Has Luck Bailed Adam Gase Out?

After several questionable personnel decisions made at the running back position, Adam Gase continues to find talent in the backfield. But has he been bailed out by luck?

Adam Gase coached a masterful game on Monday night as his Miami Dolphins pulled off a stunning upset over the reigning Super Bowl Champions, the New England Patriots, 27-20.

Per the Miami Herald, Gase said after the game that the Dolphins played “complementary football,” something the Dolphins have had trouble accomplishing all season.

The Dolphins’ Monday night performance appeared to be a continuation of what transpired last week, when the team manhandled the Denver Broncos 35-9. But impressive victories in back-to-back weeks have left many Dolphins’ fans scratching their heads, questioning where these types of performances have been all season.

Gase, who has openly criticized his players all year, has also waited for the Dolphins to play up to expectations.

“All three phases have been playing together,” he said. “We’ve been kind of waiting for this to happen. We’ll just keep going one at a time and see what happens.”

Despite an offseason plagued with bad news, many people within the Dolphins organization remained optimistic. Gase, who coerced his friend Jay Cutler out of retirement after Ryan Tannehill went down with a season-ending knee injury, had managed to gain the confidence of the team’s brain trust—and more importantly, its fans—after he ended Miami’s eight-year playoff drought in his first season as head coach.

But in the midst of a disappointing season, one where the Dolphins (6-7) have little chance at returning back to the playoffs, questions begin to circulate.

Was Gase’s success last year a fluke? Was it by happenstance? Is he the real deal?

Gase became the Dolphins’ 12^th head coach in January last year. Since then, he has undoubtedly changed the culture down in Miami. Players have adopted his “next man up” philosophy and walk around with a sense of arrogance.

Dolphins’ running back Kenyan Drake is one of these players.

“I feel like I try to go out there with a level of arrogance that I feel like I can go out there and help this team win in any way possible,” Drake said, per the Palm Beach Post, after the Dolphins Monday night victory over the Patriots. “My confidence has stayed pretty stagnant because regardless if I fumble or whatever the case may be, I’m going to go out there and prove that I can be a top-notch player.”

Drake, who became the Dolphins premier back after Damien Williams sustained a shoulder injury two weeks ago, has taken full advantage of his opportunities.

In his two weeks as the Dolphins’ starting running back, Drake has proven to be a valuable asset to an offense that has been in desperate need of a spark all season. In his two games as a starter, Drake has gained 234 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving.

Drake has made Miami’s offense more versatile, which, in return, has made it harder to stop. This was put on full display on Monday night as the nation witnessed the Patriots’ defense struggle to find answers to the wide variety of packages Gase and the Dolphins threw at it.

But these kinds of performances—although fun to watch—leave many people skeptical of Adam Gase, who was rewarded the Dolphins’ head coaching job due to his reputation as a young, offensive juggernaut and “quarterback guru.”

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Why has an offensive-minded coach like Adam Gase had such a hard time making the right personnel decisions, particularly at the running back position?

Does he have a plan, or is he the beneficiary of luck?

To try to answer these questions, let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

In his first year as head coach, Gase failed to lure his former running back C.J. Anderson to Miami. In response, Gase got Adrian Foster, an aging veteran with a long history of injuries.

The first-year head coach then made the decision to give Foster the Dolphins’ starting running back spot over Jay Ajayi, a promising second-year player out of Boise State, and Kenyan Drake, a rookie out of Alabama that the Dolphins selected in the third-round in that year’s draft.

As we saw, Gase didn’t make the right decision.

In just the second game of the season, Foster suffered a groin injury and winded up playing in only two more games that year as a reserve. But as luck had it, the next man up on the depth chart was Jay Ajayi.

Ajayi, the same player that Gase punished at the start of the season, which resulted in the second-year player being left home for the Dolphins’ season-opener at Seattle, was now, by luck, Gase’s new weapon.

For the rest of the season, Ajayi became the centerpiece to the Dolphins’ offense. Gase adapted his game plan to fit his newfound toy. Ajayi went on to make the Pro Bowl that year, running for 1,272 yards and eight touchdowns, including three memorable games in which he rushed for over 200 yards.

This season, however, Gase and the Dolphins couldn’t recapture last year’s magic. The offense struggled. Ajayi, behind a struggling offensive line, had trouble finding creases in opposing defenses. He also became a liability in the passing game, where he failed to provide adequate pass protection.

Gase, desperate for change, sent Ajayi packing to Philadelphia in exchange for a fourth-round pick next year. As a result, Gase looked to revamp the offense and made fourth-year veteran Damien Williams the starter over Kenyan Drake.

This proved to be another questionable decision by Gase.

Following Ajayi’s departure, Williams and Drake started sharing running back duties. But from the start, it was clear that Drake was what the Dolphins’ offense was missing, an elusive back with elite speed.

Against Oakland, Drake rushed for 69 yards on nine carries, including a 42-yard scamper down the right sideline. He also had six catches for 35 yards. The following week at Carolina, he had 82 yards rushing on seven carries, including a breakaway 66-yard touchdown.

On Monday night, Dolphins’ fans really got to witness Drake’s versatility. Aside from his impressive 114 yards rushing, Drake lined up several times at wide receiver, creating mismatches against covering linebackers, and caught five passes for 79 yards.

In the six games Drake has played in since Ajayi left, he has received more playing time, including back-to-back starts. In those games, he’s just shy of 600 all-purpose yards (591), including 409 rushing yards (5.1 average), 182 receiving yards (9.1 average) and three touchdowns.

So, what took Adam Gase so long to figure out he had a weapon on his roster? It’s the same question some of us asked when Ajayi fell into Gase’s lap last year.

Shouldn’t Gase, the proclaimed “guru,” be able to figure out what sort of personnel is wandering around the Dolphins’ practice field and utilize it properly?

Nonetheless, Gase appears to found something that works. In less than a year, he’s taken the Dolphins’ offense from a power-run game to what we saw on Monday night.

Maybe Gase is a genius. Maybe he’s lucky. Maybe he’s a little bit of both.

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