While other writers today will begin their recaps with words like “embarrassing” and “one-sided,” I will start immediately with the blame game. I will tell you why Coach Brian Flores was in over his head from the get-go. He’s certainly done enough in his first two years to merit our respect, but today he made Adam Gas and Joe Philbin look like true leaders. He was that bad.
Right out of the box, Tua was sacked on his first two attempts. Two times fading back, two times on his ass. THAT shows me the Bills pass rushers were hungry…and prepared. Something the Dolphins were not. It’s as if Brian Flores told the offense all week, “Don’t worry. The Bills won’t rush the QB.” Instead, he should have prepared them to be ready to hold back the gates of Hell. Their pass rush is impressive, and they have something to prove after being beat up at home by Pittsburgh last week.
Instead, Flores allowed his idiotic tandem Offensive Coordinators to call basic plays, with no help to protect Tua. Tua still has the pocket presence of a bat, but the hits he took were only partially his fault. Look, I’ve made this same analogy in the past with Ryan Tannehill, whose pocket awareness and escapability I also questioned: Dolphin QBs have to assume they are going to get sacked. You have to assume that you have 5-year-olds out there blocking for you. You have to prepare yourself to catch the snap, look one way for one receiver, and let it fly. Open or not, get rid of the ball because you’re about to go down.
Instead, Tua fades back likes he’s at practice in a red jersey. He fades back as if Richmond Webb and Larry Little are protecting him. You can always see the shock in his face when he gets up after a sack. His expression says, “Gee, I thought Austin Jackson was supposed to block that guy so I didn’t have to worry about that guy.” No, Mr. Tua, a real game does not work that way. You have a horrible group of blockers in front of you, so STOP RELYING ON THEM.
The same message must be drilled into Brian Flores’s head. Flores, and his Heckyll and Jeckyll duo of Offensive Coordinators, must understand that their O-line is garbage. They need help (i.e. extra blockers). But instead, we see the same long-developing plays blown up over and over again.
Much like the two Popes and the two U.S. Presidents, organizations work best when you have 2 men in charge. As a matter of fact, Brian Flores’s Dumb and Dumber approach to Offensive Coordinators now has us averaging 8.5 whole points per game. Congrats, Brian. You’ve innovated the game of pro football.
With the Dolphins down by only 7 points after a fluke long rushing TD by Buffalo, we faced a 4th and 2. A long two. Instead of punting the ball and pinning the Bills deep in their own territory…instead of letting the strength of our team–the ball-hawking defense– take the field, Brian Flores acted like a teenager playing Madden and he went for it. In the first quarter. Of a close game. With a shitty offensive line and with 2 knuckleheaded coordinators. He trusted those motley morons to gain the two yards.
Instead, he got our quarterback knocked out of the game and gave a formidable division opponent the ball at midfield. Game over. His lack of football smarts and lack of game-management intelligence simply must be called into question. He gets no free pass from me just because he had some nice years running Matt Patricia’s defense in New England.
Let’s cut to the end of the game. With our pride at stake and a chance to end Buffalo’s bid for a shutout, Flores went for it (again) on 4th down late. Because the 7 points would have really really helped us. He caused this embarrassment and then made it worse by forcing his team to accept a shutout. Instead of making it 35-3 and giving us some sense of dignity, he chose to shut out his own team.
Meanwhile, the Bills had the ball with a few minutes left and up 28-0. They passed the ball. They left the starters in. They ran the ball out of bounds. They called time out. They did all of these things to run up the score and to prolong the Dolphins’ agony. They went up 35-0, and Brian Flores retaliated by handing them a shutout.
DeVante Parker reverted to the DeVante of old, dropping a sure TD pass right in his hands when the game was close. Jaylen Waddle muffed a punt with no one around him, then dropped two other balls. Jakeem Grant coughed one up. Albert Wilson dropped two first downs, as did Preston Williams. Surely these players share the blame. And it’s a lot of blame. But the overall game plan (or lack thereof), especially from both of our dunce-capped OC’s and the alleged genius who hired them, took us out of this game before it even began.
Now we await word to find out if our QB is out for the year or not. Thank you, Coach Flores.
And as a final note about how clueless Flores was in this game, right after the game in the media session, the FIRST thing he said as to why the Dolphins lost was the “missed tackles.” Yes, he mentioned other stuff like dropped passes..but the FIRST thing that popped into his mind was missed tackles. We didn’t lose this game due to missed tackles. I can’t even remember any missed tackles, but I DO remember a head coach going for a 4th down in the first quarter. Funny how Flores didn’t mention that while he was blaming folks.
Very well said 👏 sounds right on the money to me.
I’ll calm down in a few hours, but I’m still so embarrassed. Flores is not a defensive coordinator anymore who’s Only responsible for one side of the ball. He’s not the general of defense, but the president of the whole team. He must hold the office of coordinators responsible. I can’t believe I always have to add an S to the end of the word coordinator. This is such a stupid idea and Flores is in over his head for even thinking this was smart
Well said….one of the biggest embarrassments in Dolphins history. Totally outcoached and outclassed. What was the game plan? Certainly didn’t seem like we even had one.
The game plan relied on our offensive Line being good and playing at a professional level. They are not good and they are not at a professional level. Everyone on earth knows that, except Brian Flores and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum he hired to run the office. The game plan absolutely must include maximum protection with two men in the backfield to help Tua stay alive
I know it was just one game, but let’s be honest, we didn’t look good last week, and today we were awful. We can easily be 1-4 shortly, and probably on the road to a 3rd place divisional finish. My optimism of a few weeks ago has turned to reality. We are treading water.
Yes the new and improved Tagovailoa has not showed up, and he certainly isn’t being helped by a nonexistent offensive line nor the head coach who assembled this 5-man group of garbage in front of Tua.
We simply cannot let Chris Grier run the next draft. I know Flores gets most of the blame for THIS game, but Grier basically had us tank for a few years for the SOLE purpose of acquiring high quality draft capital. He had a treasure chest of FIVE 1st round picks in the last two drafts.
Imagine having FIVE 1st round picks and going 0-5? Not hitting on any at this point. We go 3 for 5 or even 2 for 5 on those picks and we are a different team today.
1) Tua at 5 instead of Herbert at 6
2) Austin Jackson at 18 instead of Justin Jefferson or Patrick Queen
3) Noah Igbinoghene at 30 instead of D’Andre Swift or Antoine Winfield Jr
4) Jaylen Waddle at 6 instead of Rashawn Slater or Penei Sewell
5) Jaelan Phillips at 15 instead of Najee Harris, etc.
And on and on and and on. Jury is still out on Waddle and Phillips though Phillips has not looked good at all so far and Waddle really crapped the bed today.
Point being with that much draft capital, we could have moved up and down the board and fortified the team for the next decade instead of whiffing on (almost) every single pick.
Ross should show Grier out the door and not let him get near another draft…or this rebuild will not go anywhere. The guy simply cannot draft well and is even worse when it comes to evaluating Offensive Lineman. High picks were spent on 4 of our 5 lineman (Jackson, Kindley, Dieter, & Hunt) and they are all barely mediocre at best.
Grier has got to go.
I understand your frustration Moonbear but we should give these young players a little more time before writing them off. Some won’t make the cut but some like Phillips it’s too early to tell. We all need to take a step back. Flo has rebounded with worse teams let’s just hope he can fix things quick for next week. The raiders are decent but we all know they aren’t heads and tails above our Fins. It’s a long season so time to improve but the oline and supporting them should be their main goal as admin mentioned above. Nothing wrong with some max protect and screens.
Agreed. Even when I complain or exaggerate or throw the blame around, in my heart I’m still a diehard Dolphin fan and I hope the younger kids can turn it around. It’s hard for offense of lineman to suddenly get stronger or more fierce. I think it’s the culture. They need to be ferocious beasts who knock the defense back 10 yards, but all they’re doing is looking for a guy to block; and meanwhile the guy is already behind them.
Jimmy Johnson speaks about his O line coach in Dallas, who turned average guys into all pros regularly. They rarely drafted linemen high. Just find so-so guys and teach them to be pros. It’s simple with a good teacher. Flores has not once hired a good teacher/coach/coordinator. Not one
I disagree, right now Miami’s offense can not score. They scored on screens and slants against the Pats. As I said, that works once. Now every team will take that away. There is no sustainable way to move the ball on this team.
Raiders 31
Miami 10
You may be right but without leaving a back or TE or both in to help the oline it doesn’t look good at all. Their QBs will get killed until these guys get better. We’re not saying that they can’t throw deep out of this protection either. It should buy them more time to do so. The key is who is going to make the plays as everyone is dropping the ball? I’m also not sure if Brisset can make those deep throws if he has to start so it may not matter. ..
Yeah, FFF. Once I laid off Flores, my wrath switched to the shitty WR play. Objectively, it makes me feel slightly better to know that drops and fumbles from our star players will be the exception, not the norm. The line will always be a problem. But we can count on them to give up sacks. But we don’t have to count on Parker, Waddle, and Grant (ALL THREE OF THEM IN ONE GAME) taking points off our scoreboard. I’d like to think of it as an anomaly.
I started seeing posts like this a few months ago, and at first I disagreed. But now I am with you all the way. It’s still early on many of these guys, but there is no star among them yet. Meanwhile, Laremy Tunsil and Minkah Fitzpatrick have been to multiple Pro Bowls each
I’m not encouraged by anything I see and here’s the problem with wait and see how the guys develop idea. We don’t have a Oline coach like JJ had in Dallas. Our coaches have sucked for two decades. We’re not developing anyone which is why our crappy QB is no better this year than last and why our LB are still mediocre. It’s why guys play here for five years, have little success and leave and contribute to a winning team elsewhere
I’ve said this for years here, our coaches suck and hence our team sucks
Yes yes yes. Whenever we hire a new coach or coordinator (this is far too often because Flores likes to fire and hire new guys annually), you can read their biographies, and no one ever comes with an outstanding pedigree. Like our brilliant CO-offensive coordinators. Eric Studesville was a running backs coach in Denver. George Godsey was an Arena League player who went on to coach tight ends and QBs in stints with the Patriots and Lions. THESE are the men who Flores entrusted our offense to, after Chan Gailey got us to 10 wins last year.
Admin, my key point was that Grier has been in the dolphins organization for the past 20 YEARS! evaluating talent. That’s been his main job and purpose.
In those 20 years, players have come and gone, different coordinators have come and gone, we’ve had several head coaches come and go.
The only consistent employee on the football side has been Grier. Grier has been around for those entire 20 years and the results speak for themselves. How many times are we gonna blame the next coach and the next coordinator or the next free agent signing or the next failed draft pick?
Again, ONLY Grier and Ross have been around for the entire 20 years to preside over this shit show. And guess what? Ross ain’t firing himself 🙂
Yep. All GMs miss at times. First round picks become busts. Happens to every team. But besides selecting busts, Grier has a bad habit of selecting guys we don’t even need. We have the worst O-line in NFL history, and he’s out there draft Noah Igbinoghene in the first round? And Javon Holland early in the second? WE DON’T NEED DBs. Why not take a chance and draft an extra OT or two? Worst case scenario is they don’t pan out so you make them inactive or cut them…just like what they are doing to Noah I this season. Noah and Holland can’t beat out 65-year old Devin McCourty for playing time? That shows me they weren’t too good to begin with.
Also, we left out Christian Wilkins. An adequate first-round draft pick, but not a star by any means. In this third year now, and Wilkins has yet to make any game-changing plays. How about a monstrous hit on an RB to stuff a third-and-short? How about doing so consistently? It’s not too much to ask. “He’s better than Charles Harris” is an accurate statement, but hardly a benchmark we should aspire to.
Sunday was a real embarrassment, and I’m talking about an embarrassment that was only felt by the Dolphins team or the fans at the stadium, no. I had to sat, at a buddy’s house, between a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and guess who?.. our next opponent, a Las Vegas Raiders fan. At one point, my buddy the Steelers fan said to the Raiders fan, “damn, we got our ass kicked today.” I said “NO!, the Steelers lost the game today.. my team the Dolphins got their ass kicked today! And what makes it worse, they got their asses kicked in their home stadium in front of their home crowd!!!. This game against Buffalo was one helluva let down after riding the high from beating the Patriots the first game. Like MOONBEAR said, the Dolphins went into this year’s draft with an embarrassment of riches, and after the draft, I was like, “wtf just happened?” Some NFL know it all talking heads about drafting were saying on TV, “I’ll give the Dolphins an “A” when it comes to this year’s draft.” But I was like, wtf?
I may not agree with everything ADMIN writes but this time this Dolphins team (notice I said didn’t say my) deserves that long excoriating and demeaning rant he wrote.
Like Richard Pryor once said, “bring me some shit like dat… “
When the schedule was first released, I thought the Raiders would be an easy game for us. Now I see it as another blowout against us. Who knows.
Flores is showing an astonishing Gase-like attitude of saying stuff like “The offensive linemen did not do their job.” Yeah, no shit. But the problem is that they are INCAPABLE of doing their job. None of those 5 guys are displaying NFL talent at the moment. You cannot just bring in 5 guys off the street to replace them. That is an invalid solution. So what else is there to do? GIVE THEM EXTRA HELP. I don’t know X’s and O’s like Flores does, but I do know that when 5 blockers are not enough. You try 6. When 6 fails you, then try 7.
In the skewed worked of Brian Flores, when 5 guys aren’t enough, you try 5 again. And then you blame them for not doing their job.
I don’t know what the problem is ADMIN. I do know one thing, once I heard that offensive coordinator Chan Gailey was leaving, I had this weird feeling in my gut.
Yeah, Gailey wasn’t some innovative genius, but his playcalling was superior to the garbage we’ve seen after two games so far, averaging 8.5 points per game.
Calling long passes on 4th and 2 ruined the whole game, and damn near got our QB killed. Even Tua haters don’t wanna see the kid flattened like that. Ever.
Admin, can’t argue with your harsh take. Flores had all winter to plan for this game and seek revenge against the Bills. It was so obvious did not do that at all. No adjustments. awful.
Even down 14 in first half, defense was making some stops. They should have kicked a FG on the 4th and 2 yards in the 2nd quarter. That was stupid. And if grant hadn’t fumbled on that other drive, they might have scored a TD, or at least another FG, then we would have been down only one score at half time.
Yes, and now that I’m calming down a bit, you have to look at some of the non-Linemen goats who cost us the game. Like DeVante Parker dropping a certain touchdown that would have made it 14-7. Jakeem Grant’s choke job makes it 14-10 or maybe even 14-14. Jaylen Waddle’s multiple drops, muffs, and general mistakes had to be worth 7 points, right? Brian Flores remains the ultimate goat, however, with stupid decisions. He ran this game like it was 2019 and we were 5-11 with nothing to lose. Yesterday, we had a lot to lose, and he lost it all right.
The players won’t publicly say anything, but I bet you anything a lot of them lost respect for Flo because he allowed his team to be shut out on purpose instead of trying a simple chip shot FG
The shocking part to me was – why the hell didn’t these idiot OC’s make any offensive ADJUSTMENTS to counter what those constant blitzes were doing to them.
Every other team in this league would have made MANY adjustments – and Yes, there are MANY things that a team can do to counter those blitzes – and MAKE THEM PAY ! This can be done – even with a shitty OL like ours. And Pittsburgh even gave them a blueprint of what to do in week 1 – when they successfully COUNTERED those blitzes.
Can they (at least) bring Chan back as OC ?
And nobody likes to acknowledge this, but the OL is the most important line on any team, and dictates the amount of success it will have. Always has been, and always will be ……..
They showed a play yesterday where 3 Dolphin linemen all blocked the same Bill. 2 of our linemen were blocking the wrong man, which left 2 Bills free and clear to come destroy the play.
That’s a mental gaffe from 2 different guys on the same play. You can make up for mental mistakes by putting it behind you and burying your man on the next play. But no. In addition to not being smart enough mentally, our linemen are not strong enough physically.
The injury to Tua will give the Tua apologists more talking points to continue the Tua experiment. Oh, just give him a chance, he is injured.
Tua is too short and does not have good feel for pocket. A week O/L is not going to help and it will make it worse.
I say let Reid Sinnett era begin 🙂
I think Tua’s gun is up there with anyone in the NFL. That kid can sling the ball. However, the pocket presence is killing us. It’s not like the O-line played any better for Jacoby Brissett, but it’s just that JB is able to slide around the pocket. Did you see how many guys he eluded yesterday? Every other play is he was ducking somehow here and side stepping someone there. I loved seeing that. Tua simply doesn’t have that feel (yet?). I have never ONCE seen Tua extend a play like the great ones do.
To be fair, Tua did have hip surgery which probably affects his mobility, physically and on some part mentally.
Has there ever been an NFL QB who continued to play after hip surgery???
I don’t know if that hip injury and surgery affect Tua physically FLYERPHIN, but I was saying after that hit Tua took on 4 and 2 “why in the hell did they call a passing play instead of a running play?”
That was a Gase-like play-call if ever there was one.
But they knew about his hip situation, even before they drafted him. And look at The list of (just QB’s) that they have passed on : Justin Herbert, Drew Brees, etc.
And then look at the dreadful Long list of QB’s they have tried (since Marino) – and you see why this team has been down for so long.
But I agree that it’s WAY too early to have any kind of judgement on Tua yet. Maybe he learns better movement in the pocket, and improves his skills in the coming months and years ……..
I guess I’m a Tua apologist. In my opinion he has the arm talent and look at the difference between him playing the pats and Zach Wilson. But sure biggest issue is pressure. I’m not sure if he’s allowed to call out protection pre snap (I remember back in the day Tannehill wasn’t allowed to make any presnap adjustments). If he is, he needs to make massive improvements. He needs to understand defensive schemes and know where pressure is coming. The big play on 4th and 2, I don’t think that his fault really swing the bills only brought 4.
Outside of Tua coaching was terrible. The game felt lost after the 4th down play. The OCs are terrible. I keep saying it we spent a lot to bring in WRs and gesicki and even drafted another TE. They need to figure out a way to just get the ball in their hands constantly.
Poor Wilson. Poor Jet fans. Only 4 times in NFL history as a Top-5 draft pick QB thrown 4 INTs in one game, and 3 of them are recent Jets! Wilson, Sanchez, Darnold. Tua is an All Pro compared to the garbage QB the Jets have. Let’s not forget Geno Smith either.
Now back to our own problems. Axel, I don’t think the pre=snap adjustments are the problem. It’s purely and simply a lack of talent. We have a major deficiency on our offensive line, and our executives went out and drafted flashiness instead of solidity. For example, look at the play where Tua got destroyed. Jesse Davis is lined up to take on Epenesa. Tua sees that. It’s not like there were 3 guys lined up over Davis, which would cause concern. Tua sees one Bill on his right, so he has to assume that Davis will (at least) touch the Bill. Audibles and changes of protection are made when the defense does something tricky that you didn’t expect pre-snap. The Bills played a basic set there.
You are 100% correct, and I said this in our live chat. Once we failed on 4th down, the game was over. Calling a pass play when when needed only 2 yards is questionable, but I can live with it. What I cannot live with is the specific pass play we ran, with all these guys running routes. Just send 2 guys out on a 3-yard slant. Or an RPO. But to have Tua fade back like that, as if we needed a 50-yard bomb? Garbage play call. I know it was meant to fool the Bills, and maybe it did. But when a guy sprints at your QB untouched, all the foolery going on downfield is meaningless.
Playcalling gets half the blame there, and Davis gets the other half. Sadly, we can’t even cut Davis because there is garbage available on the waiver wire. THIS is why you don’t give up an All Pro tackle like Laremy Tunsil in exchange for Noah Inactive Igbeneoe and a new WR Jaylen Waffle, who drops passes and muffs punt.
Yep, I’ll never forgive them for giving up Minkah and Tunsil. Especially Tunstill who fell in our laps because of the lucky (unlucky for him) gas mask bong video.
Sucks to say it but the bills are better than us at nearly every position. And definitely better coached.
I want to see what Tua can do this year I still feel he has progressed from last year but for the love of god just get the balls to the playmakers consistently.
Yes poor jets. Even God must hate the jets.
What a great bunch of posts. I really cant argue with anything posted here.
I try not to come down too hard on a guy like Grier, because the draft is sooooo secretive. Honestly, despite what is said publicly, we don’t know. Perhaps Grier wanted Burrow or Chase Young last year, and Ross ordered him to take Tua, or Flores begged him to take Tua. Hard to say. Perhaps Flores truly thought his current offensive line was adequate, so he told Grier to go out and draft a WR with the 6th overall pick. Then maybe he said to Grier that we need Jevon Holland. And we need a sixth tight end, so we better take Hunter Long. We just don’t know where these decisions are being made, so I try to stick with the decisions that we KNOW FOR CERTAIN whom to blame…like a head coach who gambles from midfield in the first quarter. Chris Grier didn’t decide to go for it. Stephen Ross didn’t call that awful pass play.
Whew!!! Catching up on all these threads was exhausting! I was so disgusted with what I was listening to bec. that’s all I could get, but at least it was the Dolphins feed on Sirius XM and they had nothing good to say. So to not repeat, but darn it, I will, I have said all along Tua is not the QB for this team. I don’t want to see him smashed to the ground and end up with broken ribs. This game is even rougher than ever before-players are bigger, stronger and faster and unless your QB has some bulk to him, good night nurse! I would have taken Sam Darnold. He’s better than the Jets allowed him to be. Grier, I have no faith in. Ross, is a moron owner. We are doomed Dolphin fans until Ross croaks, Grier gets fired and the entire management is replaced. What is so hard that Grier can’t find a kid from Nebraska or Wisconsin that grew up on a farm and pretty much was pushing farm equipment just for fun?! Other teams get that kind of player…we don’t do good with “sexy picks” or what they perceive as such. Get in the meat and potatoes players, and those hungry for meat and potatoes! I’ve been a Dolphins fan from the Orange Bowl days and I’m sick of this organization making decisions that make no sense. Why does this owner continue to offer up this team to play in London? They stink! So why not make it even worse for them and play in London. He’s another part of the problem. Just absolutely disgusted with it all. Buffalo literally made us swallow our own vomit. This team is lucky if it wins another game. Grier isn’t a coach, but he’s buying the groceries for the dinner and they are lousy groceries that need to be thrown out. I rest my case.