Tempo of the times

Dolphins will again look to use no-huddle offense.

DAVIE — It’s back, and perhaps this time it’ll stay for a while.

The Miami Dolphins will again try to run their long-planned up-tempo, no-huddle offense this year, a system that has failed to be successfully instituted every year since 2014, when former offensive coordinator Bill Lazor would run around the practice field yelling, “Tempo! Tempo! Tempo!”

Dowell Loggains, Miami’s new offensive coordinator, will become the third offensive coordinator — after Lazor and Clyde Christensen — to try to implement this system with Miami and quarterback Ryan Tannehill.

Loggains, Chicago’s offensive coordinator the last two years, seems to think he’s the man who can get the job done.

“It’s really the quarterback and play-caller getting on the same page that way,” he said Saturday of the keys to running the up-tempo, no-huddle offense, “and then the quarterback being able to communicate at a very fast pace to the wide receivers, the tight ends, the running backs and the offensive line.”

To that end, Loggains is pleased with Tannehill, who has missed the last 20 games, including the wild-card playoff loss at Pittsburgh, with a left knee injury.

“He throws the ball really well,” Loggains said of Tannehill. “I was excited to see that. You see the tape [and say], ‘Hey, this guy can sling it around a little bit.’”

But Loggains, who succeeded Miami head coach Adam Gase as Chicago’s offensive coordinator, said his fascination with Tannehill goes beyond his right arm. He likes what he saw from Tannehill in his second

year in Gase’s system.

“You just see the growth in the offense from Year 1 to Year 2, especially in organized team activities and training camp,” he said. “That second year before he got hurt, just his command at the line of scrimmage, his ability to fulfill Adam’s vision with the offense, getting in and out of good and bad plays.

“You start to take command because you have confidence. The first year you’re learning the system, the second year you’re going in and you’re making the [calls] and you’re controlling the line of scrimmage and checking and signaling and doing all those things. Some of those things in the offense in 2017 didn’t get going the way we’d like to get going that way because when you lose your quarterback you lose a huge part of your offense.”

As for the overall offense, Loggains said they’re still in the planning stages of exactly how they’ll utilize their personnel.

Loggains said one characteristic about a Gase offense, whether it was in Denver or Chicago, the two places he served as offensive coordinator, is taking advantage of what each player does best.

“He takes a lot of pride and he works really hard at that,” he said. “He spends a lot of time at night studying not just the game, but studying the individual players to know, ‘Hey, Albert Wilson does this well. DeVante Parker, Kenny Stills, Jakeem Grant, this is their skill set’ and then building around, No. 1, the quarterback, No. 2 the offensive line, and then the skill guys, getting those guys in position.

“Obviously we want to run an up-tempo, no-huddle offense, what Adam has done in the past. That’s where our vision is and we’re trying to get going that way.”

Lazor, now quarterbacks coach with Cincinnati, abandoned the no-huddle, uptempo offense fairly quickly because the team couldn’t absorb the information at the line of scrimmage quickly enough.

Two years ago the Dolphins abandoned the system because running back Jay Ajayi got going and because, well, they were more effective utilizing a huddle.

“We’ve definitely been in the huddle a lot more,” Tannehill said in November 2016. “We still have the ability to go no-huddle, but we’ve been in the huddle a bit more the past two weeks, and we’ve had success, so we’ll probably stick with it.”

The Dolphins hope to avoid similar statements this November.

Loggains