I’m giving Brian Flores’s numerous mistakes a momentary break in order to go back to pointing out the numerous mistakes of the two or three offensive coordinators we have.
We know there are 2 coordinators, plus QB coach Charlie Frye, who sometimes calls the plays as well. Like the 3 popes and the 3 simultaneous U.S. Presidents, having 3 people is always the best way to lead. According to stupid Brian Flores anyway. Dammit, I can’t even make it to paragraphs without coming back to the incorrect choices Flores makes.
Anyway, one of the ESPN experts noticed what a mess our offense is: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/espn-matthew-berry-says-miami-222431330.html. This is no surprise, and it’s a very accurate take.
Right off the bat, the Dolphins have an unerring consistency of calling a pass on first down, a run on second, and a pass again on third. We’ve run that pattern an astounding 96% of the time. That means on first down, the opponent knows we’re going to pass with 96% certainty. When Christian Wilkins delivered a jarring sack on Trevor Lawrence, we had all the momentum in the world. But we gave it right back, because of our predictable offense and a ill-advised pass from Tua. Every single Jaguar KNEW we were going to pass it there. There is simply zero guesswork for an opponent to do.
Pass-Run-Pass can be effective if you mix it with other patterns occasionally. But we don’t. We haven’t seen the offense in rhythm all year long. Even our scoring drives (few and far between) are a haphazard mishmash of plays.
On the play where Brian Flores showed his lack of football knowledge by going for it on 4th down on his own 45-yardline, he doubled down on his own stupidity by calling for a running play right up the gut. If you make a mistake, at least give yourself a chance to correct it. If you’re ignorant enough to go for it on 4th down, at least call a play where you have a few options. Instead, the Dolphins called a play where the one and only option was for Robert Hunt to make a block. He failed.
Another take on how bad Flores is: https://nfl.nbanewsnow.com/steve-mariucci-questions-dolphins-play-call-on-their-last-fourth-down-nfl-news/
11 men on offense, and it all came down to Robert Hunt. Does it matter how fast Waddle is? Tua’s cannon? Gesicki’s height and hands? Gaskin’s end-around speed? NONE of those things were a factor, because out of the 11 Dolphins, the genius Dolphin executive committee decided that Robert Hunt was the man to reply upon. Let Tua roll out. If Hunt misses a block, as he often does, then Tua can still maneuver around the rusher. Why limit yourself to a play that only has one option on the most important play of the game? That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s something I would really like to ask Flores. All the offensive tools we assembled, and Flores thinks that Robert Hunt is the best of the best.
And as I said in a previous comment, even if we picked up that first down, we’re still on our own 46 with a minute or so to play. We still needed TWO ADDITIONAL first downs to get into field goal range. I don’t know what planet Brian Flores is from, but the 2021 Dolphins here on planet Earth are incapable of that kind of explosion.
It’s a lot different than the Bills last night. If the Bills get the first down, they win. THAT makes you think about taking a risk. Huge risk, enormous reward. If the Dolphins get our first down, we go into overtime. Barring a miracle, there was no real advantage to picking up the first down for us. Huge risk, no reward.
This is the type of math and analysis that is over Flores’s head. He’s simply unqualified. He’s unqualified to make on-field decisions, and he is most definitely unqualified to hire coordinators.
Why can’t Ross see this?
Check this out from USA Today’s Sports…. (I was 100% correct… Flores wasted his final timeout at a time when the clock wasn’t even running. That actually helped the opponent.)
Flores delivers series of head-scratchers
The Miami Dolphins’ disappointing start to the season continues, and the pressure on coach Brian Flores could be intensifying, especially after a series of late-game decisions proved costly in his team’s 23-20 loss to Jacksonville in London on Sunday.
Two lost fourth-quarter review challenges by Flores left the Dolphins with just one timeout at a point of the game when they could have used them with the game locked at 20-20. And then, with 1:49 left in the game and the ball at the Miami 46, Flores called for his team to go for it on fourth-and-inches. Such a decision didn’t really raise eyebrows. But the play call – a handoff out of the shotgun, which the Jaguars promptly stuffed – certainly did. Flores then watched as Jacksonville moved the ball 10 yards while running a minute and 37 seconds off of the clock. Not until five seconds remained did Flores use his final timeout. But the clock was already stopped at that time because Jacksonville had just called a timeout of its own. And Urban Meyer said Flores calling timeout prompted him to change his plan for his team’s final play — a move into field-goal range rather than the initially planned Hail Mary attempt.
Jacksonville did indeed move into field-goal range and won the game on Matthew Wright’s 53-yard kick.
Flores said he felt his challenges were worth the chances he took. However, the late-game mismanagement could further intensify the scrutiny on the coach. With the loss, Miami fell to 1-5 in a year where the team was expected to build on last year’s 10-6 campaign.
But the offense continues to struggle even after Tua Tagovailoa’s return from fractured ribs, and Flores’ defense also is underperforming. And now three seasons into the gig, one would expect better game-management skills from the coach.
After the game, Flores said, “I’m not doing a good enough job to get these guys ready to play. … We’re not coaching well enough, not playing well enough. Not playing consistently enough. … I can’t say it enough: That starts with me.”
Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Mike Jones
Correction: our defense is not underperforming, it sucks. It couldnt stop the run last year and cant this year. The only difference is that we are not getting turnovers this year to make up the difference. If anyone says with pride and confidence that “we have a bend but not break defense”, this is a euphamism for we cant stop anything. Bend and not break defense only works on teams like TB and KC because they can score 30-40 pts oer game. We have not seen that kind of output since Marino.
The blitzes and schemes we used last year no longer work. Our defensive formations no longer confuse the opponent like it did last year. How many times have we seen Van Ginkel race in this year on a blitz, only to be picked up by the opponent? Seems like every other play one of the Dolphins is blitzing, yet we rarely get to the QB. That’s because the opponents have us scouted perfectly and know what we run.
Here we are- the laughingstock of the NFL – again…
And as bad as some of our players are, we are the laughing stock because of bad coaching and decisionmaking. Do you hear ONE person saying that Malcolm Brown was a bad running back on that final play? No, it wasn’t the player’s fault. It was an unqualified head coach grasping at straws.
HA!.. in less than a year I have seen people on this site go from “finally we got a coach with balls” to “this coach needs to be fired NOW!!!”
Jimmy Johnson, Dave Wannstedt, Nick Saban, Cam Cameron, Tony Sparano, Joe Philbin, Adam Gase, and finally, Brian Flores. Who’s gonna be the majic head coach of the Miami Dolphins folks?! I said it before and I’ll say it again.. Brian Flores stepped into a cluster fuck when he took the head coaching job of the Miami Dolphins. I’ve seen so-called “qualified coaches” come and go. But I’ve waited this long so I might as well wait at least two more years.
I was not thrilled when we hired Flores because he was just another coordinator with no head coaching experience. I don’t know why Ross zeroes in on other teams’ coordinators, but he does.
Actually, in Flores’s case, he wasn’t even a coordinator. Belichick never promoted him to defensive coordinator, but rather kept him at the assistant level. The troubling thing about Flores (and why I want him gone now) is that his mistakes are far different than the previous failed coaches. Philbin was just a weak, indecisive leader. Gase’s faults were chiefly in his playcalling. But neither Gase nor Philbin (nor even Cam Cameron for God’s sake) mangled decisions and made wrong choices week after week like Flores does. His use of timeouts are atrocious. Going for it on 4th down from your OWN 45 yardline? It’s not just me griping. There are respected NFL analysts pointing this out too. Nice-guy Steve Maricuhi, who never ever criticizes anyone, just roasted Flores’s mistakes last Sunday. Honestly, Phil, I don’t know if Flores will be better 2 or 3 years from now.
“Honestly, Phil, I don’t know if Flores will be better 2 or 3 years from now”
And that’s the point, who knows?! Mistakes are mistakes no matter who’s making them and we’ve seen Miami Dolphins coaches make some heinous decisions that led to atrocious mistakes. I remember a player yelling at Joe PhilBin to throw the challenge flag.. but PhilBin being his usual self was afraid to do it. Now get this, it was a preseason game!!! We’ve seen missed field goals to head scratching interceptions that caused the Dolphins to lose games. It seems sometimes like the Dolphins take one step forward and two steps back. I’m willing to wait another year or two to see if Flores can whip this franchise into some kind of winning shape.. but even I don’t think my patience can go any further than that.
I think that is just your philosophy, thats fine. For me, like Admin, the mistakes are basic football strategy type mistakes. This may take years to develop. But its more than this, its also lack of player development, its not hiring the right personel, and its lack of adjusting to what the league is doing against you. Look at the Pats, if a team has some success against them, the problem is corrected the next week. This is also seen in every good team. Not Miami. No, I want someone who has built success in the past and coaches that develop players.
Often times, you don’t have to wait until the next week for the good teams to correct things. We often see the opponent adjust mid-game, and then impose their will on the Dolphins. We don’t see that vice versa.
When the Bills and Buccaneers started to score early and often, we adjusted nothing to stop them, and the points kept coming and coming. Compare that to when we jumped out to big leads vs. the Raiders and the Jags. Those two defenses adjusted and we struggled to score the rest of the game. This falls on Flores (but in fairness to him, Gase and Philbin were bad at mid-game adjustments also). You MUST be able to see that frequent blitzes aren’t working, so you adjust and drop the men into coverage instead. instead, our coaches stubbornly keep blitzing.
“I think that is just your philosophy, thats fine. For me, like Admin, the mistakes are basic football strategy type mistakes”
Just my philosophy? WESTCOASTFINFAN, the one time coach of the Dolphins, Dave Wannstedt, stepped down after a 1-8 season because maybe he felt that some of the mistakes he made led to the hopelessness of salvaging the season. Wannstedt was also the defensive coordinator under Jimmy Johnson when he was the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes. And remember, Dave Wannstedt was once the head coach of the Chicago Bears before the Dolphins got him.. so he was an already experienced head coach. Ross has given three men their first job as a head coach. PhilBin was mediocre. Gase was horrible. Flores gave us Dolfans a taste of what a successful team might look like and now we’re like disappointed kids going “wtf?.. whats happening!” But at least I’ll say one thing about Flores, he ain’t like Nick Saban. He’s sticking in there and facing the slings and arrows. Saban kept saying “I’m not leaving, nope, I’m not going anywhere and you can believe that!” Um yeah, sure. Coaches can most surely look to be picked up from teams that are successful, be it professional or college. Remember Matt Patricia? Ross just fell into that mystique of thinking and hoping some kind of Patriot coaching magic may befall the Dolphins. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s also wrong. But I’m willing to give Flores a coupla more seasons to find out and I do expect him to make some mistakes early on. So no, I don’t spew “philosophy.” I spew the facts of what I see and know.
That’s what I mean by your philosphy, you’d give him several more years as you think these are “new coaching mistakes”. And I respect your opinion. I just dont agree with it in this case.
You do have a point. If Jason Sanders does not miss two routine field goals (one vs Raiders and one vs the Jags), then we’re at 3-2 right now and only a game behind the Bills.
https://dolphinswire.usatoday.com/2021/10/20/report-texans-and-dolphins-in-serious-negotiations-for-deshaun-watson/
Ross simply continues to do things to make Dolphin fans hate him and turn on our own team. Doesn’t he read my blog, LOL?
Wow, this front office really sucks beyond all recognition. All the first round picks from the past two years are average or down right suck and now you give them probably 2-3 years worth of future picks (assortment of 1-2 rounders). Smell that sulfur, that’s because we’re in football hell.
Right. And this trade, if it happens, will end in a disaster for the Dolphins. Tua will go on to have a stellar career. Grier will find a job with a team in the AFC East. And Deshaun will get injured or will end up serving time. We’ll be in football hell!
Where do I start?? OK-here it comes-First : It starts & stops at the top! The top is Ross and everything that requires major decisions has to run through him as owner. Hiring the GM goes through him; hiring a head coach goes through him along with GM and a few others. We get a huge F for owner and F for a failed GM whose job it is is to bring talent to the team. He’s messed up the good draft position we got with players that he should have passed on-the good ones he didn’t pick are performing nicely BTW. Righting this team is akin to turning around a cruise ship with oars–it won’t be easy! BUT it will necessitate a head coach who is a seasoned coach & leader that can come in and replace those oars with powerful engines. I am usually one to give coaches the opportunity to get through the weeds and make positive changes that you can see that the direction has improved each year. We have not seen that. After the parade of coaches with no solid experience for the last million years, I feel it’s time to part ways–in doing that, the next coach must be coming with a lot of street cred! I don’t know who is out there for the hiring but the next hire MUST be worthy of the position that fans and organization have been suffering a very long time for. Next-their scouts are incompetent!!! What are they looking at when they are evaluating players??? These scouts are missing what the needs of the team are. Taking into consideration that this is what they do for a living, I certainly feel I can do a better job just by the fact I have been watching football since I was 12 years old. I have my iPad out watching games and look at the players, read up on their experience in college and pros, height/weight and think why the Dolphins can’t pick some of these players I’m watching on other teams! And I am a female (bet you didn’t know that!) who loves football. Westcoastfinfan is right-we are in football hell with no relief in sight. In closing, I don’t like all the picks we have to give up for a Deshawn Watson that would come to South Florida with all the heavy baggage he created for himself, plus all the distractions Miami has to offer (was born & raised in MIA), and we don’t know if he’ll even be able to play on the field or the jail yard. I rest my case.
Yeah, I think Ross recognizes he is not a football man, so he makes the correct choice to have football men advise him. And therein lies the problem. His advisers and handlers are inexperienced themselves, and they give Ross information to save their own jobs, not to better the Miami Dolphins.
Using your cruise ship analogy, Ross is the owner of the ship, but he knows he can’t navigate the North Star and he doesn’t know how much ballust he needs. So we give him a little credit for knowing his own faults…but NOW the problem starts. Instead of hiring a seasoned captain, he finds the head dishwasher who always wanted to move up. He’s done a fine job leading other dishwashers, and he sells himself as a leader. Ross falls for it. He’s the new GM, and this dishwasher then helps Ross find a captain.
He taps an assistant busboy as the best person available to be captain. Ross trusts the dishwasher to hire the busboy, then gives a press release about how they are both leaders. Meanwhile, Ross has experienced captains on board ready and willing to take over, but he ignores them.
This was spot on!!! So what’s the answer? Is the owner of the ship going to watch it slowly sink because he doesn’t see the ship listing to one side?
Ross needs to stick to what he knows-real estate…he does not know enough to own a team and just bec. he is a billionaire does not equate to football acumen either…it’s very discouraging to go year after year going basically nowhere. Fans are getting worn out by this and if I were in SoFL, I would not pay for tickets and sit through these average games. Things must change after this season,
three years ago we had the slogan ‘Tank for Tua’, I feel as though the next slogan might be coming soon, and it will be called ‘Suck it for Pickett?
For the record, I have been very critical of Tua, but i was encouraged by his performance last week and I want to give him this full year to make his case. The playoffs are out, so lets hope the coaching staff make sthis year about our quarterback development. He’s got this year to figure it out
I too have been not enthused with Tua, but I did see a difference in his play in the Falcons game–now was that because he’s under a lot of media scrutiny plus the DWatson rumors swirling and wants to prove them wrong? Maybe…he was better than I’ve seen him. I still don’t like the way he takes off and runs when he sees nothing he likes…not that he decides to run, but his running is a bit weak for my liking. Agree with Flyerphin above-give him this season to improve without pressure of playoffs.
This was spot on!!! So what’s the answer? Is the owner of the ship going to watch it slowly sink because he doesn’t see the ship listing to one side?
Ross needs to stick to what he knows-real estate…he does not know enough to own a team and just bec. he is a billionaire does not equate to football acumen either…it’s very discouraging to go year after year going basically nowhere. Fans are getting worn out by this and if I were in SoFL, I would not pay for tickets and sit through these average games. Things must change after this season,
He sees the ship listing to one side, but then Captain Flores says that I’ll watch film and get better and learn how to correct the list, along with my two listing coordinators. Ross is fooled into thinking he hired the right man.