Is Miami Witnessing the Final Days Of Joe Philbin and Jeff Ireland?

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.