The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

On one hand, you're surprised they would let him go considering the lack of all around talent he had to work with. On the other hand, Devante Parker made everyone look good by grabbing so many jump balls and moving the chains.

I'm not heartbroken over it, just a bit surprised. We also let go our O-Line coach and our Secondary coach. O-Line coach should be a huge priority.

Maybe we can bring back Fiedler and Lamar Smith and really go all Wanny. Apparently we aren't looking to be innovative and won't be afraid to punt any longer. Not what many of us were looking forward to.


https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/12/31/report-dolphins-hiring-chan-gailey-as-offensive-coordinator/

Report: Dolphins hiring Chan Gailey as offensive coordinator
Posted by Michael David Smith on December 31, 2019, 7:12 AM EST

The Dolphins are going old-school with their new offensive coordinator.

Chan Gailey is coming out of retirement and will be the next offensive coordinator in Miami, NFL Network is reporting.

The 67-year-old Gailey last coached as the Jets’ offensive coordinator in 2016. He has previously been head coach of the Bills and Cowboys, and his many stints as an offensive coordinator include a previous stop in Miami in 2000 and 2001.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was Gailey’s starting quarterback for all three of his years in Buffalo, and then was the starting quarterback again for both of Gailey’s seasons as offensive coordinator of the Jets, so it appears likely the Dolphins will keep Fitzpatrick, who finished the 2019 season strong.

Dolphins head coach Brian Flores fired offensive coordinator Chad O’Shea yesterday and is now moving quickly to replace him, with a coach everyone thought was retired but will now try to get the Dolphins back into contention.

A 68 year old OC who has been out of football for 3 years.  Great. 

I will see how this works out but initial reactions make me think this is a bad idea. I understand that Fitzpatrick will probably be the starter in 2020 if they see nothing in Rosen and if they want to draft a QB it would help if he redshirted the first year, but you don't hire an OC just because of a 38 year old QB.

This had to be in the works for weeks though, you don't bring a senior citizen out of retirement on a whim.

Don't forget that Chan Gailey has head coaching experience and Flores wanted someone on the staff that had head coaching experience because he doesn't have a lot of it. Caldwell was supposed to be that guy this year but took a leave of absence so maybe Gailey fills that role so this decision does make sense from that perspective. He also has a lot of experience in the AFCE which may be an advantage.

The other thing I read was that O'Shea's offense was complex and maybe it was thought a little too complex for a young QB whether that's Rosen or another young QB brought it for next year. He also has a lot of experience with Fitzpatrick so this almost assures that Fitzpatrick will be back with the Dolphins next year, perhaps that also came into consideration.

Does this mean that Miami isn't going to select a QB in the 1st round of the draft and will wait till 2021 to get a franchise QB? Maybe they have their eyes set on Trevor Lawrence? Don't assume the Dolphins won't be able to get him in 2021, they have a lot of draft capital to work with and I don't see them winning 10 games next year, maybe 7 or 8. Depending upon who has the top picks in the draft it could still be a possibility.

We'll have to wait and see how it all works out.

These are very good points, I completely forgot about Caldwell.

Gailey's scheme is very pass happy and spread out so that's good that we are relying on probably our greatest strength. It didn't work in Miami because we had Jay Fiedler and not a great passing corps.

Of course, it should be noted now that if Rosen stays with the team this will be his FIFTH Offensive Coordinator in 3 seasons. This is a textbook way to screw up a kid's development, we saw that with Tanny. No O-Line plus a new system every 5 minutes. Just trade him away now while we can maybe get a 4th rounder out of him.

It is technically true that Tom Clements was Rosen's OC, but it is as misleading as saying that Bill Belichick experience includes being the head coach of three different NFL teams.

Not excited about Gailey at all. I remember it as a boring offense.

It's hard to pin that on him entirely because he coaches a spread offense and we had Jay Fiedler and no WR. We have much better receivers this time around and if Ryan is the starter in 2020, he has experience in it. It all sounds uninspiring but it may work out well for us. Like I said above, they were thinking about this for weeks. You don't get a man out of retirement if you called him on Monday afternoon, they definitely had conversations for weeks already.

I'm not excited about Gailey being hired.  NFL OC's have to work incredibly long hours, and given Gailey's age, and more importantly that he has been away from it for 3 years, does not bode well.

I see Caldwell is healthy and ready to resume coaching duties, and it would be nice to have him back to provide that mentorship role for Flores, but several teams will probably look to tap him to fill their HC openings.

I would be surprised if Caldwell was supposed to come back to Miami and we told him no. I think we went with Gailey because Caldwell wasn't coming back one way or the other.

Like I said the other day. I'm fine with Fitz for another couple years. He has his issues. However, he proved something to me this year, especially the second half of the year. I also never liked playing against him when he was with the Bills or Jets. He's just so frustrating to play against even if he's on a bad or mediocre team. Imagine the Patriots game last week (or whole season) if we had a legit running game, good OL, and decent defense. Fitz is good enough to build around for the next year or maybe two.

O'Shea seemed to do a good job with the scrubs that he had to work with. I would have liked to give him another season to really gauge his scheme. But Flores is the head coach and he signed off on this change, so I'm OK with it at this point. Interestingly, if I had to bet, I would have said that they would have replaced the DC Patrick Graham instead of O'Shea. However, just like O'Shea, I think Graham should have another season to really gauge his competence. Like O'Shea, he had shit to work with and did a decent job considering the circumstances. I will say though, I was really put off by Graham's press conferences. He seemed like just some dude off the street and couldn't really string together a coherent thought.

As far as Chan Gailey situation goes. I'm kind of indifferent. He does run a spread type offense which makes me happy. Anyhow, pending the draft and free agency, I'm comfortable for now.

This is the correct answer.  Yeah, I know the Miami offense in 2000-01 weren't ground breakers, they were run by Wannstadt by the way and I had no faith in that man back then.  I still don't trust his opinions on CFB on Fox Sports.

I did look at the Chan Gailey Offense in 2015 for NYJ and they were ranked 10th at the end of the season, and then fell off the map in 2016, ranking in the lower 8 teams. I think Fitzpatrick was hurt a good of that time and Petty was QB.

We will just have to wait and see, just like we did with Flores.  We can all agree that we like what we see from the coach in 2019 and his coaching style and rapport with players.

Trust the process

I hated Wanny when he was here but I've heard him say several times that he messed up thinking we didn't need a great QB to win. Doesn't do much for our past but it does show he is capable of learning albeit too late.

Per Armando ... Chan Gailey had influence in us not drafting Drew Brees to begin with.  "Gailey said Brees was “too short” for the NFL.

And he said the idea of selecting a quarterback high in the draft, which needed to be the case to get Brees, could have a harmful effect on incumbent starter Jay Fiedler’s comfort level and possibly negatively affect the offense’s chemistry."

Armando goes on to say "But the hire also raises eyebrows because Gailey doesn’t have a great history of either identifying or developing young NFL quarterbacks.

And the Dolphins, bless their hearts, need to find a young quarterback."

I see people trying their best to make this sound like a smart move but I honestly don't get the warm fuzzies from any angle I currently am looking from.

That's the con side of it.  The pro side would be he runs a spread offense, something all the top QB prospects are familiar with and the familiarity with Fitz having some of his best years there.  Time will tell if the cons or pros will be the outcome.

I get it, I understand your point and there is some validity to it.  I'm not running around yelling, "10-6 here we come in 2020" but I am of a mindset of wait and see, just like I did with Flores and the whole "tank for Tua" mindset that prevailed with fans online and the MIA beat writers.

With regards to Brees and Gailey's opinion, I would love to see what his draft status when he came out and what others said about him.  I watched him maybe 10-12 times over his career at Purdue and I saw a talented player, undersized, mobile but played in the Big Ten.

When the Brees lottery hit a 5 years later is when everyone knew they had in Brees as a player, as he showed he could do the job in SD when he got the opportunity.

That Brees blunder in MIA is still on our good friend Danny Kannell's old man who said that Culpepper would recover quick and be more effective with the knee repair.  Saban wanted Brees, this is not disputed

I hope he pans out, but we'll have to wait and see.

I don't think it matters all that much who the OC is in relation to Fitz.  Fitz is not some rookie or sophomore QB that needs to be coddled; he's been around the blockS and knows his job.  If they brought in an OC that Fitz had played for, and hated, well that's a different story.

The off season coaching changes are real head scratchers. 

Giants were hoping for the Baylor coach but he wasn't even allowed to leave Carolina because they wanted him so bad. So now they got the Pats WR coach as Head Coach and Jason Garrett will probably be OC? That's incredibly uninspiring.

I meant Dolphins.  You just hired a high school coach for some reason.

I saw that too and had a WTF moment. 

To coach the cornerbacks it would seem.

Well, as an assistant to the guy who coaches the cornerbacks.

Just in case you were wondering why Chan Gailey....

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/armando-salguero/article239028693.html

It seems like players who trouble picking up offenses have a hard time succeeding. I can't think of a time when we have ever "dumbed" down an offense that it actually made it better.

i think that is short sighted.Dumbing down a system never works, The Patriots system proved successful not just with Brady but also Cassel, Jimmy G and Brissett.  Many of the Dolphin players that struggled with the system early in the season were picking it up by the end of the season as indicated by starting 0-7 and ending 2-0.  Unless the plans is to implement a high school system, Rosen would have a better understanding of O’Sheas system after two camps, rwo OTAs and a season than he will with Gailey’s after one OTA and camp.

Draft smart player, give them time to develop and if they master the better system extend their contracts.  If that means you go 6-10 this season so be the goal should be to build a team capable of being a dynasty that can win multiple super bowls, not having a system so simple it can be picked up quickly.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean that O'Shea's system was going to work in the long run for us. We hired a professional with a track record of success in Gailey. It's not the most inspiring hire but he isn't some dope from the stands who just tells the WRs to go long either.

Actually it was working for you.  Given how quickly the changes occurred obviously the decision was made weeks before the season ended, not based on a review of the entire season.   This decision was made before the Dolphins offense generated over 500 yards and followed it by beating the reigning world champions and current #1 defense giving an all pro CB the worst game of his career.   The last two weeks of the season should have caused the Dolphins to pause, think and realize O’Shea’s system works once you get the hang of it and there was no reason to replace it with one drawn in crayon.

But was it really working? We didn't have a run game all season and basically just let Fitzpatrick air it out. Lots of those passes were caught just by the sheer athleticism of Parker and later on Gisecki who really turned the corner.  I'm not ready to say this was a bad move until we see what Gailey can do in 2020.

I think it's a bit short sighted to say that Gailey's system is dumbed down, it's just easier to pickup, meaning it doesn't take a year to figure out that's all. It's not like Gailey hasn't coached in a decade and his scheme is outdated or vanilla, the Jets offense with Gailey was pretty solid in 2015 and he had Fitzpatrick as his QB and Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker as his WR's, not exactly world beating talent to work with there. It could very well be another 1 year contract and Chan's out of here next year, but let's at least see it before we toss it.

That is my criticism of them moving on from O'Shea. 

You implement a system you know is complex and takes awhile to get to work.  The offense struggles at the beginning of the season but outplays the #1 defense in the league at the end of the season.

The decision to replace O'Shea was obviously made before the Patriots game, but the Patriots game proved that it worked in the long term.   

It was working with Fitzpatrick as the QB, obviously the long term plan doesn't include Fitzpatrick, in fact the plan is to have a young QB either next year or the year after. Makes sense to make that switch now to give your young QB's a better chance at competing for the QB position even if it doesn't necessarily help you win games next year. It's not about winning games at this point, it's about establishing an identity with a core group of young guys and having some consistency going forward.

What we don't know is all the stuff behind the scenes. How did O'Shea and Flores get along? What direction did O'Shea want to pull the team in? How was his work going with the players, particularly the young players?

One forward-looking criticism of this team is that very few young guys stepped up. When you get rid of as many vets as the Dolphins did, you hope your young guys step up and make their presence felt. With a few exceptions, that just didn't happen. The remaining vets really stepped it up -- Parker being the prime example (as well as Fitz), but even guys like Gesicki and Eric Rowe.

None of the young receivers, running backs, or linemen showed much potential. Ford had a couple of good plays on offense, but considering the dearth of receiving targets and the willingness of Fitz to throw the ball, it was still disappointing IMHO. That young first round quarterback we picked up didn't exactly light the world on fire, either.

Things looked a bit better on the defensive side of the ball, with Needham looking like he could possibly develop into a decent starter, Steven Parker looked solid to quite good at linebacker, Wilkins (our first round DT) looked reasonable, and so on.

Anyway, point being that there's a lot we don't know and what we do know about the development of our young offensive talent has looked pretty bad.

I know things are cyclical in the NFL but currently 6 of the top 9 rushing teams in the NFL are still in the playoffs. Hard to ignore the importance of a running game.

Yeah, it really does seem like the massive shift to less-massive (but much faster) linebackers has enabled the running game to make a comeback. There also seems to be a bit of a shift (back) to bigger / heavier running backs. Fullbacks seem to have made a bit of a comeback as well.

I didn't check the stats but I would be surprised if those 6 teams don't have very good O-Lines.

Without checking the stats I am going to postulate that asa general trend the 8 remaining teams on average have better than league average olines, dlines, qbs, kickers, punt returners etc.

The exception would be Preston Williams. He looked terrific before he got hurt.

And good defenses. It's still and always has been a TEAM game. People forget that so often which is the reason that I ABSOLUTELY HATE that we talk about how many SuperBowls a QB won like it's a real stat. It's not.

Derrick Henry just bought new Rolexes for his O-line after the playoff win against the Patriots. He previously bought them custom diamond necklaces when he rushed for over 230 yards as well. Here's a guy who knows the value of his unsung teammates.

Absolutely. Henry rushes for 700 yards behind our O-Line. On an eerie note, OJ Simpson was one of the biggest proponents for showing love to his blockers. Talked about them all the time in interviews and even had them for a lot of his interviews.