Miami Dolphins head coach Adam Gase has the team moving

The Miami Dolphins have not been able to turn any corners in the last 15 years. They show subtle signs that they are heading in the right direction and then, the floor falls out from beneath them.

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Enter Adam Gase.

Nick Saban, Cam Cameron, Tony Sparano, and Joe Philbin could not get the team turned around. Bill Parcells from his executive chair couldn’t get the team turned around. Miami has been for the better part of 15 years, an after thought for anyone that isn’t a Dolphins fan.

Now there is a new head coach running the show. Fans have seen this before. A win here or a win there. Great play one week and horrible play the next. Step up against the Patriots and beat them then lose the following week to a team like the Browns.

Been there, seen that.

Could Adam Gase be different?

One of the defining legacies that were left by every one of the above named coaches is that they couldn’t change the atmosphere or the culture. They couldn’t develop players and they couldn’t adjust their coaching style and game plans to fit the players that they had on the roster.

We have to be real here as well. Adam Gase has coached 8 games as an NFL head coach and frankly the first five games of those eight were absolutely atrocious. So what changed?

For starters? Everything.

Personnel wise little has changed since those first five weeks but the biggest change came on the offensive line where Mike Pouncey returned and Branden Albert got healthy. That allowed the Dolphins to use the running game more effectively. But the Oline is not the only reason.

Gase himself changed the way he approached his play calling. Instead of being almost entirely pass oriented he has moved to a more balanced and sometime run heavy offense. It’s working. Why? The injured players have returned but Gase is seeing that he has strength in running the football and that has allowed him to take pressure off of Ryan Tannehill. Gase is now fitting his offense to his players abilities.

On the defensive side of the ball Vance Joseph had problems stopping the run and the pass. They benched Bryon Maxwell and saw him return when there was injury. Maxwell is playing better, Tony Lippett is developing, and on the defensive line Jordan Phillips is playing very well. Why? Because Joseph is coaching up his players. And like Gase on offense, it’s working.

Perhaps the biggest visual sign of improvement came on Sunday against the Jets. Miami not only came back to win, but they held on to the win. The Dolphins got a big surprise with the Kenyan Drake kick-off return for a touchdown but the Dolphins offense wasn’t playing badly and it seemed as though they may be able to make something happen.

While they didn’t need to the defense stepped up after that touchdown return and kept the Jets to a quick three and out. The offense controlled the rest of the game on the legs of Ajayi.

Overall Sunday was a sloppy game for both teams but the Dolphins won a game that in the past they would have easily given away at the end. Is this a sign that the Dolphins are turning a corner? Hard to say and if they are no one is going to say they are. Fans have been down this road before and frankly everyone knows how it tends to turn out.

If however the players are starting to see what the coaches are teaching and they start believing in the systems that are in front of them, they will start having fun and that leads to winning. A three game winning streak is nothing special but a three game winning streak for a team who narrowly beat the only winless team in the NFL and lost four other games in the first five weeks, well that is something to build upon.