Enough cliché phrases: Fix this team
Communication woes have coaches, players alike fed up.
DAVIE — In case you haven’t heard, the Miami Dolphins need to communicate better and must get on the same page.
This is not an exaggeration. There is no exaggerating this point.
The Dolphins have played nine games, and if I had a dollar for every time a coach or a player uttered one of those two phrases this season, I would have enough money to pay off Byron Maxwell’s contract.
All coaches are taking their share of the blame. All players (at least they should) are taking their share of the blame.
And it all came to a head this week, when Dolphins coaches and players on offense and defense (OK, a lot of people on defense) used those two phrases over and over and over again. And this is not exclusive to one position group.
Which Miami Dolphins must communicate better and get on the same page?
Quarterbacks, running backs, offensive linemen, wide receivers, defensive linemen, linebackers and defensive backs.
That’s about it. We are not exaggerating. The Dolphins have lost three games in a row, been slaughtered in two of them, and this week, all of the emphasis and all of the meetings contained discussion of those two points of emphasis.
Think I’m kidding?
All of the comments that
follow were made on a Thursday in Davie (where the weather is so, so beautiful this time of the year, but the communication and coordination? Eh, not so much).
■ Coach Adam Gase on the defense: “We’ve talked about this before: When you play defense, it’s a group deal, it’s 11 guys. Really, at the end of the day, everybody has to be on the same page.”
■ Gase on the offense, particularly some of Jay Cutler’s drastic misfires: “A couple of them, we weren’t on the same page. We took the wrong angle on one of the routes. He thought one of the guys were going high, and he flattened it out. That was just one of those ones where he saw it one way, they saw it a different way.”
So, as we said, it’s not an issue exclusive to one side of the ball.
■ Offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen, on offensive line issues: “I think you can measure it, and there were some things we did better, but there were some disappointing things that again we set some people free on some runs where our communication wasn’t up to snuff, and so I don’t think that ... I thought it was five steps forward, five steps back, kind of. I thought that for everything we improved at, we also again had an issue with communication, and so that’s one of the priorities this week. We have to get the communication right.”
■ Christensen added, in a very telling comment: “There were some disappointing ones also that we should be beyond at this point.”
That means, yes, center Mike Pouncey and his guards, at this point (even though Ted Larsen made his regular-season debut last Monday night) should be on the same page at a higher rate. This means tackles and guards can’t afford to be moving in the wrong direction because they each think they’re doing something different.
Running the football is hard enough in this league. Especially against a defense like the Carolina Panthers. When one or two offensive linemen are wrong, there is often a huge loss, which has happened at an alarming rate all season.
And, yes, at this point, Cutler and Jarvis Landry, DeVante Parker, Kenny Stills and Julius Thomas should be on the same page more often. Too, too often, it seems they are not. Either that, or Cutler is just wildly inaccurate more than we can believe. We’ll take Gase at his word.
Recall earlier this season, Gase openly questioned if some of his players were putting in enough time away from the field to be best prepared for success on the field. This is something worth considering. Gase also openly discussed how the coaches have and will continue to evaluate the methods through which they are teaching.
Defensive coordinator Matt Burke was so frustrated about the lack of communication, he called an entire-unit meeting Tuesday in which all defensive players had to identify how and why things went so terribly wrong at Carolina (45 points, 548 yards, 294 rushing yards).
Burke on why he called a “macro” meeting: “There’s been a little disconnect I felt between the different levels of the defense. I felt it was important for everybody to be in there together and talking it out. I just didn’t feel the communication was there.”
The players have taken a cue from their coaches this week, repeating the same themes again and again. It’s not just about being physically overmatched, as Cam Wake explained right after the Panthers game, it’s about being in the right spot at the right time.
Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh on what’s gone wrong: “I can go through a million different examples, but at the end of the day, it’s all about being on the same page, and one of the best ways to be on that same page is communicating.”
Suh took some responsibility, and veteran linebacker Rey Maualuga cited the importance of players doing just that.
“What must change?” Maualuga said. “Everyone needs to be truthful with each other. Be accountable for the things that we do that’s wrong. And just move forward. If we move forward, and obviously clean up our mistakes, and not dwell, and move forward, we can get ready for our next opponent.”
Why have such long runs been allowed?
“Someone being out of their gap,” Maualuga said. “Or not being at the right place at the right time. Again, all that is fixable. And we just have to concentrate on becoming better. Use these next couple days to do our homework and cancel out all the things we did wrong in the last game.”
Safety Reshad Jones, who is responsible for making sure Miami’s defensive backs are lined up correctly before a snap, said, “’Backers, cornerbacks and safeties should all be in sync. And on the same page. The corners should look to the linebackers. The linebackers should look to me, and I look to them, and we all relate the same calls. This side can’t be calling one call. And this side can’t be calling one call. We just have to be where we’re supposed to be and do our job, man!”
There was an exasperation in Jones’ voice. He’s disappointed. He’s frustrated. He’s concerned.
But all agree, acknowledging the mistakes and working out ways to fix them together is the only possible solution.