Miami Dolphins Joe Philbin Doesn’t Get It

It’s breaking news I know. “Tell me something we don’t know”, yeah I get that too. When it comes to Miami Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin the deer in the headlights look isn’t cutting it anymore. Joe Philbin is etching himself into Miami Dolphins history right along with Cam Cameron and Dave Wannstedt. Is is sacrilege to say I would take Wannstedt about right now? In comparison Wannstedt now seems like he got it a little more. I mean he didn’t lose the team until year five.

Nick Saban wasn’t a winner in Miami but at least he was an ass. Joe Philbin is neither.

Three years into Joe Philbins coaching career and fans still ask if he is paying too much attention to untied shoes and gum wrappers than anything else. A nod back to his debut on HBO’s Hard Knocks. Philbin, like his team isn’t progressing. He is regressing. He doesn’t get “it”. It’s been said a million times that teams emulate their coaches on the field and off. In Miami the team on the field is almost as boring as the man on the sidelines. Hey Bill Belichick is boring but he is ass-jerk boring which means that you laugh at his answers knowing he is deliberate in his actions. Philbin is just plain boring.

The Dolphins are down by two scores with two minutes left in the half. They have time outs. They get the ball between their 15 and 25 yard line. They have done little all game. Option one is to take advantage of the hurry up offense and get in position to make at least a field goal, option B is to run it out. In the last two weeks the Dolphins have been in both situations and Philbin has opted for both options. Continuity? Lack of ingenuity? How about lack of trust in his players and a cave to the media who complained about option B’s use? All of the above?

On Sunday across the field Andy Reid didn’t do anything overly impressive to win the game,  he doesn’t need to. Andy Reid is an inspiring coach. He gets in a players face when they make mistakes and he charges after a referee when the ref makes one. Brian Hartline walks off the field after scoring a touchdown and getting flagged for his celebration and he and Philbin are having a casual chat on the sideline which Hartline clearly defending his actions to the coach. Do you think a player would defend that to Reid? Belichick? Coughlin? Harbaugh one or two? Not likely. In Miami you can do that because Philbin isn’t a strong coach.

Believe it or not Philbin is officially on any hot seat. Stephen Ross hired Philbin. In fact it was Ross and Dawn Aponte who got the coach they wanted over Jeff Ireland’s choice of Mike McCoy. It was Ross, Aponte, and Philbin who led a haphazard off-season search for a new general manager.

According to the Palm Beach Post Philbin isn’t worried about losing the team or his team in general but he has not answers either and the ones he gives now point to the fact that he has no answers.

"“We’ve got to determine what we’re going to do,” Philbin said. “We’ve got to back to work. We’ve got to go across the Atlantic Ocean and we’re going to have to play a lot better. We’re not playing well enough over the last two weeks to win a football game in the National Football League. It’s hard to say, but that’s the facts. That’s what my eyes told me.”“So it’s a long season. We’re 1-2 right now. We’re going to have to circle the wagons. We’re going to have to play a lot better.”"

That doesn’t cut it anymore. He should know what they are doing. He should be 100% aware about who is not doing their job and who is and then fix it. The Dolphins are still tinkering and that, as history has told us, doesn’t work. The Dolphins players were so excited coming out of pre-season at the faster pace and style of the offense and defensively how the shift of a couple of players would make all the difference but once the season started where did it go?

This all rests on the shoulders of Joe Philbin and he has no excuses and if this continues, a very likely scenario, he won’t have a job come January.

The problem in Miami is Joe Philbin, much like his quarterback, isn’t a leader. Philbin doesn’t inspire his players in the locker room, evidenced the last two weeks by how flat they were to open the games. They should have learned that from their first half performance in week one. Philbin has no sense of urgency, no fire in his actions, no drive to be the best. In fact Philbin seems more intent on fixing what’s wrong on the field at the next practice instead of making the right choices and changes during the game when they matter the most.

"“We’ll look at how we’re calling things, we’ll look at practice, we’ll look at anything,” he said. “We have to start better. It’s not a good formula to be down on average 10 points over three weeks. It’s not a good way to play.”"

Nothing he said includes examining how he is calling a game. Those are things you correct during the week? A team should be preparing for their next opponent instead of trying to figure out why they are not getting right personnel on the field in the right situations. Great coaches, even good coaches do that during the game. It’s called “adjustments” and we hear it every week on Sunday’s.

Philbin is digging a hole and frankly the players are not going to stand around with shovels to dig them out. They don’t have that drive, like their coach. The players are not going to want it if Joe Philbin doesn’t show he wants it too, and he doesn’t get that.