Brian Flores: I’m proud of this group of players

[Pat Patriot]

Getty Images

Brian Flores paid his first visit to Gillette Stadium since leaving the Patriots to become the Dolphins head coach and it turned out to be a memorable return to his old stomping grounds.

The Dolphins scored with less than a minute to play and beat the Patriots 27-24 on Sunday afternoon. The loss and the Chiefs’ win over the Chargers means that the Patriots will not get a bye as the No. 3 seed in the AFC playoffs.

After the game, Flores downplayed the significance of the win to him personally and kept the focus on his team. He took issue with those who called it a “meaningless game’ for the Dolphins and shared how he felt about a team that went 5-4 after opening the season with seven straight losses.

“The credit goes to the players, as well as, our coaching staff. These guys work hard and they fight and they compete,” Flores said in his postgame press conference. “They believe in the process. They understand the way we have to prepare, the way we have to practice, the way we have to meet, the way we have to walk through and I say it week after week, and our coaches say it week after week, after week. I think they just started to believe in it. And when you string good practices, good days, you string them together, good results come. And that’s what you have seen in the last nine, 10, 12 weeks. But I’m proud of that group.”

There’s a lot of work for the Dolphins to do in order to get to a place where they are competing for playoff spots rather than playing spoiler, but the close to this season left little doubt about their choice of a head coach.