Gase must instill discipline in mistake-prone team
KANSAS CITY, MO. — In the end, there was no Santa Claus. No Happy New Year. There was just Miami Dolphins coach Adam Gase standing in the cold of December underneath Arrowhead Stadium saying what he’s said too many times this season. “We just have to play clean,” the Gase said after a 29-13 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
They fumbled on their opening series Sunday, got flagged for holding on their second series, fumbled just after the defense made a dramatic four-down stand and got penalized for another bad penalty when the day still was within striking distance.
When Gase had tired of Jay Ajayi, he shipped the running back out overnight.
When is he going to tire of coaching an undisciplined team?
When is he going to demand attention to details? When is he going to correct what sunk this Dolphins season beyond all else?
Everyone keeps looking at the problems
with players this season, because, well, there are problems. But do you really think Sunday’s game came down to Kansas City having remarkably better talent than the Dolphins?
It came down to Kansas City having no turnovers to the Dolphins’ two big ones.
It came down to Kansas City having five penalties to the Dolphins’ 11.
It came down to methodical Andy Reid coaching a disciplined team just well enough to make the playoffs and Gase coaching one that keeps talking about their constant errors with one game to go.
This wasn’t just a Sunday issue. This wasn’t just about Kansas City turning fumbles by Jarvis Landry and Kenny Stills into points. This is about a Dolphins team that ranks 30th in the league with a minus-13 turnover differential. Only lowly Cleveland and Denver are worse.
How do you win when you’re that bad in what every coach labels the most important statistic of them all?
And how do you compound that issue by constantly having to dig your way out of penalty problems? Only Seattle has more penalties this year than the Dolphins.
“That’s something we talk about every week,” Stills said. “We lose a game, it’s penalties, turnovers. We definitely feel like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”
And the hand. And the leg. And the arm.
“It’s something we’ve got to clean up going forward if we want to win games,” Stills said.
Here’s the thing: Only Oakland had more penalties than the Dolphins last year. So either Gase’s message isn’t getting across or he doesn’t care enough about penalties.
Blame Jay Cutler for this dismal season, if you want. But he’s been the same mediocre-at-best quarterback he’s been for 12 seasons. It’s everyone else around him who was supposed to be better. His receivers. His line. His defense. And Gase, at the front of the line. “That’s probably going to be more of an offseason deal,” Gase said when asked if there was a recurring theme to the nine losses this year. “I wish I had a great answer of, ‘this is why.’ The best I can give you is we haven’t played one game of complimentary football the whole season.
“That’s just not going to cut it and we’re not going to win many games if we do that.”
There’s a better answer to that and Gase will get to it a week from now. He’s a smart guy. He had a great 2016 season. There’s no reason he can’t do better next year. But the Dolphins had a small margin to win with their talent, and they just weren’t coached well enough to make that small margin matter.
“You think that just happens by accident?” Don Shula used to say when asked how his team constantly was the leastpenalized team in the league.
Look at it. Kansas City, Buffalo and Baltimore don’t have any better talent across the board than the Dolphins. But Kansas City is in the playoffs while Buffalo and Baltimore remain alive. Why?
Baltimore ranks first in turnover margin, Kansas City ranks third and Buffalo ranks fifth.
“We played efficiently,” Reid said after Sunday’s game that clinched the AFC West title and he celebrated by having Santa Claus in the locker room.
The Dolphins? They weren’t efficient. They fumbled and bumbled their way to another loss and then talked about having to correct errors. People say they aren’t consistent this year. But they’ve done that loss after loss with great consistency.