Orlando Sentinel

The Miami Dolphins

- By Omar Kelly

are going with an up-tempo offense this season with little use for a traditiona­l huddle.

OXNARD, Calif. — When the play clock is ticking down against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday (and the rest of this season), the Miami Dolphins won’t let a second go to waste.

Coach Adam Gase intends to get his offense to the line of scrimmage quickly, spending as much of the 25 seconds before the speaker in quarterbac­k Jay Cutler’s helmet shuts off assessing the defense and making a play call.

That’s the main reason Miami intends to keep the pace of the offense fast in 2017, so don’t expect much huddling this season. And if you do see a huddle, something has gone wrong.

The Dolphins want their offensive linemen sprinting to the line, which is why that unit has begun to run gassers after practice, or an extra 10 yards downfield after every offensive play during team periods of practice.

Miami wants its playmakers locked onto Cutler’s hand signals, learning their assignment and hot routes from their take-off points on the line of scrimmage.

If things go according to plan, the Dolphins will resemble the NFL’s version of the 1980s Showtime Lakers, up-tempo and aggressive, steadily pushing the pace.

“A lot of our offense is nohuddle. We just decide to slow it down,” receiver Jarvis Landry said. “We’re not really a huddle team. We’re a no-huddle team that decides to huddle when we want to. That’s a better way to put it.”

The Dolphins tried to play an up-tempo style last season, but for various reasons — primarily, skill players didn’t grasp the newly installed offense and struggles on third down kept stressing the defense — the offense struggled with it during the first five games, which produced a 1-4 record.

Gase, who has been accustomed to quarterbac­ks such as Peyton Manning calling plays at the line of scrimmage, was forced to scrap the up-tempo approach in an October game against the Pittsburgh Steelers last season.

Coincident­ally, or not, changing the team’s style — slowing things down — helped turn the season around. From that point the Dolphins won nine of the season’s final 11 games, qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

But Gase, who spent three years under up-tempo aficionado Mike Martz, has long coveted that fast pace.

And Cutler prefers it too, so expect the volume of Miami’s no-huddle offense to be turned up.

“When you get into a situation where the quarterbac­k feels comfortabl­e but then you have 10 other guys that it’s hard with, you really have to go away from it,” Gase said, explaining why Miami abandoned it last season. “If you have 50 percent, it’s just not enough. Last year we just got into a situation where we needed to settle everything down and really keep learning what we were doing and get better at that.”

Offensive coordinato­r Clyde Christense­n said how “natural” Cutler is running a no-huddle offense is the biggest surprise he’s had about Miami’s new starting quarterbac­k.

“We’ll have to see how far we can get with it,” Christense­n said.

And how far down Gase and Cutler can push their foot on the offense’s pedal before having to ease up.

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