After a seven-year stint in Atlanta, safety Ricardo Allen was released by the Falcons at the start of the 2021 offseason. He eventually landed in Cincinnati last season, helping a young Bengals team reach the Super Bowl.
Allen, 30, announced that he was retiring just 10 days ago, but he now appears to have joined Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel’s staff in Miami as a special teams assistant.
The Dolphins have hired Ricardo Allen as a special teams assistant. He was with head coach Mike McDaniel with Atlanta when he was a DB for the Falcons.
— Alain Poupart (@PoupartNFL) March 1, 2022
Allen confirmed the rumors when spotted at the NFL scouting combine.
“Yeah, I’m with the Dolphins,” Allen said on Thursday, per D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Back when he was in Atlanta, Allen talked about his desire to get into coaching one day, and more specifically, to become an offensive coordinator. McDaniel is familiar with Allen from his time as an offensive assistant on the Falcons staff from 2015-2016.
The Dolphins hired Chandler Henley, who served as Atlanta’s assistant offensive line coach in 2021, and recently interviewed Falcons QB coach Charles London for their offensive coordinator gig.