Forgive the low-rez pictures, but I think they work for our purposes. I studied the game a few times to analyze certain plays and certain mistakes, and these are what I’d like to share with you here. In each case, a little practice and a little experience will be very beneficial, and I think these mistakes can be overcome.
First, let’s start with our second-round draft pick, Mike Gisecki, who’s been all but invisible this season so far after hearing about such lofty expectations.
Early in the first quarter, the Dolphins set up a screen pass. Here is the base of the play as Ryan Tannehill fades back.
Tannehill is obviously top middle . In the top right, you see TE Mike Gisecki trying to block Jets’ S Jamal Adams. On paper, and in this freeze frame, all looks well, right? Surely a huge tight end can handle blocking a little safety, right?
Now lets skip ahead a few frames…
Here you see the aftermath of this sad, sad play. Tannehill is moving toward the left. Adams (circled in red) is chasing him. But where is Gisecki? A second ago, Gisecki was blocking him. But where is he now? Look to the far right. See the blue rectangle box? That’s Mike Gisecki lying flat on his back like in a coffin. He was tossed aside by the tiny safety, who’s now in hot pursuit of Tannehill. This was NOT a case of the safety juking him and gaining the edge with blazing speed. This was a very small guy simply shoving aside our tight end and knocking him flat on his ass.
No wonder this guy is known as a pass-catcher only, and a joke of a blocker. They said it on draft day, and Gisecki proved it Sunday. In case you’re wondering the result of the play, here you go…
Tannehill, at the far left, is about to get strip-sacked by Adams, who’s right behind him and ready to pounce. Although this fiasco was Gisecki’s fault, Tannehill didn’t help matters. One, he has Kenyan Drake WIDE open at the bottom right. Two, he’s barely holding onto the ball. Three, he trusted a rookie tight end and never bothered to look around at the pass rush. Although he fumbled on this play, luckily AJ Derby was there to pounce on it or the Jets would have been sitting pretty in the first quarter.
So after watching Gisecki almost blow this game, surely Adam Gase learned his lesson, right? Gase wouldn’t let him try to block again, right? Uhh, no. In the shot below, it’s still 0-0 in the first quarter. On this play, we ran the wild cat, and Albert Wilson has the ball. At the 9 yardline a defender awaits him. He’s also the last man standing between Wilson and the goal line. Mike Gisecki’s job is to level that defender.
Just look at this photo and pay attention to Gisecki’s angle. He is aiming his body BEHIND the defender already. Not at him, but behind him. It’s such a bad angle to take. Sure enough, the defender steps straight ahead, and Gisecki goes flying past him. The defender then dives into Wilson and easily breaks up a sure touchdown. Two plays with Mike Gisecki attempting to block, and two bad whiffs. So if you’re wondering why Gisecki sat the bench most of this game, now you know. His blocking is EVEN WORSE than the experts told us about.
Here’s a cool screen shot of the Jets’ lone touchdown. It shows you how close we were to keeping them out of the end zone. Powell has the ball and has to get by Reshad Jones, not an easy feat. But on this play, Powell got the best of Jones, as TJ McDonald and Raekwon McMillan were both late getting back to help.
It would have been a tough open-field tackle to make, but we’re used to Reshad making those. Just not this time.
Now it’s time for our weekly complaint about Adam Gase’s play calling. In the 3rd quarter, we faced a third and inches. Before we get into that, we need to remember the plays before. On first down, Drake ran for 4 yards. On second and 6, the Jets came in with their dime defense on an obvious passing down. But Gase called a running play to take advantage of the Jets thinking “pass.” Frank Gore gained 5 and a half yards, leaving us with third and inches.
Now, the Jets were STILL in their dime package, and we went to a hurry-up play, with Gore in the backfield. The very purpose of the hurry up is to catch a team off guard. The Jets were in a dime package and ready for a pass, so we should have hurried up and ran another handoff. It had just been successful, and there is no way Frank Gore can’t gain a yard. But Adam Gase ran a typical Adam Gase play.
With the Jets expecting and lined up for a pass, Gase called a pass. Incomplete, of course, and time to punt.
To make matters worse, look at Gore (circled) in the middle. He is soooooo wide open. But Tannehill didn’t want to throw it to him. Instead, he tried for Albert Wilson, who is off screen way down on the 30 yardline. We needed 20 inches, not 20 yards. It was an infuriating play call made worse by Tannehill’s lack of vision. “Ha ha. You guys can’t stop the run, so we will teach you a lesson and pass it. And then we’ll throw it to the wrong guy.”–Adam Gase
Here’s a shot from late in the game with us clinging to a one-score lead. Gase is calling in the play to Tannehill’s helmet. No problem, right? Look at the circled play clock. 15 seconds left only, and Tannehill still has to listen to the play from Gase, repeat it for the men in the huddle, break the huddle, and get to the line.
Gase simply MUST get these plays in faster.
On this particular play, no surprise, Miami had to take a timeout. The play call came it way too late. With 3 minutes left in a game and us milking a lead, we had to call a timeout. Only Joe Philbin does that! And now, Adam Gase joins the club.
Here’s the huge play of the game, when Gore picked up a third and 19. A couple of things to see:
Tannehill (black circled on right) is swarmed with Jets. He gets an A++ on this play for escaping the pressure. Fantastic job.
Frank Gore (circled at the NFL logo) and Jamal Adams (red circle left) are the key players here. Adams sees Tannehill in trouble and he sprints in to finish him off. Gore is probably supposed to block him, but he misses…which led to his being open in the area where Adams was supposed to hold his ground.
It worked out perfectly for the Dolphins, and became the biggest play of the game.
And finally, I like that the Dolphins use a defender (here it’s Bobby McCain) on the victory formation. Just in case of disaster, you have a fast tackler in there as the last line of defense.
Bobby.
A few things that are encouraging. 1 last year Gase would have kept Gilepski in there the whole game and then praise him and award him the game ball after allowing seven sacks. He benched him after 2 whiffs. Also in a screen shot not shown DeVonte Parker wasn’t even dressed for the game
Right there I see a huge improvement in Gase as a coach
LOL, get ready for Phil to comment on your Parker statement!
Bring IT……
What is there to bring? Admin did a poignant breakdown from a few photo clips of the game. You Brian, spewed some useless gibberish that’s pointless to even comment on.
I am a huge believer in not tampering with success. Keeping the same 4 WRs active on game days has been working. Period.
We can also line up TEs and RBs in the WR slot if someone gets hurt, plus special teams ace Tanner McEvoy has been active and wasn’t a bad WR for the Seahawks.
I mentioned Gesicki in the last article I thought that I read on ESPN or somewhere that he played over 20 snaps so he did get some reps. Gase said that he didn’t catch a pass as the jets focused on him…maybe protecting him since he’s a rookie or it’s fact??? anyway he apparently played more than a few snaps hopefully they weren’t all this bad!
I call bullshit on the Jets focusing on her-she caught 1 pass in her career. Quite a threat. Totally invisible.
Effing people in China know GetLickMe can’t block. BUT,we continue to call plays for her that require her to block. NOT anything else. She’s there for 1 thing and 1 thing only,to catch a pass. Nothing else. Did she catch a pass?
On the 3rd and 19 blown play,it took a miracle catch by Gore to make a 1st down. That bass was literally under a foot off the ground. Otherwise,the game changes.
Regarding Ms.Parker,keep her off the field along with her BFF,GetLickMe. They both SOFT! Some idiot replied to an Herald article I commented regarding her. He said Tony Gonzalez and Gronk both caught just 1 pass in their 1st game. Sure,compare her to the HOFers you idiot.Both she and Parker were wasted draft choices. If she plays,throw her the ball because the ONLY thing she can do is catch,or so we’re told because I haven’t seen it yet.
Idiot Gase needs an OC who calls plays. He reminds me of Randy Shannon at UM about clock cluelessness.
Tranny will never have pocket awareness-it’s been how many years now? It’s something you have-you can’t learn it.
Do you think he can develop? Or, do you give up on him after 2 games? Because if he can develop, his size can make for a great weapon.
I think he can develop, but in the meantime, he is causing negative plays. Can’t have that. Better off giving Smythe some more reps.
Gesicki can’t block, we know that, and he had the big fail against the Titans. I’ve seen lots of people blaming Tannehill for the INT, but it was really Gesicki that is too blame, he allowed himself to be pushed to the outside by Butler than to make matters worse, he falls down so Butler has a free, easy, and unchallenged INT.
Gesicki is a rookie and needs work, he has to learn how to block, take better angles, and most importantly, work on his release.
They had all of training camp to teach him. All preseason too,which he rarely played.Nothing changed. His blocking type is,”ole” as they run past him.Or like a turnstile. You can block or you can’t. They had a mistake taking him so high.
That’s why they also created Smyth, he is the blocker, Gesicki is suppose to be the seam threat. Where they took him is fine, they knew what they were getting, his is a receiving TE, not a blocking or complete TE, pretty much like Jimmy Graham, but Jimmy doesn’t get pushed around like Mike has – that’s the difference and that’s what he has to work on.
Since drafted,totally useless. Can’t block at all and has caught 1 pass. Can’t get open.Drafted too high. He never learned to block as a TE in college and hasn’t yet since being paid. He’s a 1 trick pony that doesn’t have a trick any longer.
Regarding Butler,he’s been graded as the worst DB in the 1st 2 weeks. Pushed around by a slug. I rarely look at stats like that because I thought the Pats may have missed him since they were pushed around.
Gesiki is starting to remind me of Egnew. All fins fans remember that guy, but I disagree with the consensus on devante Parker here. He has 100% been disappointing but he did have a decent year in 2016. This is the last year of his rookie contract, I say play him as a big slot receiver and use his size in the red zone. If he sucks after a game or two just go back to benching him
I disagree with the comparison to Egnew, Gesicki can actually catch, Egnew for whatever reason would drop everything that came his way except for that one pass he drove for in a meaningless pre-season game. The weird thing about it is that Egnew was actually a pretty good receiving TE in college, it’s like her forgot to catch when he got drafted.
OMG, I called Michael Egnew a bust so many times, and once they finally got rid of him, I forgot all about him. Haven’t heard that loser’s name in a long time! Thanks for the laugh, guys!
Hey admin,, I saw not one or two but THREE different articles that said how great Gisecki was blocking. You should send YOUR analysis and pictures to those writers, like Barry Jackson at the herald. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I’m still LOL at the coffin you drew around Gisecki in picture 2 above
LOL, thanks Dan. Not only that, but I heard Gase praise his blocking too. We can only hope and pray that Gase is a mean, stern disciplinarian behind closed doors. Because in public, it’s the opposite. No matter how bad a player screws up, Gase will be there to defend him. The worst you ever hear is, “We’ll work on that and get better.” It’s one of the reasons he’s all buddy-buddy with the players. They like him, but they should fear him.
I think behind closed doors he is a screamer. Jarvis Landry did a piece for ESPN where he said Gase says all the time that if someone fucks up he’ll trade them to the browns. Also last year after the ravens game he basically said half the players were to lazy to even know the playbook. I think unless something goes crazy wrong he tries his best not to throw players under the bus. Which honestly if I was on the team I would respect.
Agreed. That is the best way to handle. Be a hard-core prick behind closed doors, but don’t throw under the bus in public.
I wonder if Landry will enjoy his $20 million, knowing that he will probably win about 5 total games in his entire career in Cleveland. I would!
I hope he does lol I always liked him when he was here but man has he talked a lot of shit since leaving.