Poor 3rd down conversion rate

its kind of nice to see that Burke gets it:

“We stink right now,” said Burke, the Dolphins’ defensive coordinator, about Miami’s third-down D. “We do.”

Then Burke explained why:

“We had, I think, 15 third downs last week and like 10 of them were less than five yards. Third-and-4 or less or something. And there was a couple of drives where we didn’t even get to third down. We’re not — and that’s a good offensive team that we played last week — but we’re giving up leaky yardage in the run game. Our stats aren’t horrible. But we’re side-tackling guys, we’re giving up four or five yards on a rush and then it’s three yards on the next rush and it’s third-and-2. It’s hard living. It’s hard living.”

Burke added: “We haven’t been good on third downs, but we haven’t put ourselves in spots to have success on most third downs.”

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nfl/miami-dolphins/article219136770.html

now whether he can do anything about fixing it remains to be seen.

Gase seems to kind of get it:

“It has to be complementary football,” Dolphins coach Adam Gase said. “We need to do a better job of not having any three-and-outs and holding onto the ball longer. When you score, it’s not as painful for the defense. When we go three-and-out, that’s a little different. I think our defense can help themselves out sometimes with the third down and getting off the field. We had a couple of opportunities last week and kind of hurt ourselves. Both sides of the ball can help each other in that aspect, that’s how you can kind of get that time of possession flipped.”

again, talk is cheap so lets see if he can do anything about it.

and well...

“The most important thing is we score one more point than those guys,” said Dolphins offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains. “To this point, we’ve scored more points than our opponent. It’s so early in the season. I don’t think stats are relevant.”

poor ole Dowell still just doesn't have a clue.

The thing is, stats like this are relevant in the long run. Sure, you can dismiss stats after a three-game stretch, but over 16 games things tend to even out as far as luck goes. If you are bad on third down on both offense and defense over the course of an entire season, chances are you will not have a very good record at the end. Sure, there are exceptions - but it just makes it difficult to win consistently when you suck on third down.

I'm glad Burke and Gase are aware of the problem, but they couldn't figure it out in the past so why would I think they can now?

On offense, one thing has to change: we simply cannot continue to throw well short of the marker on third downs. Throw the ball passed the damn sticks. That's where Parker and Gesicki can come in. It's just too difficult to ask the smurf receivers to consistently break tackles and get yards after catch on 2-yard passes - we need to get the big guys involved in the intermediate range.

On defense, I don't know what the answer is. Better tackling would sure help, but we suck at blitzing and we can't cover the middle of the field. I don't know...just have to pray for turnovers, I guess.