Offensive Coordinator search ends with Studesville/Godsey, Charlie Frye new QB coach

Armando Salguero

@ArmandoSalguero

Dolphins scheduled to conduct offensive coordinator interviews this week. Multiple interviews set. First time Brian Flores goes this route as he came to Miami with Chad O'Shea in '19 and last year simply replaced with Chan Gailey instead of big search with multiple interviews.

One guy I've been looking into a bit is Chargers' QB coach Pep Hamilton. He obviously did a great job with Herbert this season, and he coached Andrew Luck both in college and the NFL. He does have coordinator and play-calling experience.

Killah Sith wrote:Pep Hamilton was mentioned on the  Locked On Dolphins podcast and is an intriguing prospect.  There's an in house guy too, I can't think of his name, that was heavily mentioned as well.  We need to get the right guy this time.

DolFan 316 wrote:I can't help but wonder why Flores couldn't have just hired the same sort of OC we all want last offseason. And don't give me the virus as an excuse, not when a guy pushing 70 was perfectly willing to come and coach right in the middle of it. It would've saved him the trouble of having to hire one now, at the absolute very least.

DolFan 316 wrote:So, that's my theory.  Not based on facts, but just what I think happened.  There are reports that Gailey supposedly never expected Tua to play this season, so there is some merit to it.

JMP wrote:So, that's my theory.  Not based on facts, but just what I think happened.  There are reports that Gailey supposedly never expected Tua to play this season, so there is some merit to it.

Dolfan316 wrote:And that's another thing that's been bothering me. Surely Gailey knew before he got hired that this team had just drafted a first round QB fairly high. How could he NOT think that this QB would wind up playing at SOME point? For one thing, Fitz could've been injured at any time. I constantly hear all this yammering about how coaches work 16-20 hour days so they can be prepared for anything, and yet an OC isn't ready for the first round QB his team literally JUST DRAFTED to play a single down ALL SEASON???

If anything, that only solidifies why I knew the Gailey hire was bad to begin with! And the REALLY sad part is, you can't even chalk up that attitude to old school "first round QBs must always sit and learn for a year or two before they're ready" thinking, because that philosophy was actually a myth even in the last century!

Hiring a coach pushing 70 specifically because of his rapport with a QB pushing 40 is not any sort of plan that would've lasted longer than 2 seasons at the absolute most anyway.

HalCHorn wrote:It wasn't just the connection with Fitzpatrick that Gailey was hired for.  At the time Gailey was hired, we had no idea which QB we'd be getting.  Many thought that Tua would be gone by the 5th pick.  And Herbert was considered a perfect fit for the type of spread offense that Gailey is known for.

There was also reason to believe that Tua would be sitting most of the year learning behind Fitz.  Hell, that's what Mahomes did.  Herbert was expected to sit for a while too, but got his chance early due to Taylor's injury.  Only Burrow was expected to start right away.

CarsonChris wrote:Bailey’s offense wasn’t the problem. It was Tua trying to run the Alabama offense without the superiority in talent that Alabama has over just about every team in college football. Is Mac Jones a great QB? The stats say he is but the stats are misleading.  Those little 4 yard passes Alabama throws go for 10-12 yards almost every time. Tua kept trying that easy way out only to find our talent level was the same as the competitions. You need an edge in the NFLto be successful. Tua didn’t show a superior ability to throw the ball down field. His NFL game lacks superiority. He tried relying on what worked for him at Alabama only to find our players weren’t vastly superior to “their” players except for Cincinnati lol!

Tagovailoa’s deep passing — a strength at Alabama — was better than his Dolphins stats suggest.

Among passes thrown at least 20 yards in the air, Tagovailoa had three drops — which is a higher percentage of drops than any other NFL QB with at least 29 attempts.

According to NFL data analyst Anthony Reinhard, Tagovailoa had 12 passes dropped (Pro Football Focus said it was 14) and those drops cost the Dolphins 25.3 points. That would compute to 21 drops and 45 points over 16 games.

What hurt Tagovailoa more than overall drops were drops of deep balls and his receivers’ inability to create separation (Miami was among the worst in the league in that regard) and create yards after catch (Miami was statistically the worst in that metric), plus a running game that generated the fewest yards after contact, on average.

One frustration with the Dolphins’ offense when Tagovailoa struggled was the fact he threw short of the first-down marker a number of times.

Per Football Outsiders, Tagovailoa had the eighth-highest difference between length of throw and distance needed for a new set of downs: 2.5, on average,a category that the website calls ALEX. But that was particularly hurtful to Tagovailoa because the Dolphins ranked 30th in yards after catch.

By comparison, Pat Mahomes was sixth in this category; his average ALEX was 2.7. But here’s the big difference: Chiefs playmakers were far better than Miami’s in taking those short throws for first downs. That’s exactly how Kansas City sealed multiple games this season, including with its late first-round conversion against Miami.

CarsonChris wrote:I’m glad Tua is such a master of reading defenses and throwing deep. I’d hestitate to think what  17/22 for 94 yards would be if he wasn’t so brilliant.

CarsonChris wrote:17/22 94 should be Tua’s jersey number. Or 4.27. Yards per attempt.