No way Gase can clean up this mess
No amount of tinkering by coach can fix all that ails Dolphins this year.
If Adam Gase were the custodian over at the Miami Dolphins’ training facility rather than the head coach, he’d be out of a job.
All the guy ever talks about are the messes he needs to clean up and his mounting frustration as the weeks go on and on that nothing much ever seems to get cleaned up for very long.
On Monday, Gase was asked about the daunting challenge of traveling to play New England next.
“I haven’t really gotten there,” Gase said “We’re still cleaning up this last game.”
It’s starting to sound like Hard Rock Stadium should be designated as one of those federal Superfund sites, with the players wearing Hazmat suits over their uniforms and the refs holding those yellow hankies over their noses and mouths, but then you remem-
ber that the Miami Hurricanes are doing just fine over there.
No, this is strictly a Dolphins deal. The offense is gross. The tackling and the pass coverage are one big, slippery stain. The penalty totals are growing like fungus. And the coaching? Let’s just say Gase’s playsheets need to be incinerated immediately because the Browns are the only team scoring fewer than Miami’s 15.7 points per game and ideas like that do not need to spread.
Before asking if this will ever change, if the 4-6 Dolphins are capable of getting it together in time for a wild-card playoff run, it makes sense to look for a single game in 2017 where Miami actually came out smelling like a rose. Efficient. Confident. Capable, more or less, of beating any team in the league.
The best I can come up with is that stunning comeback win at Atlanta on Oct. 15. Of course, that was really only a fraction of a great game. The Dolphins trailed 17-0 at halftime, looking as disjointed as they did a few weeks earlier in a London shutout loss to the Saints.
Then Jay Cutler started doing what Gase hoped he would do when Ryan Tannehill’s August injury necessitated a $10 million investment in quarterback speculation. A couple of touchdown passes. A bit of luck, when a Cutler interception was wiped out by a Falcons penalty. Yes, it was working, and against an Atlanta team fresh off a Super Bowl appearance.
Here in this 20-17 road victory was the validation of everything that Gase started building in his 10-6 rookie season, and maybe even the start of another titanic turnaround to a sluggish season. When Reshad Jones intercepted a tipped ball deep in Miami territory to stop Matt Ryan’s last chance at a win or at overtime, it sure felt a lot like 2016, didn’t it?
Look, though, at the components of that signature win.
Jay Ajayi rushed 26 times for 130 yards against the Falcons (Gase can’t go to that well again).
Ndamukong Suh and Cameron Wake each picked up a sack. (They have combined for zero the past few weeks).
Cutler took no sacks. (With Jermon Bushrod now dealing with a foot injury, it’s possible that only two of the five offensive linemen who started at Atlanta will be available Sunday at New England).
Oh, and Miami went 2 for 3 on fourth down against the Falcons. (The Dolphins haven’t converted one of those vital plays since, with Damien Williams’ late fourth-and-1 failure in Tampa Bay territory last week as the latest dead end).
There just doesn’t seem to be much in there that is repeatable, even on a semi-regular basis, as Miami plays the final six games of the season.
Gase’s top choice at quarterback was in the concussion protocol at last report. The defensive unit that foiled reigning NFL MVP Ryan back in October couldn’t stop journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick from putting together a brisk winning drive in the final minutes of Sunday’s loss to Tampa Bay. And as for cleaning up the penalties? The Dolphins had four in the upset of Atlanta, but they had twice that many by halftime and finished with a gruesome total of 17, the second-most in franchise history, against the Bucs.
With New England on the schedule twice in three weeks, Gase is still talking about working harder and playing smarter and fixing this team in time to make December count.
What he’s talking about is a clean sweep.
Any custodian could tell you that’s not happening. Once the water in that mop bucket gets good and dirty, it doesn’t matter how much elbow grease you put into it, after that. Nothing to do but dump it all out and start over.