Game 3 thoughts: Browns vs. Dolphins

What happens when two 0-2 teams play each other?  You get a bad game – a very, very bad game.

The Dolphins got a much-needed win today, but in typical Dolphin fashion it felt more like a loss than a win.

Let’s get one thing straight – the Cleveland Browns are the worst team in the NFL, and it’s not even close.  So what does that say about the Dolphins, who today needed 4 ½ quarters to beat the Browns – and were actually outgained by a team starting a 3rd string rookie QB, backup center and a cast of no-name WRs?

I talked all week about the Phins avoiding their usual sleepwalking first half tendencies, and what did they do?  Business as usual…scoring just 10 points in the first half against one of the league’s worst defenses (who, by the way, was without their top CB, Joe Haden).  Ryan Tannehill was absolutely brutal in the first half, throwing seemingly as many passes to the Browns as the Dolphins.  He looked pathetic…just godawful.  In typical Tannehill fashion, he woke up in the second half and torched the Browns for 3 TDs (including OT).  Jarvis Landry bailed Tannehill out with a highlight reel’s worth of big plays.

But let’s be honest: the ONLY reason the Dolphins won this game is because the Browns’ starting kicker Patrick Murray somehow got injured in a Friday walk-through practice (!!!), and the Browns inexplicably signed a garbage kicker off the street in Cody Parkey – who missed not one, not two but THREE FGs today.  Any other kicker in the NFL, and the Dolphins are 0-3 right now.

I’m not going to talk about specific plays.  What I am going to talk about is a Dolphins team that looked completely unprepared for this game.  Browns’ WR Terrell Pryor (a former QB) had almost 150 yards receiving.  RB Duke Johnson averaged almost 7 yards a carry.  3rd string rookie QB Cody Kessler completed almost 64% of his passes for 244 yards.  All this means one thing: the Dolphin defense isn’t just bad, it SUCKS.  Sadly, the offense isn’t much better, with Tannehill throwing two picks (including a pick-6) and leading his team to just 2 conversions on 10 3rd down attempts.  

Three games into the season, I’m seeing a Dolphins’ coaching staff that is getting outmatched on a weekly basis, and it appears that both wet-behind-the-ears head coach/OC Adam Gase and DC Vance Joseph are in way over their heads.

A win is a win, and you take ‘em however you get ‘em.  But three games in, we’re starting to see that Tannehill isn’t the answer and Gase is a fraud.  I’m sure there are Dolfans rejoicing over Tannehill’s second half and imagining that they see good things happening, but I’m here to say that this Dolfan is seeing a garbage Miami team that has trouble competing against the dregs of the league.  This is bad football being played by a team with no identity and no direction.   The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Is it the coaching or lack of talent on the team?

In my haste to post this, I forgot to mention how Ja'wuan James played like a bag of dicks today - what a pathetic performance.

CarsonChris wrote:Is it the coaching or lack of talent on the team?

My take? It's both. Different year, same shit. The roster is loaded with garbage and the coaches have their heads up their ass.

Keep in mind, Gase has final say on the roster, so what you see on the field this season is in large part due to the Boy Wonder.

The gameplanning is just terrible on both sides - these guys can't even design a plan to beat the goddamn Browns in regulation!

Agreed, there is very little talent at any level in this entire organization, and it's not going to get better until the foundation is made solid. The front office is better than it was, but only by a factor of a degree or two. It's very little improvement, going from awful to shitty.

This is why I love Jmp Actually, I love all you guys. No homo (as the kiddies say).

And no, I'm not drunk. Really.

It couldn't be plainer that the two Tans absolutely, positively, without the slightest shred of a glimmer of a sliver of an iota of a doubt, have to go.

Also, I love how Gase is all pissed at the offense AFTER the game. Apparently he lives in a house with no mirrors.

Well, now that the Fins have gotten their one win for the season I'll just sit back and relax, fo realz This is literally as good as it will get the rest of this year. And maybe longer. I still think the Pats are breezing to 19-0.

BTW Birdmond had to be conflicted, rooting for a win but also not being able to really root against his guy Pryor. I seriously hope he didn't suffer too much of a strain.

Kind of sad the Pryor might be a better QB then Tannehill. Pryor is pound for pound the best athlete in the NFL. Don't be surprised if he doesn't become dominant.

As for the game, whatever, I felt bad for Landry, Jones, Suh , Wake and Drake. It seemed line they came to play. Drake was averaging 5ypc and then gets yanked. I like Drake.

First off, glad to see you're well

Birdmond wrote:Kind of sad the Pryor might be a better QB then Tannehill.  Pryor is pound for pound the best athlete in the NFL.  Don't be surprised if he doesn't become dominant.

This is his 5th season, he's running out of time to do it. But maybe I'm wrong and he'll look like a stud against teams not named the Dolphins on a regular basis after years of his light being hidden under a bushel.

Then again he's a Brown, never mind

Drake did look very good, and then the Phins stopped using him.  The spirit of Bill Lazor is alive and well.

And as much as I think the Browns suck, I will say this: once they get Josh Gordon and Corey Coleman back, they are going to have a damn good receiving corps.  Those two guys plus Pryor could be a very dangerous group if they get even halfway-decent QB play.  Pryor really looked like a man among boys yesterday.

Hard to start any "slower" than a run for no gain, followed promptly by a Tannehill interception.

This team is just so bad, I don't even know where to start. It's anyone's guess on what is needed to fix it.

We have a list of guys that are pro bowl talents - Cleveland would give arms, legs, eyesight to have some of these guys on their roster - and yet we do so little with them. It's like the whole is LESS than the sum of the parts. Not good. Not at all.

I'm thinking many of us were right - Hue Jackson was the correct hire, and we failed yet again to make the right choice. What he did with that roster of castoffs, rookies and stop-gaps yesterday was nothing short of phenomenal. They earned the win, just failed to execute and actually take it from us. Their own fault - they beat themselves - they had us dead to rights.

I would love to see what he could do with our personnel. We'll never know. If Cleveland is smart, they'll have him as coach for a long time.

Oh I forgot - we were so eager to make the Gase hire, we never talked to Jackson:

http://www.thephinsider.com/2016/1/6/10725378/2016-dolphins-coaching-search-rumors-hue-jackson-interview-scheduled-sunday-bengals

Joe rose & Bob griese were talking again about Tanny bad pocket presence again after the Int for a Touchdown. Gase needs to have the Trainer attach a Taser to Tanny Nuts and give the Remote to Him, So he can tase him every time he shows a Lack of presence in the Pocket. Might be the only way to break his Bad Habits.

finskev wrote:Joe rose & Bob griese were talking again about Tanny bad pocket presence again after the Int for a Touchdown. Gase needs to have the Trainer attach a Taser to Tanny Nuts and give the Remote to Him, So he can tase him every time he shows a Lack of presence in the Pocket. Might be the only way to break his Bad Habits.

LOL Something's got to be done, that's for sure. Although at this point, I'm starting to think that Tannehill is what he is, and he's not really going to get much better. Maybe he's reached his ceiling...

Chris Perkins wrote:Miami Dolphins coach Adam Gase re-issued messages Sunday and Monday that he'd already issued last week. What remains to be seen is how well the message resonates.

"We just want guys to do it right," Gase said at his day-after game media session on Monday. "So whoever wants to do it right, those are the guys that we're going to put out there.

"Talent is irrelevant at this point."

Gase replaced starting right tackle Ja'Wuan James after regulation in Sunday's 30-24 overtime victory against Cleveland. The change was abrupt, and the news was delivered by offensive line coach Chris Foerster, not Gase.

"I'm over discussing any of this stuff with players," Gase said. "We're either going to start getting the job done, or we're going to make changes.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-0927-20160926-story.html

Well it sounds like that Gase is over it and he going make sure that he get the best players out there to do what needs to be done. I liking this guy more and more.

Nothing to be liking more. What's really sad is that he had a whole offseason to see what would work and what wouldn't but not its not translating. He caught soon that's great but what about the rest of the time.

He needs to be looking at the cause of the problem and not the after effects.

JMP wrote:

finskev wrote:Joe rose & Bob griese were talking again about Tanny bad pocket presence again after the Int for a Touchdown. Gase needs to have the Trainer attach a Taser to Tanny Nuts and give the Remote to Him, So he can tase him every time he shows a Lack of presence in the Pocket. Might be the only way to break his Bad Habits.

LOL  Something's got to be done, that's for sure.  Although at this point, I'm starting to think that Tannehill is what he is, and he's not really going to get much better.  Maybe he's reached his ceiling...

Sadly, I think you're right. He's a starter on an 8-8 team. Probably not any more than that.

I've said it for awhile. I think he's Steve Deberg.

Umix10 wrote:Nothing to be liking more. What's really sad is that he had a whole offseason to see what would work and what wouldn't but not its not translating.  He caught soon that's great but what about the rest of the time.

He needs to be looking at the cause of the problem and not the after effects.

Gase seems to be the coaching equivalent of Tannehill. Everyone else is always to blame except him.

Degarmo wrote:I've said it for awhile.  I think he's Steve Deberg.

Nah, there's no way Tannehill hangs around the NFL that long. Methinks he'll walk away at or before his mid 30s to do that doctor thing he really wants.

Seems like Gase is spending a lot of time throwing his players under the bus, and not enough time working on prep and gameplanning on both sides of the ball.  You're the head coach - you and your staff have one job and one job only: put your team in the best possible position to succeed.  I'd say Gase has failed in that regard for three consecutive week.  If the players aren't doing what they're supposed to, maybe the coaches need to do a better job of getting them ready??  I know this roster has problems, but so far, so does the coaching staff.

On defense, the Dolphins are having an issue they had some problems with last year. Some unnamed defensive linemen are freelancing.

"We had a rough go this last game, for sure," Gase said. "We’ve got to clean a lot of things up. It just seems like one person is taking their turn. It’s a new guy every play and we just have to kind of get back to basics and we have to get back to some of our fundamentals of being very gap sound (and) making sure everybody’s doing their job.

"We can’t have anybody freelancing. That’s a bad mix for a defense as far as if one guy is off in his zone, it kind of throws the linebackers off. Now all of a sudden our fits are wrong and that’s when you’re getting these 8-, 10-, 12-yard runs. The biggest thing, at least in my experience, is when you play a defense that is tough to run the ball against – they’re very sound, they tackle well – and really it’s that group, that seven or eight guys that are working together to make sure that everybody is doing their job correctly."

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2016/09/dolphins-offense-and-defense-suffering-same-growing-pains-but-one-upgrade-on-the-way.html

could it be that our $100M DT is back to doing what HE wants and not what is best for the scheme?

Much of Sunday’s game frustrated Gase. But none more so than this: pass protection isn’t giving Ryan Tannehill enough time to find receivers who are consistently open downfield.

Tannehill has been sacked six times in three games, tied for fifth-most in the league. He has been hit 19 times in 132 dropbacks. And the Dolphins have converted just 30.3 percent of their third-down tries, tied for 26th in the league.

”It’s hard to throw a ball with any kind of timing where they pressure and we get it picked up, but we get beat so fast that the quarterback doesn’t even have a chance,” Gase said.

When told Monday that Gase all but blamed the offensive line for the Dolphins’ struggles...

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nfl/miami-dolphins/article104262401.html

Gase is sticking to the assessment that its not Tannehill, but everyone else is the problem.

"...as far as [quarterback Ryan Tannehill] coming along as a passer, making decisions – things like that – I feel like I’ve seen a guy that has gotten better from the time I’ve gotten here in the spring."

"I see a guy that really wants to work at it and make sure that he’s part of the solution."

i thought Gase was supposed to be a "players coach" - you know, one of these modern coaches who understands how best to relate to today's young players. i hate to say it, but blaming your players in the press is usually the text book first step to losing your team's support.

merc wrote:i hate to say it, but blaming your players in the press is usually the text book first step to losing your team's support.

Yep.  A couple more losses and things could blow up in Gase's face if he continues to point the finger at the players.  We've certainly seen it before with the Dolphins...

I just glad that he not one of those Philbin coaches and is just like "we did some good things today" BS. I sick of coaches sounding like everything went well.

rightchea wrote:I just glad that he not one of those Philbin coaches and is just like "we did some good things today" BS. I sick of coaches sounding like everything went well.

Gase is doing that with Tannehill - he refuses to place any blame on him.

And speaking of Gase - what happened to tailoring his scheme based on players' strengths?  Seems to me that he and Joseph are trying to force players into their schemes and it's not working.  Square peg, round hole - just like Philbin.