Now that the hurt and anger have simmered (somewhat), we turn our attention to the mess of a team they have up in Cleveland, our next opponent.

We only need one play in our entire playbook going into this game:     Have Tannehill look to see which WR Jamar Taylor is covering, and then throw it to him.   It’s that simple.   For several years, Dolphins Truth pointed out how horrible Jamar Taylor is, and he certainly didn’t get any better by moving up north.   There is no excuse to not pick on him.   It will turn into easy receptions, easy yards, easy points.  No need to test any other Brown DBs…just pick on Jamar.

Jamar has a nice view of this TD
Jamar has a nice view of this TD

I watched and studied and re-watched Adam Gase’s press conference Monday, and the thing that stands out is that he emphasized a lack of execution on defense in the first half.     New England didn’t fool them.   He says he had the right defenses called.  It was just a matter of the players not executing.

Welcome to the Miami Dolphins, Mr. Gase.   The land where the players don’t execute.   It’s not for lack of trying.   It’s more because of lack of excellence.

Welcome to Miami, where we address a desperate need at linebacker by drafting 3 WRs, a tight end, an RB, and a QB.

As I’ve pointed out, when NE runs those 4-yard slant patterns, it becomes the responsibility of the linebackers to pick the WRs across the middle.  Gase knows this and had his men ready and in the right position.   However,  Gase was in for a reality check when he realized that his LBs aren’t very good.

TV replays should numerous times when the pass was already complete before our LBs even turned around.  When our LBs blitzed, they missed easy sacks when the QB was in their grasp.   They were always a step behind, overthinking and not reacting.

This is no surprise to Dolfans.  But it IS a surprise to discover that our head coach is just now realizing it.  Did Gase honestly think that Jelani Jenkins would “execute” perfect coverage on Danny Amendola, for example?    Did he thinking that a slow-developing blitz with Koa Misi taking 10 seconds to loop around the right side of the line would be fast enough?  He did.

Yes, the execution was off.  But the head coach has to consider the skill set of his players and adjust the executions he calls for.

After watching Jimmy Garopplo smoothly take over for Tom  Brady and then Jacoby Brisset smoothly take over for Jimmy, it becomes so apparent how good the New England scheme is.   I bet they practice that 4-yard inside slant play about 200 times a day.  It becomes second nature.  The ball is delivered so so fast in games because they do it so so fast and so often in practice.  That single play is virtually unstoppable, and it’s not luck, it’s patience and practice and repetition.

Meanwhile at the Dolphins practices, they are more concerned with team meetings about who is going to sit out the national anthem.   Miami never seems to run a successful play often enough.  They keep trying the bubble screen to Landry, and Kenny Stills keeps getting in Landry’s way, or else Stills commits a hold on the opponent.  The play may work; but they need to get it in sync by practicing it a thousand times a week.

 

32 Comments

  1. Watching Miami against New England, there were two apparent things that I thought Miami could have done to knock New England’s throwing attack off it’s rhythm. (1) The Dolphins corners refused to check New England’s receivers with the five yard rule the defense is allowed to use at the line of scrimmage. (2) Miami’s Defensive coordinator should have thrown different blitz packages at Gerafalo at the outset constantly. Miami finally started blitzing more in the fourth quarter but by then Miami was playing a game of Catch Up which against New England is virtually futile. As for Tannehill, he still has that bad habit of locking in on that one receiver and refusing to keep his head on a swivel for his check-downs and other open receivers. After throwing interceptions and getting sacked, he seemed to start getting the picture more and his passing attempts improved dramatically. Tannehill also need to trust his blocking when they are obviously doing their job. Twice I saw Tannehill panic and role out of the protection of his blockers in the New England game, and as a fan, all you can do is scratch your head in bewilderment as to why did you do that dummy?!!! Hopefully Gase will learn to put Tannehill under the center more often and stop with that “shotgun” bullshit so much. Tannehill lost another snap from the center because that shotgun over use against New England. Putting the quarterback under center makes the defense guess more about what the offense is going to do. The shotgun is almost too one dimensional and doing running plays from it is basically relying on “hope an a prayer.”

    Miami still has time to right the ship but a loss to Cleveland will be devastating.

  2. Author

    Phil, I honestly think the corners WERE trying to knock the receivers off their routes. But those receivers are so much faster than anything our DBs anticipated. I think that’s what Gase was talking about. The game plan on defense was a good one, but the execution was poor. Just a matter of a better offense destroying an inferior defense, and Gase better get used to that like our other coaches did!
    And your idea about the blitzes might have helped…if they called the right kind. Like sending Misi straight up the gut instead of looping around…they tried that twice. No one blocked Misi, but he still wasn’t fast enough to get to the QB because he took a ridiculous roundabout route.

    1. Admin, the Dolphins corners were giving the Patriots receivers wayyy too much cushion. Instead of worrying about the receivers blowing by them, they should’ve lined up two yards in their faces and when they came off the line, BAM! Check them right there at the line and call blitzing packages that would’ve kept their tight ends busy blocking outside rushing line backers and I guarantee you that would’ve stopped that over used slant play by the Pats. I watched in that game how the Dolphins kept using four defensive linemen to rush the quarterback and how the Pats QB was making it look easy when he threw the ball. Now the Dolphins did adjust later on, and blitzing Garopplo made him run around instead of sitting in the pocket and chewing the Dolphins secondary up. Blitz Wake on one side and Misi on the other along with a blitzing LB up the middle they would’ve ate Garopplo up early.

      When it comes to the Dolphins run defense, now that’s another story.

      1. @ Phil brother Im not an X’s and O’s type of fan but after re watching the 1st half. I gotta say I think you’re right. How many times did Garrapolo defeat our pass rush by throwing over it to and open spot? It was like he knew exactly what we were doing every play and had the perfect answer. Changing it up and banging the receivers at the line would throw off the continuity of their plays and make the QB have to improvise. He seemed robotic as if he already knew exactly what and where openings would be because we played such predictable defense.

        I feel we relied too much on our pass rush to force him to quick decisions instead of a more changing or evolving secondary. In a way we were too one dimensional and with superior coaching Garrapolo had the perfect answer every damn time.

    2. “Phil, I honestly think the corners WERE trying to knock the receivers off their routes.”

      Nonsense. Even the announcers were wondering why the corners were giving the NE receivers so much cushion.

      1. Author

        Yeah I see your point. But also, the problem is that our CBs were lined up in front of the NE receivers, straight in front, as if the receivers were going to run straight out. Then the defenders would have been in position to hit them. But NE’s receivers rarely run straight out. They constantly, constantly slant to the middle, where there is no one to hit them. Dolphin LBs were too busy looking around at each other.

  3. Salami Jenkins couldn’t cover me and I’m 65!!!!!!!!!!

  4. How about blitzing the damn safety, Jones ?

    The one time they did that vs. Seattle, it worked.

    Like we already know by now, if we see something work well in a game, you will Never see it again in that game or the next one. And Jones has enough speed to get to the QB in time, unlike any linebacker we have.

    If the fins had Blitzed Seattle on their last drive, especially when it was 4th down, they probably win that game. Way too conservative play calling by our new DC – will get you beat every time in the NFL. And I always look at it like, you are going to get beat anyway, why not go for the win by blitzing and mixing things up.

    But DC’s and OC’s would rather keep their jobs by playing it safe, and not doing anything too risky, and that’s always the bottom line ……..

  5. Author

    @AJ “Like we already know by now, if we see something work well in a game, you will Never see it again in that game or the next one. ”
    Man, that is one of the constant facts about the Dolphins. Well said.

    It angers me when they don’t run a successful play again.
    But it infuriates me to hear the same old rationale afterward: “Well, we have to mix it up. We have to keep the opponent guessing. ”

    New England has about 5 plays in their playbook, and they run them over and over and over again. No one on New England ever says “That play was successful, so therefore we ran it only once” Only the Dolphins use that twisted rationale.

  6. ” is that he emphasized a lack of execution on defense in the first half”

    He just proved he’s an idiot.

    He should have also emphasized the lack of execution on offense. But since he’s supposed to be some great offensive genius, he’s not going to go there.

    Might as well pack it up for this season.

    1. Well MordacP, I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I think the Dolphins gave Seattle and New England a good try, but they must do some serious tweaking before this next game against Cleveland. I don’t wanna see a close game, no, I wanna see a blowout and maybe then we’ll have a wee-bit more confidence in them.

      1. Author

        I agree. A win will tell us nothing. A blowout will tell us that maybe we are decent after all.

  7. Miami 0-2 vs Cleveland 0-2 in BIG SNOOZEFEST! LOL

    1. Jay, you’ll be right in front of the TV as usual hollering and screaming at the Dolphins.

        1. Author

          Yeah, I can see Jay screaming, “Tannepuke” all day long! 😉

        2. Not you Jay? So you’re saying you stay calm, cool, and collective when you see Tannehill take one of those boneheaded sacks because he won’t throw the ball away, or throw’s one of those idiotic interceptions like he’s prone to do?

          1. @Phil

            FYI I haven’t watched one NFL play this year for ANY team including the Dolphins and have no intention to as long as they are disrespecting our country.

            1. Author

              Jay, at this point there is not much we can do. The NFL cannot legally make them stand. They cannot be fired. I can see you wanting to hate the disrespectful punk players, but the NFL itself is helpless to fine them or even prohibit what they are doing. I’m on your side, and I stated so immediately on this blog when Karpernick started acting up. But I don’t blame the whole league.

              1. I do blame the league and some coaches and owners with no balls. I don’t think NE or Dallas or Seattle are kneeling.
                Tony LaRussa said he’d let players kneel in the locker room and would not allow a public display of disrespect to his team, the league, and the country.

                But that is not even the point.
                \
                I wont watch people disrespect our country….that’s the point. The TV ratings are way down. And anyone who cares about the country should and is BOYCOTTING.

                1. To say there’s nothing we can do is a defeatist attitude. Stop supporting these spoiled players that don’t appreciate the country that allows them millions of dollars for playing a game.

                  1. Yeah, and while you are doing all this patriotic stomping on the internet, these black football players have the guts to show the world their displeasure about these point blank in your face killings of their people by the police that’s captured on camera and still they’re observing nothing being done to the cops doing the shooting. And if you and Admin want to talk about disrespecting this country, a lot of these players have grandfathers and great grandfathers who fought and served this country in WWII while they watched German POW’s eating in the same Mess Halls they were barred from being in no matter what their rank was. Not only that, those same black soldiers, while in uniform, couldn’t eat in white owned restaurants, stay in white owned hotels, told they had to sit in the back of the bus, couldn’t get a job after getting out of the military, and all kinds of other racist degrading put downs that you couldn’t even imagine. Yes, all that while still fighting for the flag that you, Jay, and Admin want to fain all this outrage over for what their grandsons and great grandsons are standing up for in a football stadium.

                    I suggest you, Jay, and Admin focus your outrage at how miserable the Dolphins are doing on the football field and keep your patriotic ideologies to yourselves, because you two are way out of your league when trying to discuss how outraged you are at how some sports players want to fight racial injustices they’re witnessing in United States of America.

                    1. If ya wanna tell people what to say and what ya want them to talk about maybe ya should get your own blog you unpatriotic simpleton DUMBASS!!

                    2. Author

                      Phil, believe me, my outrage is definitely on the miserable team we’ve seen so far!

  8. Is that the best you can come back with? What the fuck are you Jay, 12? Look, here’s a little advice: If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen….you snotty nose little brat.

    And as for your predictable little immature “unpatriotic simpleton” smear, I don’t just sit on my ass and wave some little dollar store stars & stripes flag on a stick while singing “God bless America” and call myself a defender of the “good ole USA” like you Jay. No. You see Gay, I wore the uniform of the United States Army for ten years! Now run along and go play your favorite game of “grab ass” with your little buddies and STFU!!!

  9. You STFU you stupid moron. Everything you’ve said has been COMPLETELY WRONG! You’ve proven just a MORON DUMBASS nuthin . I call BS on everything you say you unpatriotic dick!

    1. And your homophobic comment shows everyone you’re an uneducated lowlife scumbag!!

      1. @ Gay

        There, I’ve reduced you to revealing what and who you truly are to everyone that post on this forum , “a little spoiled Momma’s Boy” who doesn’t know how to carry on an intelligent debate without resorting to vulgar language.

        Go back to watching your cartoons boy and leave grown folks alone.

        1. So…… gay is a derogatory label in your dumbass bigot/racist mind as is woman,black, jew, muslim, indian, and every other slur out there. You are clearly a lowlife uneducated scumbag that’s proven clueless. KMA dumb jackass!!

          1. In your case, “Gay” is not a slur, it’s what you enjoy being. So suck on it and be happy.

  10. @Admin. Well, the Dolphins should be the only thing you’re focused on, not some Pro football players who are protesting peacefully in their own way and exercising their constitutional rights. But calling people who are playing a game where one hit can paralyze you for life “disrespectful punk players” is very obtuse at best. I mean, you and others get pissed at these football players for not standing up for the national anthem but you get elated when those same football players go out on the field to entertain you, and like I said, one hit and one of them can be maimed for life, like Darrell Stingley. I wouldn’t call anyone taking chances like that on the football field a “punk player.”

    If you have more heart than they do, well, good for you.

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