The lack of patience from the fans and Ross. The fact that they are unable to grasp the importance of injuries and how they impacted the season means we are blowing up and starting over again something that wasn't broken just dented

 

I can appreciate what you are saying and I agree. However, I believe the structure that Ross put in place when he hired Gase was flawed and needed to be fixed. Gase had too much power and he was forcing the personnel guys to put resources in areas that were only short term fixes and neglected long term strategies. Gase was arrogant and annoying, but he is a smart guy. If he could have learned from his mistakes this year and revert back to the personality he showed in year one then I think we could have had something.

 

OL. If you cant block, You cant do anything.

 

It was hard to choose between injuries and coaching. I chose coaching.

IMO, a healthy Dolphins team, a team filled with this much talent, yes, they have a lot, should have won about 12 games. So, I think coaching was the reason this injury riddled team did not at least win 9 games and a possible playoff birth.

 

I'm going with coaching. The injuries were horrendous, but the combo of an OC that can't get out of his own way leading the league in offensive 3 & outs combined with a DC that can't adapt and trailing the league in 3 & outs was deadly.

 

Hard to pick one they're all contributing factors. Believe it or not I will say injuries to key players were the biggest factor. But then again, you could pin that on our complete lack of depth. It's all a big mess, and whenever such is the case you look to the Tippy-top.

 

Gase's Dolphins teams were among the worst in the league, and the worst in Miami history, in:

Number of plays run
Number of first downs
Number of third down conversions
Third down percentage
Number of Red Zone visits
Number of Red Zone touchdowns

And thats before you get to the fact that the defense was among the worst also. The team's talent was clearly not as bad as the results were, injuries or not. Gase's system was just wholly reliant on forcing the big play, at the expense of just about everything else. And it was a disaster.

 

Injuries, which badly impacted the OL and DL. A close second was coaching, as Gase did a poor job to adjust and had zero trust in Tanny to make a play on third down. You can't claim a QB is 'your guy' and refuse to let him throw in crunch time.

 

I know we talked a lot about injuries this year. And yes, we lost explosive weapons in Jakeem Grant and Albert Wilson and a very good DT in Vincent Taylor. And I know we missed the QB for 5 games and our star CB for the last few games.

But despite the "highlight" injuries, the truth is, the team seemed to still have quite a few remaining pieces as it entered December: Ryan Tannehill, Kenyan Drake, Frank Gore, Kalen Ballage, Brandon Boldin, Kenny Stills, Danny Amendola, Devante Parker, Leonte Carroo, Mike Gesicki, Nick O'Leary, Laremy Tunsil, Ju'Wuan James, Ted Larsen, Jesse Davis, Robert Quinn, Andre Branch, Cam Wake, Davon Godchaux, Akeem Spence, Sylvester Williams, Raekwon McMillan, Jerome Baker, Kiko Alonso, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Bobby McCain, TJ MacDonald, Reshad Jones, etc.

That's most of your ding dang roster, man. Maybe the roster isn't as good as we think in certain places. Then again, it's probably not as bad as we think in others.


I agree with Unlucky that Gase did a bad job of finding something that worked (and that's not even bringing up Matt Burke, his coverages and this Wide-9 defense) but I imagine that Gase was hamstrung by a QB that simply has bad vision. When a QB isn't finding the open man, there's not much an OC can do to compensate other than to push up the CMP% and reduce the INT% as best he can (which Gase did well).

7 years in, Ryan Tannehill has proven himself to be a very lackluster QB. You could put him on a great team and he'd still struggle to read defenses, audible in/out of plays, and see the field well enough to anticipate who will come open (and when).

So I said QB.

I think if we had a QB that could do the things I just said, we'd have finished above .500 and we'd be going into 2019 with Adam Gase at least getting a one more shot.

 

A good coach, heck a mediocre one, will use the players he has in the way that they are best able to perform. Gase didn't do that, period. Nearly every player on our offense was forced into a role that they didn't really belong in, and suffered for it, presumably because of Gase's grand vision of what his offense was supposed to be. Maybe he could make it work if he could hand pick any players that he wanted from around the league, but it was nothing but a failure with the ones that he had.

 

I picked THill/QB, but he was far from the only big problem. Coaching wasn't up to snuff, OL injuries were tough, defense was complete garbage, depth was an issue. Hard to compete when you have so many legit issues. That said, I feel a better QB could help mask at least some of those issues. THill has no ability to overcome adverse conditions though it seems.

Beside QB, I really hope we address both lines.

 

Eagles have 14 players on IR this year but they are now in divisional rd of playoffs.

 

3 years to build this team and they are no better than when philbin left.Good riddance!

 

Injuries, but also I felt at times there was a lack of accountability from Gase down to the players at times.

 

I went QB on this one. I have finally made my mind up about Tannehill. It took seven years and I still truly do think that if he had a great team surrounding him he'd be just fine as a starting QB in this league. Unfortunately that is not us. I'm willing to conceive that Gase possibly held him back in certain situations, but I think that was more due to him lacking the certain skills at times...Mainly pocket presence/awareness. I could be wrong, i'm just a fan, but I think it's time to move on. Still....If there's some chance that he remains our guy next season, i'll still show up supporting him like I always have. He will continue to be our guy/my guy until we move on from him. My support for this team never waivers, but I think it's time for a change.

 

If it was year 1 of Gase’s tenure I would have picked injuries.

However a coach’s responsibility goes beyond calling plays from a clipboard. Coaches are supposed to coach, i.e. train and develop talent. The fact there was such a huge performance difference between the 1st teamers and the backups is a failure of 3 years worth of coaching.

Also there is no evidence that either side of the ball has developed in the 3 years under Gase. Successful coaches see their teams improve their rankings in key statistical categories even if that is not immediately reflected in their W-L record.

 

To some degree...yeah I agree. However, most teams aren't equipped to overcome what was basically our entire core offense being out. From the line, to our receivers, to our QB.

 

It was a combination of the top three. I would have said DL as well, but I think it was more specifically from a lack of solid, effective, pressuring as well as edge containment from the DEs. I think the interior guys were playing surprisingly well or at least sufficient at the beginning of the season, but the injury bug really effected that whole unit.

 

i go with Ross.
He tried but he has not hired the right people so the blame is on him.

 

It's kind of interesting- my first thought was injuries and that's what I picked. But I also wanted to vote Tannehill (which also fits the injury theme).

Then I thought, when RT has great blocking, he's a solid QB. So I should vote line.

But why was the line so bad? Because the front office didn't have solid reserves in the wing. Also because they brought in aging vets with a history of injury. So I should vote front office.

Then I went thru the same thought process with the D line- if they showed up and didn't give up historic yards, the O line and Tannehill may not have been such a big deal. But that's also injury and the front office too.

But I'm a business guy and stuff ultimately flows uphill in my book. If I'm going to blame the front office, then it's ultimately Ross's fault.

The only thing I didn't see as a valid vote was Gase, even though he was "allegedly" over personnel. I've heard that he was denied several asks so I don't know how much blame he should carry.

Ultimately, the correct vote would be "all of the above".

 

THERE SHOULD BE A "ALL OF THE ABOVE BUTTON"!!!!!

 

Injuries don't make a team undisciplined that falls under coaching.

Injuries didn't cause crappy game plans and crappy plays being called.

Injuries didn't didn't make us abandon the run even when it was effective.

Injuries weren't responsible for players not being prepared.

Injuries weren't responsible for hiring AND keeping Matt Burke.

 

Gase had his hand in it also.He did bring in Brock and Thomas the year before.Not to mention give Burke the DC job.

 

And they fought and clawed their way in. They were motivated to fight until the very end.

 

Coaching!

 

Can you honestly say as a fan that you know they were crappy calls? Some were of course, without the talent to execute though there really aren't many plays that will make you look good.

 

Don Shula disagrees with you. Every one of his teams was successful when the backup went in. Even when the backup was injured and he got onto his third stringer he still expected his team to be successful.

 

Coaching... absentee head coaching

Qb...too many weaknesses in the game to lead and overcome pressure.

Injuries..

 

While I agree with you 100%, it's kind of not fair to use Shula as a comparison. The man is a LEGEND...a once in a generation coach. It's no wonder he's the NFL's all time winningest coach. There's not a coach in today's NFL that can carry his clipboard.

 

I can only vote for one?

 

I'd put coaching and Tannehill at the top of my list..

Coaching wins in a landslide though. Tannehill and the lack of a consistent playmaker at QB that can move the chains is number 2 to me.

 

Here's my thing... You guys think that in an alternate reality where we didn't have 3/5 of our line out, 3 receivers, and the starting QB...do you think in that reality, we don't win at least 10 or 11 games? I mean, say what you want about Tannehill and Gase, but with 2 weeks left in the season, we still had a shot at winning the division...albeit a tiny one.

 

And they folded, both of them, literally folded, like they have done Before..