Can Miami Dolphins afford shaky line play?

The Miami Dolphins have completed four practices thus far in training camp and so far the offensive line has not looked good. Dolphins coaches still believe that the line will come along and that playing together will help get the unit up to par. For now however the fan base waits for that happen and they are concerned.

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Visit a fan forum and talk centers around signing free agent Evan Mathis. Talk continues about the offensive line play being poor. Joe Philbin doesn’t feel that way.

"(On if it is too early to be concerned about the offensive line’s pass protection) – “Yeah, I think it’s their second day in pads, it’s a little bit too early, but obviously you want the quarterback to feel confident and comfortable back there. You want him to be able to follow through on his throwing motion, so the ball doesn’t hang in the air. There’s a lot of things that go into it, but you want to see it improve and I’ll take a look at it when I watch the tape. If you had to say what was a general reaction, I would say that we have to be a little firmer (with the) pocket.”(On if chemistry will help the offensive line get better) – “A little bit. I think a little bit. Yeah, sure, yeah, I think so.” – from official transcripts of today’s post-practice interview with Joe Philbin."

The Dolphins used Sam Brenner today at right guard and the competition now may be a three way battle between Brenner, Dallas Thomas, and Billy Turner. The problem is none of them are shining. On the left side Jamil Douglas, the teams rookie guard is showing signs that he can elevate to this level but questions still remain.

Forget about the Dolphins practicing against a top defensive front, the AFC East is dotted with savvy veteran defensive lineman and the New York Jets made their top pick the top defensive lineman in this past years draft. In other words, there will be no cake walks for the offensive line.

Enough film exists on Dallas Thomas to show he is not capable of holding down the guard position. Billy Turner is an unknown spending his rookie season injured and inactive. Sam Brenner is the teams primary back-up center. With the guards a question mark the hole at left tackle is also becoming evident. Jason Fox has not looked good in pass protection either. In part because of Douglas lining up next to him and in part due to his own difficulties.

The Dolphins at least have the hopes of Branden Albert rejoining full practices as training camp progresses.

For all the moves made this off-season that have included an overhaul at wide-receiver, a new top tier tight end, defensive additions, the offensive line has been relatively untouched. At some point the Dolphins need to stop relying on 4th and 5th round draft picks to progress and fix the problem. It’s been an ongoing issue. The last good guard they had was Richie Incognito. Something needs to give.

The Dolphins can not expect to compete for the division let alone a wild card playoff spot until answers on the offensive line are found. This is not to say that Miami needs to immediately jump into negotiations with Mathis, just that they need to find a solution. The constant rotation of players in and out of the guard positions hasn’t worked and once again we are seeing early in camp that they are content to continue the trend.

The good news is that the Dolphins line has plenty of time to get acclimated with each other and find that continuity that Philbin talked about. He better hope he is right because if they can’t get the offensive line play to improve, it may just be the end of Joe Philbin in Miami. How ironic that would be given his coaching history that includes being an offensive line coach. Then again, Tony Sparano was an offensive line coach and he too couldn’t fix that part of the team.

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