The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Hell of an article here.  IMO this is the difference between the team's circling the drain after the 1-4 start, and actually having some hope for a successful season.

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/barry-jackson/article111732222.html

I couldn't help but note the fact that the Dolphins resorted to an extra lineman on 20% of all offensive snaps. That was probably necessary against a Buffalo D that has been great at getting to opposing quarterbacks (was #1 before the Miami game), but it's something one has to hope isn't necessary every week. One explanation could be the injuries to tight ends, but it does limit passing options on those plays.

I think the most interesting question this week will be whether the Dolphins can manage being the favorite in a game, and continue to show the kind of energy they did the past two weeks, when the situational variables aren't as strongly in their favor.  They're not as likely to contend with a complacent opposing team this week.  Will they have the energy to overcome that as well as the swagger to play like the favored team?

Teams that aren't consistently good but play well here and there usually do so when the situational variables align for them.  Truly good teams aren't as dependent on situations.  The next developmental leap for this team will be making that transition, and this week offers an opportunity.

Adam Gase is real. As well he is nice right up until it's time not to be nice. He doesn't seem to be a conflict avoider and he doesn't seem to put anyone before the team. He has shown he will hold people accountable and even cut them like Thomas or sit people like he did with Maxwell for not performing and Aikens for being late to a meeting. He also has stood behind his QB when everyone else was blaming him.  Most of all he isn't afraid to admit when he makes a mistake which means he is probably capable of learning from his mistakes.

Put that all together and I think that we have finally started to hire the right people. Now if we can just get some talent evaluators in the scouting department.

I agree, and I think the recent upswing in energy the team has shown was caused not by the threat of the players' being cut (i.e., Thomas, Turner, and Douglas), but by the players' realization that, via those cuts, Gase, and not the front office, holds the power over the roster.

On some level the players need to know that good play will be rewarded and poor play will be punished by the guy watching the game film week after week, who has the most expertise about what's going on.

I think previously there was some ambiguity about whether Tannenbaum held that power, and so I think there was some measure of helplessness for the players, i.e., no matter what they did the right person wouldn't be on top of those issues.

The surge in energy as of late I think is a reflection of the eradication of that sense of helplessness in the players.

Yes ... there is little doubt that Gase has let everyone know that he is in charge and isn't going anywhere.

I don't know about that.  Philbin certainly had no shortage of clarity in his willingness to get rid of players that he didn't feel were doing what they needed to, and that didn't really get a meaningful response from the players.

Philbin traded away problems that he couldn't coach or control and he did it quietly ... almost passive aggressively. I have little doubt if you are in Gase's doghouse that you are the first to know.

I don't remember any of Philbin's teams playing anywhere near as bad as the way this team started this season.

Also, I think Philbin's criteria for offing players weren't the same as the criteria the players would use themselves, whereas Gase's criteria are more player-aligned.

In other words, I doubt the locker room wanted to get rid of Brandon Marshall and Vontae Davis, whereas they likely did want to get rid of folks like Thomas, Turner, and Douglas.

If you're a player on a team, you want the guy in charge to get rid of the dead weight, the guys who function like balls and chains to the team, constantly pulling down its performance.  You probably don't want him getting rid of the Brandon Marshalls and Vontae Davises of the world, however.

What you want, ultimately, is a guy who, again, will reward good performance and punish bad performance, in the name of overall team functioning.  You don't want to a guy making idiosyncratic decisions (i.e., Philbin), or a guy who's hamstrung from doing anything by the front office, which is what I think the perception about Gase may have been prior to the major cuts he made.

The team started even worse last year under Philbin.

I do agree that Philbin's criteria were terrible while Gase's criteria are sensible.  I just don't think that showing that you're in charge is all that significant.

Last year Philbin had the issue of being on a short leash, being in year four as a HC, having not made the playoffs, and Tannenbaum had just been hired.  In the minds of the players, Philbin was probably far less "in charge" than he'd ever been, and certainly far less in charge than Gase, who is in year one with a hefty contract.  Philbin was also I believe the lowest-paid coach in the NFL, which I think registers with players in terms of who they view as having most of the power within the organization.

Keep in mind that Philbin successfully jettisoned MIA's expensive #1 WR in the 2015 offseason.  He still had quite a bit of power within the organization at the start of last season.

I didn't mind him getting rid of Marshall as much as trading Vonte Davis away.  That was a dumb move.

^^^ The receiver Spider is talking about is Mike Wallace. Marshall had been long gone by 2015.

Out of Philbin's three not-a-Philbin-guy trades, I was not in favor of any of them.  But of the three, Vontae was the least proven.

Marshall had already made multiple Pro Bowls, including one with MIA.
Wallace had already made a Pro Bowl and just scored 10 TDs the season before he was traded... the only MIA WR to get double-digit TDs in ten years.
In both of these cases, the trade left the WR corps destitute; one of the worst units in the league.

Vontae was still a pretty raw talent and MIA was able to get a 2nd for him.

Whoops...well, I'm not sad he's gone either.

Another article about the current coaching staff, this one about DC Vance Joseph:

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/armando-salguero/article112414212.html

Being straight with the players is definitely a good thing in my book. Not so sure about the level of sharing with the media, though. Nice for fans, but some players are bound to resent being called out publicly like that.

And I can see the rationale in that, and one part of me agrees with it (not calling out the players publicly), while another part of me says the fans are the team's "stockholders," and therefore sort of deserve a report on the performance of the business's "employees."  I'm not so sure the players shouldn't expect such a sharing of information, given that the fans pay their salaries.

Given that logic, consumers everywhere pay the salaries of whatever workers make their products, but I don't think it would be reasonable to Ford to call out an individual employee publicly. Or Starbucks to publicly out one of their baristas, if you want to look at costumer-facing employees.

And I can definitely see your logic there, too, but this is slightly different in that the fans of a team are wedded to a team unlike the "fans" of Starbucks, who can switch to whatever other coffee company they like if Starbucks disappoints them.

Of course we here know that better than anybody.  I doubt anybody here will be switching teams anytime soon, despite the consecutive years of non-playoff teams. ;)

I wouldn't be so sure of that.  From the stuff I've read on here, I know of at least two guys that have switched teams.  Who knows if there's more.

Why did you base your decision on geography when you could've picked any team in the league.  Hell, you could've picked the Patriots, the only NFL team in the middle of a dynasty! ;)