Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley added a new detail to the Troy Aikman consulting story on Tuesday, telling reporters that Aikman has been a good sounding board since he took over as head coach.
“He’s a guy that I’ve talked to a few times,” Hafley said of ESPN’s Monday Night Football analyst. “We’ve had some really good conversations, and I’ll continue to do that.”
It’s the first time anyone inside the organization has publicly described the relationship, and it comes amid a news cycle where Aikman himself has been doing most of the talking. Last week, on the Dallas Cowboys’ DLLS podcast, Aikman explained exactly why a franchise, like the Dolphins, would want him on their payroll.
“I think the Dolphins were wise in understanding my relationships around the league,” Aikman said, “and knowing that I have information that they don’t have or can’t get. And I think they were smart in taking advantage of that, whether it was through me or through somebody else.”
The NFL declined to comment when reached by Pro Football Talk regarding those remarks. The league has previously said it will address the situation “at the appropriate time.”
Aikman was originally brought in to consult on Miami’s GM search in January, stayed for the head coaching search that landed Hafley, and has been involved in an undefined capacity ever since. The concern, as we laid out in Tuesday’s newsletter, is that the information Aikman collects through weekly production meetings across the league — conversations that happen because those teams generally trust broadcasters not named Tom Brady with sensitive material — could now very well be flowing to a team with which he has a direct line of contact.
Troy Aikman may have said the quiet part out loud, which raised fresh questions about what his role with the organization actually entails. But as far as we know, he’s a sounding board who will be in the draft room later this month, is pulling for the Dolphins because he has “fingerprints” on both major hires the organization made this offseason, and has access to information across the league that 31 other front offices don’t.