Scene: Late September, Miami: After a
promising start highlighted by an improbable road win at Indianapolis, hopes
were high in South Beach. The Dolphins had two games remaining before the bye:
an admittedly difficult Monday Night task at New Orleans and a home matchup
with depleted Baltimore.
Then,
an uncompetitive performance vs. the Saints was followed by a lackluster, snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory
effort against the Ravens, sending Miami into the bye week robbed of
confidence, but holding onto a respectable 3-2 mark.
The
hinges came completely off after the off week, however, as the ‘Fins didn’t
show up at all at home against a poor Buffalo team starting a practice-squad
quarterback. Then the team coughed up a 17-point lead on the road at New
England, ending all hopes of emerging as a relevant factor in the AFC and only
adding to the litany of questions surrounding coach Joe Philbin, general
manager Jeff Ireland and the entire coaching staff.
The
biggest query: Could we be seeing the last hurrah of Philbin and/or Ireland?
Consider the upcoming schedule carefully: a short-week showdown against a
high-potential Cincinnati squad at home, followed by a road matchup against
potentially winless Tampa Bay. Should Miami get bested in a bad matchup against
the Bengals, then find themselves in the entirely plausible scenario of
gift-wrapping a first win to the Buccaneers, it could be the final straw for
this “braintrust.” After all, a 3-6 record and a six-game losing streak could
render it difficult to see where the next victory could come from in a stretch
that includes San Diego, Carolina and at the Jets.
So
how did such a promising season go off the rails so quickly? And what failures
are combining to jeopardize the brief tenure of Philbin, as well as the
continuing failure that is the Ireland era?
Lack of Offensive Innovation Puts Team
Behind 8-Ball in Pass-First League
In
some quarters, the biggest plus seen in drafting quarterback Ryan Tannehill was
the fact that his college coach, Mike Sherman, was installed as the Dolphins
offensive coordinator. Lost in the giddiness over how quickly Tannehill would
be able to compete in a familiar system, however, was the fact that Sherman
was, well, fired as Tannehill’s college coach.
In
some games this year, Miami has abandoned the running game after promising
starts, exposing Tannehill to the deficiencies of a brutal offensive line (a
story for later). Robbed of the support offered by promising backs Lamar Miller
and Daniel Thomas, the signal-caller has held the ball too long, telegraphed
too many passes and absorbed too many wicked hits. In response, Sherman has
largely refused to take advantage of the quarterback’s plus mobility by rolling
the pocket, mixing in some quarterback draws or making more frequent use of the
spread option.
The
big-money new addition, Mike Wallace, was supposed to give Miami the playmaker
it has desperately needed to stretch the field. Now, Wallace has been exposed
as a limited player in his early days with the ‘Fins, but Sherman has not done
enough to get him the ball. In three of the first four games, Wallace averaged
fewer than five targets per contest. He has been open a few times deep, but a combination
of poor deep-ball accuracy and brutal pass protection have stymied those rare
chances.
Return
man Marcus Thigpen has shown some ability in certain packages, but his
appearances have been rare. The Dolphins have seemed unwilling to punish opposing
blitzes with the screen game, and haven’t identified the player(s) who might
take a short pass, make someone miss and get down the field.
To be
fair, Sherman has mixed in a few new looks following the bye, but it’s hard to
find many situations where he is putting Tannehill—and the entire offense—into
positions to succeed. Philbin’s pedigree was built on his status as offensive
coordinator at Green Bay, but even in the role, he didn’t call the plays, and
his advance billing as an innovative offensive thinker hasn’t been on display
thus far in Miami.
Nonsensical and Baffling Roster Management
Stymie Efforts at Improvement
The
Dolphins have been unable to develop young receivers, and cutting promising
youngsters like Marvin McNutt and Chad Bumphis at the end of training camp
inexplicably left Miami with just four wideouts. These moves meant that an
offense that just lost a key weapon in tight end Dustin Keller was going to
respond not with more three- and four-wide receiver sets, but by forcing
largely untalented inexperienced young tight ends
(Charles Clay, Dion Sims, Michael Egnew) into roles that were too big for them.
In
the offseason, Miami was allegedly intent to address its turnstile right tackle
position. Ireland endured a lukewarm pursuit of trading for Kansas City tackle
Branden Albert, but after running a series of tryouts for
old veteran tackles with one leg out of the league,
settled on Atlanta castoff Tyson Clabo, moving young tackle Jonathan Martin to
the left side.
A few
games in, this was revealed as an unmitigated disaster, with Clabo routinely
getting beaten and the line in general being manhandled by opposing rushers. So
what was the solution during the precious bye week? Maintaining the same
starting lineup and hoping, apparently (*insert Albert Einstein insanity quote
here*).
The
powers-that-be somehow seemed surprised when Clabo was routinely overpowered by
one of the best pass-rushers in the league in Buffalo’s Mario Williams, which,
it could be argued, cost the Dolphins a win over the Bills. This continuation
of the inevitable prompted Miami to trade for troubled-and-benched Bryant
McKinnie, who was languishing on the bench in Baltimore as his disappointing
career faded into obscurity.
On
the surface, I don’t have an issue with the McKinnie move: the compensation was
nominal (a late-round pick) and the big man is likely capable of plus play over
defined periods. However, if this was the choice, how do you not make the trade
during the bye week? By doing so, you give yourself extra time to help McKinnie
learn the offense and help Martin adjust to going back to the right side.
Trying to accomplish both things during the week increased the risk of making
the ‘Fins even worse at two positions.
The
situation is even more troubling from a draft standpoint. Miami made one of the
big moves of April’s draft by trading to the third spot to draft Oregon
specimen Dion Jordan—who I firmly believe will become an impact player in the
league. However, he has been used only in spots early in his career, and even
when he’s on the field, he is often dropped into coverage instead of allowing
him to get after the passer. Such usage supports my contention that the
Dolphins continue to select players without having a tangible, apparent vision
(and path) for how they are to be used in their system.
And
as part of a troubling trend, Jordan arrived in Miami with a pre-existing
injury—as did second-round pick Jamar Taylor. Through physical ailments and
inconsistent usage, the ‘Fins find themselves getting little to no production
from any of its top seven draft
picks. When the draft is seen as an extension of the offseason plan, this can
only be seen as a severe indictment of the ability of Ireland and Philbin to
either identify talent, give newcomers the support needed to find success—or
both.
Dearth of Emotion and Passion Lead to Pervasive
Here-We-Go-Again Atmosphere
Right
or wrong, you buy goodwill from the fanbase through openness and a small
modicum of access. With the Dolphins, however, the NSA may know more about each fan’s phone habits than
those fans do about who is injured from week to week in Miami. In some ways, it
feels like an organization at odds with itself: intent on attracting a newer,
diverse generation of Dolphins fans, yet hyper-focused on maintaining outdated
stances on protecting strategic secrets.
Admittedly,
this is a small issue in the grand scheme of things. Of larger import is the
absence of leadership, a problem that extends all the way to the top. Philbin’s
speeches seem scripted and memorized, while his press conferences sound like a
recitation of paint samples at Home Depot. Personality is only a component of
what comprises a successful coach, but it was hard to ignore Philbin’s painful
awkwardness on display during last year’s season of “Hard Knocks,” and it would
be difficult to imagine him inspiring the type of intensity and effort that it
takes to boost a franchise to the next level in pursuit of the gold standard in
New England.
The
post-bye-week egg this team laid at home against a severely diminished division
rival should set off enormous alarm bells throughout the franchise. The game
seemed like a confirmation of failures in preparation, energy, strategy,
resilience and adaptability—collective responsibilities that fall at the feet
of a coaching staff that is either overmatched or underprepared.
So, What Happens Next?
I’m
not a Bill Parcells fan, but one of his quotes could be fairly apropos in such
circumstances: “If they don’t bite as pups, they probably won’t bite.” He used
this analogy to describe the play of rookies (which could also fit here), but
it could also be applied to young or first-time coaches.
It
certainly may feel unfair to judge Philbin’s ability to coach based on a season
and a half, but the NFL is short-attention-span theater. It may be that the
combination of an older coach trying to learn to be the head guy, paired with a
general manager who has had the look of a dead man walking for three years now,
could be just too hard to overcome for this franchise.
Could
Philbin rally the troops to salvage the season and sneak into a wild-card
berth? Sure. Could Ireland make some savvy moves along the way to bolster the
roster and help some newcomers make a bigger impact later in the campaign?
Possibly. Are the odds of both failing higher than those of having both occur
simultaneously? Yes.
The
only things that’s for sure is that, in the wake of an offseason that saw Miami
invest a quarter of a billion dollars
in signings, having a 3-4 record and an 0-2 mark in the AFC East is
unacceptable. Throw in a couple more losses to extend the losing streak and
embarrass the franchise, and Philbin and Ireland could be just two more lost puppies
looking for something to bite in the dog-eat-dog world of NFL unemployment.
