Gase, Dolphins pull some thievery on Raiders
MIAMI GARDENS — After Adam Gase called it, after Ryan Tannehill relayed it, after Albert Wilson felt the huddle buzz and thought simply, “Touchdown,” Jakeem Grant moved to the left side of the Miami Dolphins offense and couldn’t contain himself. “Uh-oh!” Grant said, looking over at his fellow receiver, Wilson.
“Let’s go!” Wilson said.
Talent wins most games. Attitude does some. And then there are rarest of days like the Dolphins’ 28-20 win over Oakland on Sunday that are decided by surprise, by smoke-and-mirrors trickeration, by pixie dust deep in the playbook.
Gase helped scout, worked on special teams and did anything else for the Detroit Lions in 2006 when their running back coach, Wilbert Montgomery, mentioned this young kid’s mind to offensive coordinator Mike Martz.
That’s where the play that led America’s highlight reels Sunday was born. Gase worked for four years with Martz in Detroit
and San Francisco and somewhere in there saw the gadget play that won Sunday.
“It was just straight thievery,” Gase said. “I mean, we stole it. It’s an old Martz play. It’s just nobody watches his old stuff. They might now.”
For the past two weeks, the Dolphins practiced it: Tannehill hands off to running back Frank Gore, who pitches back to Wilson, who runs around right end and throws to a wide-open Grant for a touchdown.
“It worked like that every time,” Wilson said.
“Every single time,” Grant said.
“I’ve seen it one time [in practice] and thought, ‘They’ll never call that,’ ” defensive end Robert Quinn said.
Gase called it in the fourth quarter. The Dolphins were tired. Oakland’s offense would run nearly double the amount of plays (74 to 39) by game’s end. The Dolphins were hurting, too. The defensive line was so thin guard Jesse Davis played defensive tackle.
Most important, they’re losing, 17-14, with the ball at their 48-yard line and just over seven minutes left. That’s the situation Gase picked for magic.
“It plays off [other] plays,” Gase said. “We have run similar plays to it, and it’s just one of those things where you just don’t think that’s going to come. I’m glad it worked, and it was good timing.”
Gase, so brash and bold, downplayed it afterward, talking about it so softly he could barely be heard in the news conference. But the mood of the team showed a few minutes later when the 5-foot-6 Grant appeared, full of laughter, standing on a chair to be interviewed by 6-foot-6 former Dolphin Kim Bokamper.
“All I had to do was catch the ball, I was so open,” he said. “I like those kind of plays.”
Gase said Martz might have called the play in 2001. Wilson said he hadn’t thrown a touchdown since playing high school quarterback. So this involved a stroll down memory lane plus a telling note of what’s at work with this team.
Gase lined up Wilson at quarterback last week in New York. Now he had him throwing, taking advantage of that surprise that won’t be a surprise any more. And he used this team’s speed. Always speed.
Earlier in the game, Grant ran in motion, caught a pitch from Tannehill and kept running around end for an 18-yard touchdown. On the next series after Wilson’s throw to Grant, Wilson took another pitch from Tannehill and ran 74 yards for the icing touchdown.
The Raiders are a slow, plodding team. The team the Dolphins play next, the great Patriots, are slow on defense. At 3-0, do you see enough of the Dolphins to dream? Or at least to nod along when you see fun like Sunday?
Dolphins lore is full of fun plays. There’s the “hookand-lateral” play that went for a touchdown in an epic game against San Diego in 1982. There’s the “Spike play,” where Dan Marino faked spiking the ball and threw a touchdown to beat the Jets.
Now there is Gase’s Gadget. Or Jakeem’s Dream. Or Martz’s Magic. Call it whatever because Gase wasn’t offering its name.
“I’m not telling you guys that,” he said to reporters. “There’s plays off of plays. I don’t want to tell our terminology.”
OK, but there’s this: How many more plays does he have like it?
He answered that one, softly and succinctly, without hint of the smile Dolphins fans can have on hearing it.
“A lot,” he said.