Right off the bat, let me say that if Jason Sanders makes a routine first-half FG instead of shanking it, we win the game. He bears some blame here.
But his miss became a forgotten footnote as the game progressed. The game was actually lost due to horrendous play-calling on both sides of the ball. I covered this yesteray, and I wanted to share some more examples…examples you won’t see scrutinized by other Dolphin writers.
We’ve covered the safety yesterday. As I thought at the time, and now confirmed, this is the first time in NFL history that a completed pass went for a safety. It was designed ugly and executed questionably. But most important, it should not have been call that deep in our own endzone. We have not one but TWO Offensive Coordinators…and neither one of them designed that play for Waddle to run inward like a slant? To gain some running momentum. To move FORWARD, instead of remaining stationary. A Dolphin columnist should NOT have to teach two different OCs that running forward is the object of the game. They should know that, and their head coach should make damn sure they know it. But no. Sitting back and waiting for the defense to come get you is the norm of this offense.
Next up is our drive in overtime. I hate hate hate hate hate throwing long on first down. It’s the perennial (incorrect) cliche of having to take your chances downfield. Have our idiot OCs watched the Dolphins this year? We don’t get open downfield, even when the line protects the QB. So on our first play it OT, the line protected Brissett has he tried a long bomb. He underthrew it terribly, PLUS Will Fuller didn’t slow down or even make an effort for some reason. Yeah, I know he caught a 2-point conversion, but otherwise his Dolphin career has consisted of a Drug Suspension in Week 1, a mysterious absence in Week 2, and a bunch of Drops in Week 3. $10 Million by the way.
Adding insult to injury, we held on the play. So now we have first and 20. 3 incompletions later, we have 4th and 20. By some miracle, Gesicki and Brisset connect, and we have a first down near midfield! Perfect. Now the Raiders on on their heels, stinging from giving up a 4th-and-20. Now is the time to run the ball right at them. Or try a slant to Waddle. The Raiders ate us up all day long with short passes, and we barely tried it. Instead, they went long again, and Will Fuller dropped the ball again. 2nd and long. We then went back to a more normalized offense, and it worked for a few more first downs. We were in FG range. We got to third-and-three, and to me this was the play of the game. I still feel if we picked that one up, we would have moved on to the endzone. You saw how exhausted those Raiders were. The 4th-and-20 had taken all the life out of their sails. But the Bobsey Twin OCs gave them the wind back. They called an odd “trick” play where our slowest receiver (Gesicki) ran horizontally…AGAIN NOT FORWARD. Brissett shuffled the ball a few inches forward, and there was some much traffic, Gesicki went down immediately.
I’m not talking about going for the win there on 4th down. Kicking the FG was the right call on 4th down. I’m focused exclusively on the third-down call. We played with zero urgency there. We threw away a golden opportunity by passing to a man in the middle of heavy traffic. Instead of letting someone find open space.
Talk about finding a guy in open space! Oh wait. The Dolphin Duo does not believe in open space. They’d rather call a play where Gesicki catches a 6-inch pass in the middle of 10 linemen. With the game on the line, THAT’s what they came up with. Game over.
Well, the game wasn’t quite over.
During our live chat, I remember thinking that our defense just needs a three and out. If we stop them, we’ll get the ball back with plenty of time kick a winning field goal. But it didn’t work out that way, even when their Raiders tried to help us. On first down, the Raiders were penalized for a false start, setting up a first and 15. This has to signal something for Brian Flores.
With the Raiders already getting a penalty, we should have gone into a man defense to take away the underneath passes that Derek Carr was certain to throw. Instead, on 1st and 15, we ran an all-out blitz, leaving too few defenders in the secondary. Carr found a wide receiver sitting in the middle of a zone with three Dolphins 10 yards away. It was the easiest completion of the day for the Raiders, and the wind was now out of our sails. We had to take away that pass instead of making it easier for them. A first-down blitz was an absolutely awful call. The defense clearly did not do its job all day long, but on this series, it just seemed worse. Two times the Raiders had the ball in overtime and two times the defense did nothing. We don’t need a turnover in that situation. We need a couple of tackles and we couldn’t do it. Jaelen Phillips got extended playing time but could do nothing again. He seemed to simply bull rush the opposing lineman instead if getting around him. I wonder if we can get Charles Harris back?
Back to the offense–and the lack of innovation from the Dynamic Dunces–when was the last time we saw the Dolphins try a hard count? Or saw some smart play…like when the Raiders had 12 men on the field, instead of taking advantage of it, Brissett took his time looking over the D. The Raiders then noticed the 12th man and called a timeout. Brissett should not have waited. My guess is that our offense doesn’t have any set play like that, where the QB is taught something like “Fire Fire” which means to hurry up to the line and snap the ball. Great offenses have that stuff innately. While our offense helps the opponent.
All day long I was envious of the Raiders for throwing slant patterns and eating us alive in the short game. I think they only punted once or twice in the entire second half, and every other drive was a score. We countered that by trying long passes and middle routes that did not work because they take way too long to set up. We also tried getting the ball to Waddle, in hopes that he could break one tackle for a big gain. That did not happen. Instead, he set a dubious NFL record yesterday.
Of all the people who caught 12 passes in an NFL game, Waddle’s yardage is the all-time lowest. 12 catches for 58 yards. A 4-yard average. He broke ZERO tackles. And we gave up a #1 draft pick to go get this guy.
If you want a laugh, check this out. The Miami Herald hired a writer from Mayland to cover the Dolphins. Today he wrote a a few points, and here are the ones that are hysterical. Wrong wrong wrong!
“Jaelan Phillips makes his first career start. He made the most of it, too. The rookie linebacker logged six tackles and played a role in Miami’s defensive touchdown… ”
Yadda Yadda. His job is to be a beast and sack the QB. Honestly if we wanted a DE to just make tackles, we coulda kept Charles Harris. “He made the most of it” is an appropriate comment for an undrafted free agent. Not a first-round star.
ALSO:
“Waddle is clearly something. The rookie led the team with 13 targets and 12 catches….” Yes, let’s also ignore the fact that he broke 0 tackles. He’s a routine slotback who hasn’t shown any star power whatsoever. And yet this new writer thinks he’s really something? LOL
Don’t disagree with any of the points above…. the one thing I will say though is you can’t entirely blame Waddle for that per catch average. A lot of that was, again, poor play calling like the safety and/or poorly thrown balls where he had to go low to get it and was not given a chance to use his explosiveness. It’s not like the guy forgot how to run fast… but we have to put him in a position where he’s getting the ball in a spot where he can actually use that speed. So it’s a combination of poor play calling, poor QB play, and poor OL play that I think is really hurting his game at the moment.
Agreed. Every single catch was amid traffic. That’s on the play callers. They need to notice that the Raiders are all over Waddle and try something new. 4-yard completions on third-and-5 do not help.
Even though Defense gave up 500 yards, they did make some big plays to keep them in the game. I am thinking of the first quarter stop which led to Brown touchdown, then the 4th quarter stop(s) to allow Miami to tie the game
Yes, and of course the Pick 6. But honestly, we can’t analyze a ball game and think of a grand total of THREE plays where the D did well. There has to be a dozen plays. 20 plays. 3 is just not enough.
This was actually more characteristic of the Miami defense last year, big plays with softer yard yielding defense. There were exceptions, of course, against the lowly Jets and Burrow-less Bengals. But this game had the feel of a game from last year. Except that we lost.
As for the Safety play, Brissett gets the blame for passing to Waddle. He panicked. There were other options. If you look at the replay, Sheehan is WIDE OPEN in the middle of the field just beyond the line of scrimmage. Sheehan had room to get 1st down too
True. The panic set in. He figured the Raiders would be in his face on the pass rush. They weren’t.
You can watch it here. FlyerPhin is NOT exagerrating. Look how open Shaheen is.
Brissett panicked (though he was well protected) and threw it way too high to the wrong receiver. THREE mistakes on one single play. By the same man.
https://sports.yahoo.com/awful-dolphins-play-leads-to-first-of-its-kind-nfl-safety-222128155.html
In overtime, going for it on 4th and 3 is the wrong move. Kicking the FG was correct. Again, however, my point is that we also had a 3rd and 3. You have to get 3 yards there for a first down to wear out the soul of the Raiders. If not, at least get 2 yards and then race to the line for a QB sneak or a hard count. Instead, we called an absurd play that was easily blown up for no gain. Flores is getting off easy (as usual) because no one is asking him about the Goofy Brothers calling plays for him.
Like the old saying goes – “two cooks in the kitchen will ruin the dish…”
What I find confusing is that when they finally woke up to realize they needed points they opened up the offense and moved the ball. Where was that all game? It proved a point that they can throw to receivers more than 4 yards down field but they refuse to do it.
All true. This is why I am so adamant about dissecting the coaching staff. They are a work in progress and are learning. But at this level, you shouldn’t have to “learn” that throwing more than 4 yards is effective. How many times have we discussed “adjustments” and changing things up when they don’t work. I’m not wise enough to know what the Raiders changed up…but I know they went from 2 points to 25 in a hurry. Compare that to us remaining stagnant at 14 points for the better part of 2.5 hours.
Because they dont plan on a strategy that attacks the weakness if their opponents, they have a script that says we must establish the run, run RPO 20 x/game, run 10 screens per game etc… This is exactly Philbin 2.0. Its like a kid playing Madden and their favorite player is a RB (or whatever) and they keep calling plays to that player without any regard for the opponents weakness. This what hiring inexperienced coaches gets you.
Brian also mentioned something yesterday that is oh so true. Our WRs are getting no separation at all. I think it falls on the coaches to improve this. The WRs are running their routes…like they’ve been coached to do. What Flores doesn’t realize is that the opponents know what we’re doing. Even some of our successful plays yesterday were contested. Compare that to the WIDE open receivers the Raiders had all day. There were no gigantic plays, but they had plenty of plays where a back was wide open at 5 yards, and then he caught the ball and got tackled after he ran 5 more. We just don’t see that with the Dolphins.
Even the long bombs we threw in OT…especially the one where they PI’ed Will Fuller. Why can’t he be 10 yards behind that DB? With all his speed, why the is DB so close to him? It’s because of the route he was taught to run by our coaches.
Just imagine what any other team in the league would be doing – if they had our speed WR’s (waddle,fuller,grant) – at their disposal.
Reverses, Jet sweeps, etc. – and they would know just how (and when) to use them all correctly. They would be salivating at the chance to display their innovative play calling talent wisely.
Now contrast that with the complete Junk we have as playcallers – who the hell even has 2 OC’s in this league? – answer : NONE – because that just doesn’t work. Just like that old adage that goes: when you have 2 QB’s in this league, you have NONE. Same thing applies to both OC’s and DC’s – and why no other team is stupid enough to even try that, except for ours.
A depressing play, but it’s worth rewatching: https://sports.yahoo.com/raiders-wr-bryan-edwards-saves-001950164.html
Scroll down to see the video. Nick Needham blitzes, and gets knocked on his ass by a smaller RB. Derek Carr finds his THIRD read. He had so much time because Oakland easily picked up the blitz. He had time to look left, then middle, then eventually throw it to the right. Safety Holland inexplicably remains in the middle of the field, even after the ball is in the air. Watch how slow he is to get to the ball. Blitzing on 2nd and 15 is a horrible call, and the execution is worse. On a second and 15, you play a tight man coverage. You give up 5, maybe even 10 yards, and you force Oakland into a big play where anything can go wrong. You don’t blitz, especially when Oakland proved all day long that they can easily pick up our blitzes.
Again…this is playcalling. We lost this game because of our 3 coordinators.
yes, our 3 inexperienced coordinators
A good example of keeping an RB back to block. But that was a good toss by Carr, coverage was good, you must admit
Ahhhhh, the coverage was a soft zone with the safety late to cover the top. Carr lobbed that ball. The WR was so open that he didn’t need to throw a rope.