With Ajayi gone, Gase expecting Landry to stay
DAVIE — Jay Ajayi wasn’t in the Miami Dolphins’ longrange plans.
Dolphins coach Adam Gase made that clear Wednesday, a day after the Dolphins traded their Pro Bowl running back and reigning team MVP to the Philadelphia Eagles for a fourth-round draft pick in 2018.
Part of it is that Gase and Ajayi had philosophical differences. But testing the market for Ajayi also was a business decision.
“It’s no secret we’ve got some guys coming up contract-wise and we’ve got some guys contract-wise that it’s going to be a lot of money,” Gase said. “And you’re trying to figure out, how do you put the puzzle together?”
That could be good news for receiver Jarvis Landry, whose rookie contract expires after the season, allowing him to be a free agent. Gase repeated that the Dolphins informed Landry some time ago that he wouldn’t be going anywhere despite rumors circulating before Tuesday’s trade deadline that they were shopping him.
Gase said he wanted to keep “in house” how discussions went when the team informed Ajayi of the trade.
“It’s never a fun situation, never fun for a guy even though it’s a great opportunity for him, going to a team that’s really probably one of the best teams in the NFL right now,” Gase said. “Anytime that you’ve been in a place for a minute, you really always kind of envision you’re always going to be there forever. We all know how it is. Coaches change. Players change. That’s kind of the nature of the business.”
But Ajayi changed addresses just seven games into an encore season to his breakout 2016 in which he gained 1,272 yards. Asked what disappointed him most that Ajayi and the Dolphins couldn’t work things out, Gase said, “Just kind of getting on the same page and sharing the same philosophy of how we want to do things.” Gase said Ajayi “tried to do what we were asking him to do the majority of the time,” which could be construed as rankling Gase on other occasions. There’s no doubt that Gase had seen enough of runs by Ajayi in which he tried to “hit a home run” rather than settle for 4 or 5 yards. Negative runs put the offense in a hole on third down, Gase said. “We need the offense to play a greater role in these games,” Gase said. “And right now we’ve been really holding this team back.” Bottom line? “It was just time for us to kind of go separate ways,” Gase said. The Dolphins decided not to trade Landry. So does Gase hope Landry is in the organization’s long-term plan? “We told him a while ago, I can’t remember, when everybody said we were trading him,” Gase said. “And we told him a long time ago he wasn’t going anywhere. We have a vision for what we want that wide receiver room to look like, and we expect him to be a huge part of that.” Gase continued on, however, without making promises. “And however it works out down the road, that’s hard for me to say,” Gase said. “Because, you know, I don’t negotiate the contracts. So I’ll blame (Dolphins Executive Vice President) Mike (Tannenbaum) on that one. So I like that group. I like that group a lot. We have a lot of talent.” Landry has twice as many catches as any other Dolphin, with 50 for 398 yards and three touchdowns this season.