OL talent vs coach

For years, the Miami Dolphins have spent massively and futilely on the offensive line. They’ve used four, first-round picks in the past 10 years on it.

They also signed four free agents over that period to contracts in the double-digit millions — like last year with guard Ereck Flowers’ guaranteed $19.5 million. He’s now in Washington.

They’ve doubled-down on the draft in this rebuild, too. In the past three years, they used more than one collective draft on the line: one first-round pick, two second-round picks, one third, two fourths and a seventh-round pick.

But what if everyone’s paying attention to the wrong investment?

“The offensive line coach is a helluva lot more important than any of his players,” Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson said. “That’s probably the only assistant you can say that about.”

If you were to rank positions that have been franchise embarrassments to the Dolphins in the past decade, the offensive line coach would be No. 1. It’s like the position is haunted.

Jim Turner was fired for being in the middle of Bullygate. Chris Foerster was fired after video of him snorting a white, powdery substance in a team office was released by a Vegas model. Pat Flaherty was fired four practices into Brian Flores’ head-coaching era.

Lemuel Jeanpierre is Flores’ third line coach in three years.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dave-hyde-dolphins-most-important-093000294.html

the rest of the article talks about what Miami is hoping to do this year (maybe) on the OL and how JJ's OL coach turned a bunch of nobodies into All Pros. But the real question... Is Jeanpierre finally the guy to fix the mess that has been Miami's OL for so long?

I was impressed with Jeanpierre when I watched him during Senior Bowl practices. He seems like a good teacher, and he knows how to communicate. I like what I've heard from camp so far - emphasizing communication and working on combo blocks, which is a great way to get linemen on the same page.

Time will tell, but I do like having a young hungry OL coach that isn't a asshole.

the rest of the article talks about what Miami is hoping to do this year (maybe) on the OL and how JJ's OL coach turned a bunch of nobodies into All Pros.  But the real question...  Is Jeanpierre finally the guy to fix the mess that has been Miami's OL for so long?

That's not how I remember it. Larry Beightol was JJ's O-line coach his first three seasons. In '97 they set a franchise record low for yards per carry in a season. Yes, even worse than the '19 team. Then he switched to someone else in '99 and that team had what is now the 4th worse yards per carry in a season. Richmond Webb of course had been around for years--and made his last Pro Bowl in '96, meaning that for the final 3 years of the JJ Error he got worse. Tim Ruddy made one Pro Bowl his entire career--the season after JJ left in disgrace. Kevin Gogan was supposedly one of the NFL's meanest, nastiest players but he sucked the one season he was with JJ in '99. The only O-linemen during the entire JJ Error that you could even remotely say was developed into something is Mark Dixon, who was already 28 and had played in the CFL for years by the time he joined the Fins. And even then he only looked good because he was surrounded by a bunch of bumblers, busts and bums.

I think Beightol was a good O-line coach everywhere else he was employed, but under JJ he didn't do squat and arguably made the O-line worse off.

EDIT: OKay, after actually reading the fluff piece--um, article, I now know JJ was talking about Tony Wise. And he's right about him. Just another example of how JJ half-assed it after he took over our team and pretty much did the opposite of what got him so much success in Dallas

Keith Sims also declined drastically and quickly after the change from Shula to JJ.

A big error on JJ's part was giving up on Chris Gray. Guy was still starting for a Super Bowl team in 2005, long after all of JJ's O-line picks were out of the league.

Wise had a spottier record in Miami; the line was great in 2002 but below average the other two years (2001 and 2003)--whole team looked bad in 2004 so it's hard to say. But that staff change from Boudreau to Wise still worked out worlds better than letting Westhoff go (to the Jests) and replacing him with Armstrong.