It’s another round
of losses for Florida’s NFL teams as Dolphins, Bucs and Jaguars lose.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — In the elevator down from the press box after this latest Dolphins disaster, the Hall of Fame football architect who drafted two Hall of Fame quarterbacks flatly said this: “The quarterback isn’t the problem.”
He meant the Dolphins quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, who will be Topic A again in South Florida.
“It’s not on him that [Jets defensive linemen] are sitting in his lap all day,” Bill Polian said after the Dolphins’ 38-20 loss to the Jets. “There are problems with the offensive line, and that’s not Tannehill’s fault.”
And then Polian, who built Super Bowl teams in Buffalo and Indianapolis, said what no one in South Florida is saying now.
“That line needs fixing, and they need a running back,” he
said. “But I like Tannehill. You can win with him.”
This is the debate of another lost season now, a debate that hasn’t ended inside this franchise since Dan Marino walked off the field all those years ago and seemed to take the ball with him.
Jets coach Todd Bowles showed he didn’t fear the Dolphins’ offense on the opening series of Sunday’s game. Bowles went for it on fourth-and-1 from his 41. The Dolphins’ defense held.
The offense came on the field and, true to Bowles’ gamble, didn’t move the ball. On the second series, the Dolphins got the ball at midfield, moved to the Jets’ 21. At the very least, they need a field goal. Tannehill threw an interception trying to hit Kenny Stills near the goal line.
“It’s a throw that should be further outside,” Tannehill said. “It’s got to be in position where Kenny gets it right on the sideline or nobody does. That’s square on my shoulders.”
“You can always say, ‘What if?’ but I do know this — we’d be much better off if we’d come away with some kind of points in that position,” Dolphins coach Dan Campbell said. “We were sitting pretty good.”
He then said, “Offensively, I think we’re a fragile team.”
How can’t they be with 81 yards of offense at half? When it hasn’t topped 20 points in nine of 11 games? When the running game is so bad it totals 12 yards on just nine carries?
“Not a good day, and no real answers why,” receiver Jarvis Landry said.
Across another loser’s locker room it was silent and somber as players showered and dressed for the ride home. Tannehill walked through with scrapes and bruises on his back, his neck, and up his arms. Say this for him: He takes a beating and still keeps playing.
But is he playing well enough? And can he be expected to do so behind a line that was struggling even before losing center Mike Pouncey early in Sunday’s game?
Pouncey was replaced by rookie Jamil Douglas, who had never played center anywhere beyond practice. His shotgun snaps typically landed at Tannehill’s ankles. Is this an excuse or a partial explanation for Tannehill’s day?
The numbers, inflated by second-half irrelevance, look fine. Tannehill completed 33-of-58 passes for 351 yards and three touchdowns. But no one was pretending they were enough.
“We just didn’t make