Yahoo Sports ran an article right after the game ended, pointing out the disaster that ensued right after our fake field goal successfully converted into a first down.
Here’s the link: https://sports.yahoo.com/dolphins-tanking-successful-fake-field-goal-sack-fumble-interception-201317398.html
I’ll save you some time and summarize it: the writer points out how the Dolphins blew that golden opportunity. That’s stating the obvious. And it offers zero insight and analysis.
So allow me to tell you what really went wrong. And it starts well before the interception.
The Dolphins were driving. We got the ball at halftime and marched all the way down to the Bills’ 13 yardline. Mind you, a lot of that drive was Mark Walton. He was on fire, and the O-line’s run blocking was exceptional all day.
We had taken OVER NINE MINUTES and counting off the play clock. Almost all of this due to Mark Walton leading our most impressive drive all season.
Okay, so first and 10 from the 13 yardline. Flores and/or his unqualified friend (offensive coordinator Chad O’Shea) benched Mark Walton. They called a play for Kenyan Drake instead. Predictably, Drake got stuffed for no gain. At least he held onto the ball this time.
Okay, now it’s second and 10 from the 13. Fitzy hit Drake for a short pass and Drake plowed ahead for 9.
A nice pickup, right? I have to say no.
I pointed this out in our live chat at least 5 separate times: The Dolphins backs and WRs CONSISTENTLY come up short when we need first downs. It’s like they’re taught 9 yards is fine, instead of being taught to lunge forward for an extra yard. I counted FIVE SEPARATE third-and-ones off the top of my head. That is a recipe for disaster.
It seems like the Dolphin backs are taught that 9 and a half yards is fine,m even though we need 10. “Oh, we’re only a yard short. No problem.” Except it is a problem. And it’s consistent. There’s no fight for that elusive final yard. I’m not talking about fighting TOO much, where you start getting sloppy with the ball. I’m talking about just a final lunge forward.
Anyway, now we’re at third and half a yard. A handoff to Mark Walton, who lunges ahead for the first down. Except…
Before we go further, look at my screen shot above. Walton is circled and the ball is in his left arm. It’s about 2 feet PAST the line to gain. His knee is down around the 3, but the ball is much closer to the 2. A first down. A clear and obvious call. But like I said, “Except…”
The refs lost sight of Walton in the pile up and incorrectly ruled him down early. And here is where Brian Flores shows why he was an office-desk worker in the Patriots organization. Why he wasn’t a coach. Here is where he blew the game.
We saw Flores asking for a measurement, and we saw the refs ignore him. For some reason, he could not get their attention. But asking for a measurement was not the right thing to do to begin with.
No, Flores needed to challenge that spot. Look at my shot above. Talk about clear and obvious evidence of where the ball ended up! The review process would have taken 5 seconds and then first down Miami. Flores wasn’t thinking straight. Even if he got his precious measurement, that measurement would have determined that we didn’t get the first down. Because the spot was all wrong.
Flores ended up calling a time out. But he should have challenged. Worst case scenario is you lose the challenge (we wouldn’t have lost, but just for the sake of argument), and lose the time out (which he took anyway!).
Okay, so we’re up 5 points here. A field goal puts us up by 8. That’s essentially 2 touchdowns, since Buffalo would need a conventional touchdown and then another for the 2-pt conversion. I’d take my chances with an 8-point lead, since our D was playing well.
But no, Flores played Xbox Madden again and ran another fake field goal. (Matt Haack is a better rusher than Kenyan Drake, by the way).
So we have a first down. You might think, what’s the big deal about Flores not challenging Walton’s first down when we picked it up later anyway. The big deal is that the Bills defense got fired up. They made that big stop (that wasn’t really) on third down, and got off the field. Special teams blew it, and the D was right back out there, still fired up.
Following the long history of Dolphins Playcalling 101, Miami decided to ignore Mark Walton again. Remember him, the guy who took 10 minutes off the clock on this one drive but running over Bills left and right? Why use him when we can try a pass in which no one blocked Jordan Phillips. And then, let’s double down and ignoring Walton by trying to pass to 6th-string Isiah Ford instead. The pass looked bad, but my guess is that Ford made his cut too late.
The game was soon over. All because Flores was struck with a case of massive indecision that head coaches simply cannot have. His lack of qualification was on display today at its worst, and his pal Chad O’Shea calling pass plays didn’t help.
I’ll give credit to DeVante Parker and Mike Gesicki for some nice catches. My knock on Gesicki is that he doesn’t get open! All those passes he caught today were outstanding catches because he wasn’t open and Fitzy had to thread the needle. Imagine when Gesicki runs his routes a little better. Watch out then !
I don’t mind us losing all the way to be honest just to secure the #1 pick. But actually I think it’s pretty funny when we have probably the worst roster ever assembled and are paying them dirt cheap meanwhile we can hang with teams that are making the playoffs.
Anyway, Devante Parker is playing well, he’s gotten better and better I think most of the WRs are. Preston Williams makes plays. People knock on him for the fumbles and drops and stuff but for an undrafted WR he is playing like a 3rd round pick right now. Mike Gesicki is playing well. TE is very hard to dominate when you come right out of college so it will take some time but he has a high ceiling.
Mark Walton looks good. I don’t know if we should trade Drake. He is a stud still in my opinion but I think some players that are good are just demoralized by us clearly tanking.
Also the defense was getting to the QB. It was because a lot of blitzes. The cool thing was how we were disguising those blitzes literally we had 7 people walking around the line of scrimmage and because of that their O line didn’t know how many were coming and where which was cool. Obviously our secondary needs help which makes sense after losing Minkah, and Jones and Howard being out.
But overall, I think we are clearly getting better as a team while losing and I can’t really blame the coaching staff because I don’t know if they are actually trying or sort of tanking. I mean going for 2 last week and calling that play was clearly a tanking maneuver … at least I hope so.
What’s starting to make me nervous is the Bungles are looking every bit as inept as the Dolphins… if we go through this huge roster purge and still wind up not getting the #1 overall pick (which could happen… we do play the Bengals later this season which might be our first win)…. then what was all this for???
Granted, even if we do miss out on Tua… I still don’t think he’s a lock to be a stud QB in the NFL…. getting Herbert, Burrow or Fromm could wind up being a blessing in disguise a couple years down the road but it does show what a HUGE gamble this “hard reset” of the roster is…
The only way it fails is if someone else takes the QB that they want. Who cares if the Fins get him 2nd or later? I also believe that they should hang onto Rosen he’s cheap and you never know the light may still come on. Why not have two good young QBs…
Excellent analysis admin it’s exactly how it happened. On a good note some players are stepping up which is what we need to see. Maybe Fitz gets moved some teams need insurance.
LSU Joe Burrow is the best QB out there right now. I think as good as Luck was coming out of college. Of course the season needs to play out. But if picking right now, he is the number 1 in my view.
WCFF, interesting. I know little about Burrow, so I will research him asap.
I always get a bit nervous when you start talking about one year wonders when it comes to college QB’s… I personally would much rather see them take Tua, Herbert or even Fromm but there’s no doubt Burrow has been impressive this season.
Of course. I do think the season has to play out but Burrow looks real promising as it stands now.
I took a lot of grief on some other sites where I comment on (Always trying to drive traffic and new readers here to DolphinsTruth).
Essentially, people think I’m hard on Flores because he has such a bad team to work with.
I’m gonna write my next column on why the talent is irrelevant. There are accepted, normal things to do in a football game. The basics. The talent level doesn’t matter.
Next year–and this is a fact–the Dolphins will have a TON more talent than this year. But will that automatically make our coach better too?
Bad coaching is bad coaching no different than bad playcalling is well bad…I don’t care what the talent level is on the team. If anything sure talent can make a bad play or call work but does that mean the coach is still didn’t make the wrong decision? Of course not he was just bailed out by a good player. You are right admin even if better talent bails out Flores next year from time to time the Fins may still lose games that they should win because of poor decisions so we all have to hope that he’s a quick learner. Use the falcons as an example bad coaching cost them a super bowl I’d be pissed if I was one of their fans as they had one.
The announcers Sunday mentioned that Chad O’Shea told them how he is finally getting a feel for play calling.
By extension, O’Shea is admitting he had no feel for play calling in the earlier weeks.
THAT is the kind of inexperience the Dolphins cannot afford, and yet Ross tolerates it each year.
It’s still very possible that O’Shea is making questionable play-calls on purpose, because he’s on board with tanking. If you want to lose, calling a shitty play is easier and more subtle to accomplish than asking your player to fumble on purpose, or something like that.
Didn’t Drake acknowledge that they had never practiced the 2 point conversion play once? Why on earth would you run a play that you never practiced when its the most important play of the game? Imagine if the Eagles had done that in the super bowl? Foles actually asked the coach for that play because the players had so much confidence in it what a revelation!
Kinda. Drake himself never practiced that play. It was designed for Mark Walton, who practiced it all week long. Then came time for the play, and Walton was banged up, so they had to go with Drake.
I completely agree that the coaching has been terrible this year, up and down the board. Since they fully expected to be terrible this year I don’t seem them making major changes to the staff so I guess we have to hope that they are able to learn from their mistakes over the course of this season (which is more or less a throwaway season though they would never admit it) and be better coaches having gone through this.
People do forget sometimes that Belicheck’s first head coaching job was in Cleveland and it certainly wasn’t a memorable stint. That’s not to say Flores will be anywhere near as successful in the long run but you know what they say about learning more from your mistakes than your successes I guess…. (at least that’s what I keep hoping)….
I disagree. Some problems with game management, OK. But this staff has a no talent team improving. This is encouraging.
Forget it WESTCOAST FIN FAN… look at some of these “experienced” head coaches NFL records so far this year. Dan Quinn – 1 & 5, Matt Patricia – 2 & 3, Bruce Arians – 2 & 4, Bill Callahan – 1 & 6, Pat Shurmur – 2 & 5, and Anthony Lynn – 2 & 5.
What you said is correct, “this staff has a no talent team improving.” Against the Bills we saw Fitzpatrick missing throws all game long so we don’t know what the Dolphins would’ve done had he completed just half of them. It’s funny how this season is turning out the way some people expected and now they seem irritated because it’s turning out just the way they thought it would.
The improvements are notable, but let’s point out the quality of the opponent has been awful. Sorry, Bills fans, but your record is a joke and you’re going no where.
Flores looks lost out there sometimes. Like Joe Philbin, I have no doubt the man knows his Xs and Os as well as any coach in the league. But leadership, quick (and correct) decision-making, discipline, teaching, and strategic knowledge…I haven’t seen him excel yet.
“the quality of the opponent?” ADMIN, have you ever taken time to listen to what various media sources were saying about the Miami Dolphins before the season even started? I remember a certain sports show had a sports analyst come on the show and sarcastically predicted the Ravens would beat the Dolphins by 100 points… and he wasn’t off by that much! Sorry, but I have heard it said many times that the Dolphins were the worst team in the NFL. That means that any team the Dolphins play is better than they are. As for Flores and his “leadership, quick (and correct) decision-making, discipline, teaching, and strategic knowledge,” all those qualities are something I seriously doubt that even your eyes can detect just by looking at an NFL Head Coach on the field during a game. Do Flores have a lot to learn.. yes, every new head coach did in their debut. But even coaching is not an exact science. Right now, most of us realize that the structure the Dolphins organization is trying to get this team to is like a puzzle, and the pieces are in no way there yet. All we can do is keep hoping.
I agree with your point (that first year coaches are not usually successful) but I see improvement. We dont know how Flores will do when more talent is brought in but this is a sign of some hope.
I definitely saw all the pundits predicting us to be 0-16 and saying how talentless we are. And I still say we have as much talent as some other scrub teams, like the Bengals or Washington.
We have a better receiver squad than most teams in the league, and it’s jusdt a matter of time before someone like Grant or Wilson goes off and scores 3 TDs.
I see imporvement as well, for the Dolphins, and not for the others. The Jets are regressing after a lucky win vs. Dallas. The Bengals look worse each week. The Redskins barely beat us, and then they went back to DC and got SHUT OUT AT HOME.
We are improving and the other teams are getting worse. I still think we can win 3 games this year (not that I want to though), 1 is enough!
Talk about playing both sides of the fence