MIA vs ATL: Preseason Week 2 - Thoughts

 Tua sure looked good, didn't he?

Efficient - getting the ball to the open guy. What was it he said after the game? Getting the ball to his playmakers in space. Something to that effect.

It was good to see Waddle get some action. Indeed, even to see him bounce back from a leg injury. (Let's hope that doesn't become a recurring theme in his career a la DeVante Parker). Gesicki looked like Gesicki. Gaskin looked like a feature back. I'm dubious about the Malcoms - Brown and Perry. Don't have much to say about Salvon Ahmed and Gerrid Doaks. Doaks seemed to have a little more juice.

Long paragraph short - the offense looks like an NFL offense. And that's without what seems like three-quarters of its receivers. I chalk that up to two things, and I think Gaskin said the first one: the offense wants to play for Tua; and this dual-offensive coordinator situation seems, at second glance, to be working. 

It's the preseason, and you can't really take much away from that. Going into the game, I was wondering how they would try to evaluate Tua with so many of his deep options taken away. This offseason has been about getting him to push the ball downfield, right? Well, maybe it's more accurate to say it's been about getting him comfortable to try again. But then you watch his snaps, and it seems very clear to me that the emphasis has been on moving quick, on tempo. Makes me think of the Patriots of the first decade of the 00's.

You've got a physically limited quarterback, but he's smart and knows the offense as well as the coordinator(s). He has the trust of his guys - and he goes out and distributes.

I've spent the morning looking for someone breaking down a quote that Tagovailoa dropped. "We took what they gave us. If it was a run - you know - if it was a throw - you know, and they were trying to get guys in the box for the run fit - you know, our rules, as quarterbacks, is to throw the ball. So that's what we did."

This disjointed little speech, to me, speaks volumes.

He was asked whether the defense played them any different on the second drive than the first. And this is his answer.

The Miami media is.... But that's a conversation for another day - the Simone Biles and Naomia Osaka and NFL Taunting Rules conversations. When I watch Tua give this answer, I see a young man who is the image of his head coach. When I watch Flores try to answer the media's questions, I see a man who is used to giving cogent, instructive answers to questions from people who want to learn and absorb and use the answers - and I see his frustration talking to the Writers. But! That translates to Tua.

As he's explaining why the offense was working, he's losing steam throughout. Until he finally just kind of ends with a rapid fire mumbled, "So that's what we did." Which, as someone who is used to talking to people about things they neither understand nor care about (no, really, check out my other blog), I can tell you was him feeling like he wasn't being heard.

But I hear you, Tua.

I said sometime this offseason on Twitter, either vis-a-vis the Draft or Free Agency, to expect for Miami to be doing a lot of Run-Pass-Options (RPOs, yo). And what I hear when I hear Tua say that, "We took what  the defense gave us. If it was a run... if it was a throw..." is that he has two plays in his hands at all times. He has a run play and he has a pass play, and he decides at the line of scrimmage.

Which makes me, right now, wonder whether that isn't the point of the dual-coordinators. You have a pass-game coordinator and a run-game coordinator, and they each call a play. Sounds chaotic - but it could work. If you've got a smart enough quarterback.

I'm probably all over the place. But there's a cogency here, I promise.

The questions about the 2021 Dolphins are whether Tua is going to be The Guy (in Year 2. Jesus, guys, chill out - Tannehill didn't blossom until, what, Year 6? The year after you jerks gave up on him); and how the dual OCs-thing is going to work.

My immediate takeaway during the first half was that the playcalling was remarkably balanced. Flores was asked about it in his presser, but you can look at the Drive Summaries: 11 plays, 75 yards, TD; 11 plays, 76 yards, TD; 11 plays, 68 yards, ToD; 4 plays, missed Field Goal; 10 plays, 65 yards, TD; 10 plays, 82 yards, TD. That's through the 3rd quarter. The 4th was get-us-home time. You don't have to be Bill Belichick to know that you can beat anyone with an offensive performance like that in the first half. You turn those last two drives into Good field goals - or TDs - and you're cake walking everyone in the second half.

Now, not everyone has the Falcons' defense (or lack thereof). But what do you do about the run-pass balance Miami showed?

I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised by how much success they found running to the left. That's good.

I'm encouraged. I think that's why I've taken to the ol keyboard to talk to myself at you again. The offseason... was the offseason. Too much talk, too little substantial to talk about. Just watching my peers go at one another over one or another unimportant thing that will either be proved true or false in a damn decade or more. But that's where the fun is for other people. And that's amazing. I'm happy for them. For you. It's not for me.

Preseason is the Preseason, but Miami has New England in, what, three weeks?

I hope I'm right, and this turns out to be a new-look offense. I hope they've equipped Tua with the weapons he needs for a quick-strike offense. You want to keep him clean and make the O-line look good, you run the ball, and you papercut defenses with your backs, TEs, and slot receivers. Which worked against the Falcons.

Can it work Week 1 against The Master?