Week 6 Monday Morning After - Miami vs Jacksonville in London - and then I kind of ramble

 

The Dolphins lost yesterday.

It's not that they lost or even to whom they lost that has me feeling what I'm feeling. It's the way they lost.

Only scoring 20 points against the Jacksonville Jaguars bothers me. I know the Jags held the Bengals and the Broncos to 23 and 24 points – in losses, to teams that play with razor-thin point margins. I keep saying it over and over, but 24 is the minimum number of points an NFL offense should be scoring. They script every game assuming they're going to find 23.

23 points is two TDs and three FGs. That's a standard scoring day.

The Dolphins could only find 20.

Miami's defense got the job done. Frankly, I'll die on that hill. They only allowed 23 points. That's fewer than 24. It obviously wasn't enough fewer. But the offense had a missed field goal and two fourth quarter drives which failed to generate points or kill enough clock to choke out Trevor's comeback bid.

I don't feel good about being right predicting Miami would lose. Fortunately for me, my predictions for this one were about as specific as Sylvia Browne's are.

Pretend I Didn't Watch the Game – What Happened?

Everything started great. The Dolphins received the opening kickoff and marched down the field on smart throws by Tua Tagovailoa that made everyone watching feel like Mike Gesicki and Jaylen Waddle were about to be a problem for the Jaguars. By halftime its 13-10 after three Miami scoring drives fizzle for only 6 points on three field goal attempts. The Dolphins defense gives up a touchdown going into the half, another coming out of it, the game is 17-13, and Miami looks like they're dead in the water.

The problem with describing the first half and the third quarter that way is it isn't really what happened.

Watching it, the Dolphins offense seemed like they were going to start clicking any minute. Annnnny minute, now. Any minute, now. But the defense were playing extremely well. Even Jacksonville's first touchdown came off a heroic effort by both Trevor Lawrence and Marvin Jones. Noah Igbinoghene's coverage was as good as it could possibly be. The numbers on the fronts of their jerseys were making out.

And the Dolphins' offense never got clicking.

It was like watching a boxer who thinks he's already won. Miami needed to be establishing the little things – like the run and a consistent deep shot down the field – and instead they're running the horizontal offense I've been bitching about for weeks, now. Instead of doing the simple things, the things the defense knows you're going to do – like sending Jaylen Waddle sprinting down the field five to ten times a game – they kept trying to catch the defense napping with tendency breakers.

I hate that. I hate it so much.

You can't break tendencies you haven't established. This is your quarterback's second game of the season. He has no tendencies. And the tendencies you have as playcallers are to run your tendency-breakers! Everyone sees the horizontal offense coming from Miami, even Jacksonville's defensive coordinator. Even Jacksonville's defensive coordinator!

But I'm shouting.

The Dolphins lost this game, and They'll tell you that the fourth quarter score by the offense is enough to say that Tua is the future. I've been on the fence about Tua. It has been deeply concerning to me that he only has one game to point to where he gave a performance that looked even average. And then watching him be as scattershot as I have complained about Lamar Jackson, for instance, being, it just really brought home to me that Tua lacks any dynamism whatsoever.

Not only does Tua lack any kind of dynamic or explosive or even smoldering presence, he doesn't make up for it with big plays in big moments. He doesn't make up for it with anything, actually – but most especially not the laser/pin-point accuracy he was sold to us with from college. He was supposed to be an A+ decisionmaker with A+ field vision and A+ accuracy.

And I just don't see it.

Even his screen passes – either standard to his runningback or bubbles to his receivers on the edge – are inaccurate, forcing his receivers to adjust to and wait for the ball before they can attack upfield. Which leads to tackles behind the line of scrimmage and incompletions, like we keep seeing.

Tua's not good enough. He's not good enough to elevate this roster, and he's not good enough to compete for the Division. He's not athletic to make up for the lack of a running game, and he's not fast enough when he scrambles to be consistently dangerous on the edges of the defense. The Bills are going to smack the Dolphins again, and it's probably going to be worse because Tua isn't a better quarterback than Jacoby Brissett.

Not better enough to matter.

You Sound Pretty Much Done

I haven't written it, but I was pretty much done with the Dolphins when they fired Adam Gase. No – when Adam Gase resigned as head coach because he didn't want to be involved in the tank job. I liked the Brian Flores hiring, and I liked the Chris Grier promotion.

But – did I see Mike Tannenbaum sitting beside Stephen Ross with Dan Marino in London, yesterday? Because if I did, then everything I've thought about this team, about Ross's ineptitude as an NFL owner, is proving itself more and more right every time I watch or look too closely at this team.

By the end of the game, I'd convinced myself that this is fine. If this season is going to be a disaster, it's time the disaster struck. Dolphins fans were spared the Tank season two years ago: they were given a fun but ultimately Dolphins campaign. (The Dolphins gonna Dolphin.) I'd convinced myself that having the bottoms-out season we should have gotten in 2019 is fine – they'll still get a top-10 pick they can use to try to turn this thing around.

And then Cameron Wolfe – because he is the best in the biz when it comes to talking about the Dolphins – reminded me and well that the Dolphins' pick next season belongs to the Eagles. So all the psychic energy I have sunk in these pages and in my personal life into trying to explain – into trying to simply understand the Dolphins decisions this calendar season are for not.

I've tried to convince myself and you that the front office and coaching staff knew that this would be a step-back year, that they were tearing the offense down to let young players step up and become leaders.

But that just... doesn't make sense on its face.

Every decision they've made this season has been with the assumption that they're ready to compete now, that the Bills are the Jets and Patriots: flawed teams that Miami can keep pace with while also trying to figure themselves out.

The truth, sometimes, really is that easy and obvious.

Where do we go from here?

I don't know, but I'm ready to move on from the Dolphins.

Yesterday's loss hurt me. I feel like I found another dude's number in the Dolphins' texts. Like they've been selling me a bill of goods and I'm the fool for believing it.

I also feel like I'm overreacting and I could still be proved right by the end of the season. Assuming Flores survives the flight home – to say nothing of the rest of the year.

I want to talk about what the Dolphins did well yesterday. Because it is my habit to insist that things are in fact trending up and Flores is doing his job well. (If the offensive coaching staff aren't doing well, he is, by definition not doing his job well, for the record.)

The defense was good. Better than last week. Noah Igbinoghene and Nik Needham were more than serviceable on the outside. I thought that Laviska Shenault and Dan Arnold were going to destroy the Dolphins. Miami always struggles with tight ends and oversized wideouts. Not yesterday they didn't. They didn't even get eat up by Lawrence on the ground – a problem I imagined but kept to myself. Even Jerome Baker only got embarrassed in the run once. I thought the safeties and linebackers played better than they have all season – and we got to see all four safeties on the field at the same time. That's Miami's strength, and with X and Byron off the field, they were able to run their best defense.

That's an interesting thing to say, but it also means that their in-house scouting is doing its job.

I wish I could say the same for Miami's wide receivers. That's supposed to be the strength of the offense, but it's consistently the tight ends that shine on the field. With DeVante Parker and Preston Williams hurt, yesterday was Mack Hollins' chance to prove why he's on the roster. He's the only dude remaining with any size – and it was completely wasted on the boundary. Is that because Tua can't throw a jump-ball, or because Hollins is still a player undisciplined with his hands in tight space?

I don't feel great about it, but I predicted Miami were going to struggle in press-man, and from what I saw, that's exactly what happened.

The Jags brought out two deep safeties all day and begged Miami to run. Miami couldn't run. Whether because their personnel sets didn't match the defensive lineup or because the Dolphins can't evaluate offense, I'm not sure. But I do know that Myles Gaskin doesn't get anywhere near enough touches. I appreciate that Malcolm Brown is supposed to be the bruiser and Salvon Ahmed is supposed to be the change of pace, but Ahmed had a horrible drop in a big spot, and Brown doesn't break tackles.

And why the Hell is anyone handing the ball to him out of the Shotgun?

A head coach's job is first and foremost to coach his coaches. Adam Gase looked like an idiot for four years in this League because he didn't know what his defense was doing. Does Flores not know, or is there just no answer forthcoming? I don't know.

I do know this: someone on the coaching staff has to lose their job this week.

You have good things to say about the defense and bad things to say about the offense – What does that mean?

When I look around the League at the teams who are struggling, I see defensive coaches. Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin, Bryan Flores, Mike Zimmer, Mike Vrabel, Ron Rivera, Pete Carroll. None of these teams has an impressive record. Only the Titans are competitive in their Division – and only then because their Division is total trash. Sean McDermott and Brandon Staley of the Bills and Chargers are the only defensive coaches with winning records right now, and they have something the other teams I just mentioned absolutely do not: phenomenal young quarterbacks.

The strengths of the Bills and Chargers are on offense. Their defensive coaches are getting a lot done with scheme and buy-in. And if you watched even a single drive of the Chargers/Ravens, you know that scheme can only do so much against a phenomenal young quarterback – especially when he's Lamar Jackson. Especially when your phenomenal young quarterback has the kind of day those guys have from time to time. (Justin Herbert is still the guy, he just ran into a buzzsaw yesterday.)

Can we just— Lamar Jackson is winning games with Le'Veon Bell and Latavius Murray and Devonta Freeman getting considerable carries – in 2021. Five years ago, and we're talking a Fantasy roster. Today we should be talking about how Lamar Jackson elevates the play of the guys around him.

And how that should be the standard for quarterbacks.

Speaking of quarterbacks and draft classes

I wrote this offseason – in between posts bitching about how long and boring the offseason is – about how I didn't want Chris Grier to get cute with all the picks he had at his disposal going into the 2021 Draft. This one should have been easy: Whether Miami took Kyle Pitts or DeVonta Smith or Jaylen Waddle, they also had to target a dynamic running back with their second First. It could have been anyone, but it should have been Najee Harris.

The Steelers stink without Najee. That's how you know that guy is good-going-to-be-great.

I'm still waiting for Jaelan Phillips to impact a game.

And now that the games are being played, I'm salty Miami chose the wrong Alabama quarterback.

All the things I'm complaining about not seeing from Tua, I'm seeing from Mac Jones up in New England. He's not a dynamic athlete, he doesn't have a huge arm, but he sees the field and understands the game and gets the ball to his guys accurately and on time. The Patriots have hung around with the Buccaneers and now the Cowboys – teams I am confident would blow Miami out of the water like a Japanese fishing vessel. Well, I only have to be confident about one of those teams: the Bucs already did.

Let me ask you, and you tell me if I'm crazy. If Miami goes Mac Jones/Najee Harris, how different does this team look right now? It doesn't matter, and it's not even interesting wishcasting. I'm just picking scabs.

I watched other games yesterday

But this has gotten long enough. I'm sure I'll be back with more, later. I still have a lot of emotions to sort out. 

I don't like being wrong - but I often like being right even less.