Kippy Brown sucked as an OC, and the guy before him was Gary Stevens, not Stephenson. The worst OC the team has ever had was Chris Foerster IMO, and Kippy was the 2nd worst. Compared to either one, Henning and Sherman are first ballot HOF quality.

 

I read the OP just a few minutes ago and my first reaction was "Uh oh, Mr. Clean is going to be all over that Garry Stephenson thing." LOL By the time I hit the backbutton, you had already responded.

Foerster was bad. Kippy too. There was a lot I disagreed with on both Henning and Sherman, but they were legitimate NFL OCs. They could have been much better, but neither was truly terrible. Fans are always quick to blame everything on the OC. Truth is that if the players execute properly, the OC will look good and if they don't they won't.

 

I think what Sherman did to Tannehill and Wallace was just plain dumb..I vote for him.

I thought chan gailey was our best.

 

Chan Gailey and Norv Turner were good. I even think Scott Linehan did a good job and Dan Henning had a horrible QB that he had to coach around. Chris Foerster was absolutely terrible as was Cam Cameron.

 

What exactly do you think he did?

I think one can easily say there was more he could have done to help them succeed, but I really don't think he did much schematically to hurt them. I think a semi-knowledgeable fan of just about any team could come up with some facially valid criticisms of any OC and his playcalling.

 

Best: Kacy Rodgers
Worst: Jim Turner

 

Best DC of all time for the Dolphins- Bill Arnsparger- He was to Shula what Bill Bellichick was to Bill Parcells. Arnsparger is probably one of the best coordinators on either side of the ball in the history of the NFL.

The best offensive coordinator the Dolphins have had was Don Shula. He was able to adapt to the players around him and their strengths. When he had a team and it was better suited for the running game, he ensured that the teams OC called mainly running plays. When Marino arrived, Shula quickly adapted to a QB and receiving corp which was suited to a passing game. It never really mattered who the OC was during the Shula era. He was the person who dictated what type of attack the Dolphins would run, based on the personnel on his offense.

 

As long as I've been paying attention to football in a technical sense, I'd probably go like this:

Favorites
OC: Norv Turner/Chan Gailey(Neither coached particularly talented offenses, but I believe they did good jobs regardless)
DC: I think my favorite defense schematically was Richard Smith's in Nick Saban's first year.

 

Loved Scott Linehan.

 

not even close, you're letting recent bias cloud your judgement.

Worst was definitely Chris Foerester. probably go with Norv as our best.

 

How could ANY Dolphins fan over 30 years old not know and remember Gary Stevens?

 

Neither are/were coordinators.

 

I think it goes hand in hand. If you can't put your players in position to succeed they will have a hard time executing consistently. However you can position them perfect and if they don't execute you look bad.

 

I don't disagree. I was going to point it out myself, but I wanted to see how long it would take you. Turns out it took about 15 seconds. :up:

 

I answered the question I wanted to answer.

 

The primary offensive coordinator during the Super Bowl winning era was Howard Schnellenberger. He'd have to rank right up there. One could make a case that the 1973 team was better than the 17-0 team, and the OC for that one Super Bowl winning season was Bill McPeak. So, he'd be kind of a sleeper for best OC ever. Of course those early 70s teams were so good, and Griese and Morrall called their own plays, so I'd say even Aquafin could have been the OC and they'd have still won those Super Bowls.

 

I loved shula as much as the next Dolphin fan, but he wasn't the OC. Nor did it take any real genius to realize that it makes sense to pass more with Marino and to run more with Csonka/Morris/Kiick. I don't think there is anything to suggest that the OCs during those eras had to be coerced into doing what they did.

I'm a little surprised by the love for Norv Turner in this thread. I didn't think he was particularly good in Miami. We ran a lot and were pretty good at it with prime Ricky, but I never felt there was anything creative or dynamic about that offense. And Norv was arguably the one responsible for running Ricky into retirement with back to back 350+ carry seasons..

 

No one asked who our favorite and least favorite position coaches were.

 

Don't care

 

I agree with Norv but not Cam. Yes, he was a dumpster fire of a HC but as Ronnie Brown's de facto OC he got the desired results. I didn't agree with Cam's methods(making RB ret kicks) but at least he got RB to stop dancing behind the LOS.

 

Best OC - Dave Shula/Gary Stevens
Worst OC - Mike Sherman and any offensive coordinator since 1996. (sad, isn't it?)

 

Best Defensive Coord. - Bill Arnsparger
Worst Def. Coord. - Tom Olivadotti

Best Offensive Coord. - Gary Stevens
Worst O. Coord.. - Henning!

 

Olivadotti has got to be our worst DC ever. He may even be THE worst DC of any team ever. That play a yard off the ball and "react" crap was horrific. Just seeing his name again causes me anxiety.

 

Let's hope the answer is bill lazor

 

so number 2 and 3 on your list and you can't even spell their names or actually in the case of Linehan....know his name

 

Best:
OC - Schnellenberger.
DC - Arnsparger.

Cannot argue with results.

Worst:
OC: Dan Henning.
DC: Chuck Studley.

Remember the banner? Stuck Chuck Fudley?
He followed Arnsparger, ruined everything, and Olivadotti followed him.

 

I'm surprised an old timer like you does not remember the travesty of Vince Costello and his one year as DC in 1974.

Best DC- Arnsparger of course.
Worst - Costello. (Lou Costello could have done better with that defensive roster.)

Best OC - John Sandusky. After Schnellenberger left, there was no designated OC until the late 80s. Sandusky was listed as Offense/Offensive Line. Dave Shula was Receivers coach. Carl Taseff was Offensive Backfield and they were the entire offensive staff for most of the 80s. Sandusky was with Shula for 26 seasons between Baltimore and Miami, and it would probably be a tossup between he and Taseff as for who was Shula's favorite assistant.

Worst OC- Kippy Brown. Foerster was only OC for half a season, so he didn't have as much time to screw things up.

 

That was more a Chuck Studley thing. Studley was by far worse than Tom O, given the talent each had to work with. Vince Costello could seriously be the worst DC on any team ever. He only was able to hold that job for 1 season in Miami and 2 in KC though.

 

Henning was far too conservative, but he did have Chad Henne as QB... There's only so much one can do with the Robot.

 

I've been pretty consistent with my criticism of why I think Sherman was just plain dumb in this regard..but I'll say it again, I completely disagree with how he deployed this particular qbs skillset, starting with cutting his legs off, restricting him to the pocket, scolding him for taking off on his own thus inhibiting his instinct to run, basically not having the intellect to adapt his offense to our qbs skillset,.. unfortunately we only saw what our qb could do from the pocket..a pocket for which we found out, was no place for a young Qb..which makes it dumber..lol

 

The reason I feel that way about Olivadotti is partially biased. All of those seasons where the defense was one of the league's worst was during Marino's prime. In the early 90's we had a real chance at a championship but that guy couldn't figure out how to stop the Bills from running all over us. 3rd and 1 and we are lining up a yard off the ball. I live near Buffalo and had to watch those Bills games among Bills fans. The irony of it all is that in the early 90's, for a couple of years anyway, he actually had a decent defense. Couldn't stop the Bills though. Never really even made adjustments.

9 years that guy ran our defense, and for 7 of them we were bottom half of the league. It really was a bad system, which may have cost Marino at least another Superbowl appearance or two.

Olivadotti is our worst DC ever in my opinion because of the era that he failed (Marino's prime) and that he failed for so many years.

 

I agree completely with Arnsparger being the best DC. No one else even close IMHO.

But just as much Tom Olivadotti was clearly the worst. His stupid bend dont break schemes and generally passive defenses did cost us the best years of Dan Marinos career. It still makes me sick thinking about it now. We made the playoffs every year based on Dan's arm and nothing more. He sure didn't get any help from the defensive scheme at that time and Shula is as much to blame for sticking with that idiot.

 

I'd have liked to see Tannehill use his legs more too -- I think we have a pretty similar vision of how he could be used and the value of that dual threat QB. But I think you assume certain things that probably aren't entirely true. He didn't cut off Tannehill's legs or restrict him to the pocket. We even called designed runs for the QB and Tannehill was free to run when necessary (and he did sometimes). I can't say the general notion of taking a long-term view of the QB's development and trying to get him to go through his progressions before taking off to run is a bad idea. Time will tell. I don't think there is any indication that Sherman systematically or regularly scolded Tannehill for takign off an running. It may have happened on certain plays and in those specific instances it may have been because Tannehill had time and a wide open 3rd receiver who he missed.

Tannehill ran 40 times last year. Luck ran 63 and Russell and Kaepernick ran 90+. So we're talking about roughly 1-3 runs per game extra. I'd like to see those happen, but I think most of that was Tannehill. While he's a good athlete, he doesn't sense the pressure as well as Russell or Luck and doesn't have the same short area quickness and elusiveness. So there are a lot of plays that for Tannehill got scored as a sack, but which Russell or Luck would have escaped and run (thus adding to their rushing attempts).

 

just taking my statement he cut off his legs and restricted him to the pocket..and breaking down where that comes from..

I heard Sherman say last year when posed the question about why wasn't this athletic Qb running and scrambling more, "my Qb is going to be a pocket Qb, not a running one"...you don't think that conviction reared it's head on the practice field thus inhibiting any instincts Tannehill had in tucking and running?, doesn't the record sack total alone tell you that their was some serious Indecision from the Qb as to when to run and when to stay.

Now one could say that's how you teach a Qb to go thru their progressions, well, my disagreement there is because of two reasons, 1, you don't just have a pocket Qb on your hands, and 2, stealing a word from Trent Dilfer, our pocket that he was responsible for, was in total "conflict" the whole season by inadequate starting players on the NFL level..

Fineas, how are my assumptions not true when you say we have a similar vision for this Qb yet you are ok with Tannehill rolling out on a designed play 1 time a game.? I don't understand with those numbers your defense for Sherman actually designing runs for a very athletic Qb who excels doing so.?

If we have a similar vision then why don't you want more than a half of read option play a game.? Cause I surely want more than what he had called last year and considering every time he does run a read option he gets over 5 yards a carry and plants a residual affect on the defense.

Sherman screams to me a coach who lived in the past and tried to avoid as much as possible the dual threat capabilities that were available to him.

 

I don't recall the specific Sherman quote you are talking about, but Sherman clearly was not opposed to Tannehill running with the ball. He called plays specifically for Tannehill to run with the ball. Not as many as I'd have liked, but he did. And in college Tannehill ran about 5 times a game under Sherman And I think most OCs and QB coaches try to discourage young QBs from just taking off and running at the first sign of pressure. Whether the QB figures out the right balance between staying in the pocket and looking for an open receiver and running is really up to the QB. He's the one who has to make that decision and execute it. I simply don't recall hearing about Sherman blasting Tannehill for running or moving out of the pocket. There certainly was never talk of Tannehill being at risk of losing his job if he ran more. I see that you attribute Tannehill's indecision about running to Sherman. I don't.

You say Tannehill is not a pocket QB, but that isn't really true. Nobody is born a pocket QB. It is something that is learned and developed over time. Tannehill didn't play that much QB in college and has only 2 years in the NFL. But he is a pretty respectable pocket passer. The PFF breakdown that came out recently had Ryan as the 12th best pocket QB in the NFL notwithstanding the instability of that pocket last year.

I would like to see Tannehill roll out more, but he did it more like 1.6 times a game. You seem to think that most NFL teams do it much more than that. They don't. Only 4 NFL QBs did it more than one extra time per game. And I guess I am just not willing to call a guy with as much head coaching and offensive coordinating experience at both the NFL and college level a moron or an idiot for not calling an extra rollout or two per game. Especially since there is some downside to rolling out in terms of cutting off half the field, making the target more predictable, etc.

I do want to see more read option. If I was OC I would make it a central element of the offense and would probably do it more than any NFL coach does. But I am not the Dolphins' OC and I recognize that only 1-3 teams use it as a real significant part fo their offense and the other OCs are not idiots merely because they don't.

 

I didn't say he wasn't a pocket Qb, I said he has the skillset to do more, now I can't differentiate who was responsible for Tannehill not taking off when he Could have but that quote is real, I heard him say it and how he said it, I know it sounds out of my league to call an experienced professional dumb, I have a problem with myself for saying it, but, when you equate what was happy gig with our oline in terms of protection, the talent that that was missing on the bookend tackles, to only rollout a kid who is lethal on the run mind you, one time per game, and run the read option less than than one time per game, I find that to be absolutely not smart..

The quote from Sherman tells me he didn't give the kid a green light to freedom back there, so it's anyone's guess whether Tannehill has the ability to do So.

 

Tom Olivadotti was the greatest defensive mind in the history of the Dolphins.
I'd like to thank him for the aura's he's started before the seizure's kicked in.