On a day when Brian Flores should have kicked a field goal and Preston Williams dropped a ball right in his arms, the Olphins did not lose because of those mistakes.   Instead, they lost because the defense forgot to show up.

Whether it was highly touted rookies who got burned all day like Noah Igbinoghene, or highly priced free agents and veterans who did nothing at all, like Xavien Howard, Byron Jones, Shaq Lawson, and Bobby McCain, the result was consistently dreadful.   Worse, Brian Flores allowed this all game long.   He changed up nothing, and simply thought it would all get magically better.

The funniest part to me was the amateur-hour CBS announcers praising Josh Allen “pinpoint” passing. Did you see how wide open every Bill WR was, every play?  Anyone could have completed those passes.   No pinpoints were necessary.

Our defense could not stop a simple crossing pattern.  But they made up for it by not being able to cover deep routes either.  Oh, and let’s not forget the fierce pass rush that our new-look defense gave us.

And to think Brian Flores hand picked all these guys.  His own guys.  His own coordinators.  His own system. His own failures.

As always, would love to know your thoughts.

25 Comments

  1. Can’t disagree. They also stuck to man playing Noah on their best wr with no help. Rarely played zone but when they did Allen struggled. Poor coaching in my opinion.

    Meanwhile Fitz wasn’t horrible but he’s simply not good enough to win when you need him. I’m watching Herbert look pretty good against the champs and Tanny threw 4 TDs today. Can’t wait to see fitztragic against the jags I’m expecting another loss but he’s somehow better than those two and Tua….I guess better to lose for one more year with all of those picks. Texans 0-2 as well.

  2. I guess the one positive was the offense looked better. Bills could not cover our receivers. There might be a chink in Flores armor now. He gets players better but can he translate this into wins? It’s early on so he gets the benefit of the doubt but Miami should have won this game after taking the lead. Bills connect on a 40 and 20 yard completion without any resistance. That reeked of unpreparedness.

  3. Anyone pay for online access to the Herald or a sun Sentinel?? Can’t believe they make us pay to read about Dolphins!

    1. FYI… use an incognito browser… helps get past the “paywall”

  4. Nice coaching adjustment. Your starter goes down so you simply expect a rookie to seamlessly take over with no help. Sure try it in the first quarter but after getting torched do you think that it would be wise to make an adjustment? How about at halftime… uh nothing. Any idiot could see this but our coaches I’ve seen this questioned by various reporters…F me.

    Cameron Wolfe ESPN Staff Writer

    Xavien Howard said it was the game plan that had Noah Igbinoghene covering Stefon Diggs. He was Byron Jones’ guy coming in and Igbinoghene had him after the injury. It didn’t work. Diggs had 5 catches for 123 yards and a TD on nine targets with Igbinoghene as nearest defender.

  5. As usual, NYG and NYJ were on while Miami was playing but was following game. Not that I was surprised with the loss, not surprised with everything! What is this team missing that they can’t get it right? Coaching? Talent scouts? On paper, we should be better than this. I don’t want to hear how good Tannehill is doing, cuz the guy didn’t get it done in Miami. What is the issue this team can’t get the “kill instinct”? I would have preferred the Dolphins had no night games, they don’t show up in prime time! Same old, same old….it’s getting very old. Is it time to put in Tua with another loss? Hope he’s memorizing the playbook.

    1. Only mentioned Tanny as he’s magically doing well without idiots like gase coaching him. What if Noah pulls a Minkah after this and wants to leave? How many players can they afford to lose because of idiotic coaching? The D coordinator sure isn’t making me feel warm and fuzzy that’s for sure… how much of this is on Flores? I don’t know but I’d expect him to majorly influence the D. I like where they are headed as yes they will find playmakers but some of these things are self inflicted. Noah should not have been on Diggs all game with no help. Stupid.

      1. Author

        I’m pretty harsh on my criticism of Noah simply because of the base route that Diggs ran all day long. Noah did not have to fight through double teams, or switch off of a post route, or have to figure if he’s in man or zone. No! All he had to do was stop Diggs from running right to left. Even when Diggs got ahead of him, the alleged blazing track star speed should have been enough to catch up, but it wasn’t there.

        1. This is true but most solid vets will eat up a 20 year old just on experience alone. Coaches are supposed to protect this somewhat from happening. They did nothing to help the kid. Played zone only a few times even though Allen struggled against it…

          1. Author

            Believe me, I haven’t even started to come down on our horrible coaching. 6 different Defensive Coordinators in 6 years. It’s a simple recipe for non-continuity and failure.
            Dolphins head coaches keep hiring their friends, and it shows. Our current DC, Josh Boyer, never called a defensive play in his life except at some unknown Division 4 school about 20 years ago. It’s embarrassing. These men simply are not qualified.

            1. You are correct sir it’s one thing to hire your buddies but to fire them all every season confusing the players is even worse. Players don’t know who’s coming or going. When rebuilding with young players this becomes worse. It wouldn’t be fair to be mad at most of the players because they aren’t given a great chance to succeed. Let’s just hope everyone can figure things out soon the short week sure doesn’t help.

              1. Definitely new coordinators each year kill us

  6. Honestly? I’m not going to get on Noah Igbinoghene, his second NFL game as a rookie with no preseason on top of it? Getting stuck on Stefon Diggs in man coverage for most of the game? That’s a tough assignment for anyone much less a rookie in that situation. Hoping that trial by fire will make him better as the season progresses. But I will reiterate what I said week one…. our defense is better but we do not have a single “impact” player on defense and it shows. We don’t have that one guy that can wreck a team’s game plan or come up with that key turnover in the clutch. So our defense looks better than last year (hard not to) but what we have is a bunch of solid guys that will keep the game reasonably close…. but nobody that will step up BIG in big moments to turn a game around.

    On offense… it was nice to see Gesicki start to step up and get more looks. That “one” catch…. wow. But Preston Williams cost us the game with his “if it isn’t going to make a highlight reel, I probably won’t catch it” hands and that’s incredibly frustrating. As already mentioned this was a very winnable game against a better team (on paper at least) and we handed it to them because we couldn’t make in game adjustments coaching wise, made costly errors, and just simply don’t have enough playmakers yet.

    1. Amen to you Mike! I agree with emphasis…I have mentioned this many times and most times–why is it this team, through its “talent scouts” (doubting their combined capabilities) can’t land playmakers? Can they judge talent? Cuz we sure aren’t seeing big potential, breakout players here? THIS is where the lag constantly appears…I’m not referring to big money name players, I’m talking about players that have that difference from the pack play…we need a few of those to get the team in the winning lane….winning takes takes learning-you need to learn to how win BEFORE you can actually win. It’s also the mental part to winning…it all makes the difference have the “kill factor” to winning and losing. Look at KC and Seattle yesterday-remove the QB’s from the equation–every player seems to be in there fighting to get their on-field job done & some….Kill instinct…Not in the Dolphins DNA.

      1. Author

        Yep. I said this a lot leading up to the draft, that I wanted to select Tua at #5 and then all defensive line and linebackers with our 13 other picks. Offense was adequate last year; defense was not. We needed to draft young hungry playmakers.
        Instead they wasted so many picks on O linemen and DBs during the draft. Not to mention a long snapper and some gadget WRs who are inactive every week.

        The Killer instinct can be taught. Have Jerome Baker step in front of Diggs one time and level him to his ass. Take the 15-yard personal foul. It’s a small price to pay, and Diggs wouldn’t be so willing to run across the middle next time…

  7. Author

    Flores once again said that he “has to do a better job.”
    It’s getting very old, very fast. Our players on defense are really good young athletes. But they are out of position constantly. And when they are in the correct position, the opponent sees that and adjusts.
    Rushing the same 4 guys against 6 blockers simply does not work. It’s an easy pickup for the opponent, and gives their QB all day to throw. Over and over and over.
    “I have to get better.” Indeed.
    Minkah was right.

    1. It bothers me more as his specialty is D. These little things shouldn’t happen. Challenging a solid vet to go man on man all game is one thing but when an injury happens to said vet you have to adjust better than saying next man up on a difficult mission. Sure try it but when it’s failing don’t let it ruin your game. This is coaching 101….very frustrating.

      We were also told that they’d manufacture some pass rush even without game breaking talent. Where is the ingenuity? Zero results. It’s early but we should see something. At least on O we see a bit of light none on D. McMillan could stop the run and they made strides but all of a sudden he doesn’t fit and now they can’t stop anything…. Wow.

  8. Everyone saw last year that Flores improved the play at all positions. We need to look for this same result this year as practically this whole team is young and new. My worry is that they will never build beyond this point. Never progress from this elementary level of improvement and become elite. This progression is what Flores has not proven he can provide.

  9. The thing that keeps jumping out at me through these two weeks is just the “meh” quality of this team. Are we great? Of course not. Are we Terrible? Not at all. We’re just kinda…meh. And “meh” isn’t good enough in the NFL. There are lots of meh teams like us, the Browns/Lions/Jets etc, but when you see a team like Arizona making leaps and bounds of progress against quality teams, it just makes it so frustrating.

    1. We have to give the players time to gel as they had no preseason but the question is are the coaches good enough to get them over the hump. I hope so as so far I’m not too confident especially on D.

  10. WestCoast, Nick and FlyerFinFan,
    Totally agree on comments….this is where this team has lagged for years…Nick, your “meh” is true. I’m giving this “no preseason” learning curve another game and then they need to produce on the field…something! Anything! It needs to improve. A win that shows they have playmakers, they are playing as a team. Individual play does not win games. Frustrated Finfanforever is a better name!

    1. Author

      I watch each game a few times to analyze and look for little things. Even guys who were here last year had to learn the new defense under the new DC. It’s brand new to everyone. But you know what really jumps out at me? The defense itself isn’t great. Never mind the players…in many cases they are doing what they are supposed to do. But the schemes are horrible. We rush 4 men (and only 4) 95% of the time. 4 Dolphins against 5 Bill blockers is not a good scenario. When the Bills kept a 6th blocker in, we had no chance.
      Flores’ system is the failed old 1990s system where you rush 4 and send 7 men back into coverage. With 3 WRs running routes and 7 men to guard them, they cannot possibly complete a pass, right? Uhhhh….

    2. Exactly, this next game must be a win. It should be more than a win, it should be a blow out. We could argue that the Pats and the Bills are playoff teams with the Bills being a 2-3 round playoff team. The Phins improved their offense in the second game. This game better provide another improvement against a team that shouldnt win more than 2-3 games this year MAX. We need killer instinct here and win big. If not then my fears about Flores might be correct (unless some unexpected occurrence).

  11. You just get the feeling that the Jags QB minshew (sp wrong) – with no pass rush against him, and not even any PRESSURE whatsoever in the pocket (more important) – is licking his chops to play against this D.
    Admin is dead on correct : how many millions of times have we said before – if you give a QB all day to throw, it DOESNT MATTER how many are in coverage – 7,8,9 ?
    Someone will ALWAYS get open – that is a fact, in the NFL

    1. Agreed you need some pass rush. Seems like Flores is pushing a 3-4 yet the D seems to be better suited to play 4-3. Hopefully he’s not too stubborn and gives more 4-3 looks as that may help the rush.

      Looks like Chark is out which will take away a big weapon and even out Jones not playing. There is a shot tonight…although this may end up being a shootout to win.

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