniel said as the Dolphins wrapped up mandatory minicamp this week. “It was more out of the opportunity rather than necessity, I would say, to empower the players with the most and best knowledge possible.”
Hill comes to Miami for the third time in his career — from 2006 to 2008 as a player and 2018, the final season of former coach Adam Gase, as assistant defensive backs coach. He said he has family nearby and South Florida feels like home. He also has familiarity with Fangio from being his defensive backs coach with the Denver Broncos in 2019 and 2020, which ended up getting him the coordinator role with the Chargers under Brandon Staley.
“He’s really the only guy on the staff that has worked with me before and has good knowledge of our system,” Fangio said. “He’s been a great help. He’s a great coach with a great future.”
That understanding has given Hill the blueprint as to why Fangio’s simple yet subtly complex scheme has been so effective over his 19 previous seasons as an NFL defensive coordinator and three more as a head coach.
“The biggest thing with Vic is he’s strong in his convictions,” Hill said. “It’s worked over time. He knows where the troubleshoots are at, he knows how the teams are trying to attack him.
“The other thing with Vic is he’s always not looking to stay stagnant. He’s always looking to what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing in the NFL. How it changes from our scheme, and how we can incorporate our scheme to make it better each year.”
The addition of Hill alters the structure of the defensive coaching staff. It’s Hill under Fangio in his role, and then they still have position coaches in new safeties coach Joe Kasper and returning cornerbacks coach Sam Madison, who also has the title of pass game specialist.
“As a younger coach,” said Kasper, who comes over after two years as a defensive quality control coach with the Eagles, “I’ve learned a ton from [Hill] already in a short amount of time.”
In his playing career, Hill was a member of the last Dolphins team to win an AFC East division crown, the remarkable 2008 season when Miami made a 10-game turnaround from the previous year to go 11-5 while Tom Brady was injured with the New England Patriots.
Hill, who started 15 games at free safety that year with 78 tackles and three interceptions, wants the current Dolphins to build similar levels of camaraderie he saw with the 2008 squad.
“I felt like we were a really tight-knit group. We did everything together,” Hill recalled. “After even these minicamps, we always had a team where we got together and spent time, and we made sure it was going to be ours and let nobody else decide that.”
Before being on that Tony Sparano-led team or the forgettable Cam Cameron 2007 season, Hill’s first season in Miami was also Nick Saban’s last at the helm before Saban fled to Tuscaloosa to build a college dynasty at Alabama. Now as a coach, Hill has some of his long-standing values derive from Saban’s tutelage.
“I feel like I’ve been a part of his system. It’s kind of embedded in me,” said Hill, who also had Saban coach him at Michigan State in the late 1990s. “I think he trains those guys to make sure it becomes part of them. We talk about fundamentals constantly. That’s the thing that we kind of preach here, is making sure that our fundamentals are on point. Because we know, when there’s tough situations, things maybe we haven’t seen from the offense, we’re able to adjust and adapt because our fundamentals are strong.”
Hill will lead a secondary that could potentially have the NFL’s top cornerback tandem in Ramsey and Xavien Howard and will look to get the most of the safety tandem of Jevon Holland and Brandon Jones as they continue to grow. He also has top draft choice in Cam Smith to work with, upstart 2022 undrafted free agent Kader Kohou, fellow cornerback Nik Needham and free-agent safety DeShon Elliott among players to work with in 2023.