Adam Gase falls victim to sophomore slump with losing season

Miami’s loss to Kansas City officially gives the Dolphins a losing season, and eliminates them from postseason play. It was not what Adam Gase was hoping for in his second season as head coach.

It was a tough season for Adam Gase and the Miami Dolphins to say the least. Miami’s obstacles started even before the season kicked off. First, they lost their starting QB Ryan Tannehill for the season with a torn ACL that he sustained during training camp. The following week or so, rookie LB Raekwon McMillan suffered the same fate in the Dolphins opening preseason game. A crushing blow on both sides of the ball for Miami.

This was expected to be Tannehill’s “breakout” season after already completing a season under Gase. McMillan, although a rookie, had looked phenomenal in training camp, and was poised to become a leader of the defense. Every team in the NFL had to deal with more than their fair share of injuries this season, but it seemed as though the Dolphins got a head start in that category above all of them.

After the preseason was complete, Miami’s season was delayed due to Hurricane Irma. The massive storm forced the Dolphins and the Bucs to reschedule their opener for Week 11, virtually giving neither team a much needed bye week during the season. After all that was seemingly behind them, a video of their longtime offensive line coach surfaced of him presumably snorting an illegal substance. The video led Chris Foerster to resign from his position with the team.

Despite all of the distractions and bumps in the road, Miami still remained in the playoff hunt up until this past weekend when they were officially eliminated from contention by Kansas City. The fight of this team showed how high their potential could be, and speaks admirably for how Gase has conducted this team through two seasons.

While Gase deserves some praise for what he’s been able to accomplish under foggy conditions, he deserves some criticism as well. The fact is that Gase did not have a great season this year in terms of coaching, and the product on the field reflected that often. He himself even publicly admitted at times that his play-calling was below standards as far back as Miami’s first game against the Chargers.

“I wasn’t giving our guys a good chance”, Gase said, after the Dolphins win over San Diego. Throughout the season, there were many puzzling and predictable play calls by Gase that often turned drastic. By no means does it mean that Gase is a bad coach, far from it actually. A lot of coaches would’ve crumbled from the start with the cards this team was dealt this season, but Gase continued to get this team fighting.

Obviously, Gase had to be doing some things right for Miami to stay in the playoff hunt. He was harshly criticized for Miami’s shocking trade of Jay Ajayi prior to the trade deadline. Ajayi was considered one of Miami’s best players at the time, and traded for little compensation in return. However, the trade turned out to benefit the Dolphins as it gave Kenyan Drake the role of lead back. After that, Miami became one of the best rushing teams in the league for the second half of the season.

Gase had some great games doing the play-calling, most notably in Week 14, when the Dolphins upset the Patriots in convincing fashion. He had some not so great games as well, and it resulted in some embarrassing losses for Miami.

At the conclusion of last season, I wrote a piece stating that Gase could be in for a sophomore slump this year much to the dismay of readers. The loss to Kansas City, however, officially gives the Dolphins a losing season, a large fall from their 10-6 season and playoff berth a year ago.

Things could have (and likely would have) gone differently if Gase had Tannehill all season, but Gase is the one that pushed for Jay Cutler to come out of retirement after RT went down. He was the one that convinced Stephen Ross that Cutler was worth the $10 million for the course of the season. A losing season negates all of that.

Aside from the play-calling and bringing Cutler in, Miami committed a ton of mental errors throughout the season. Mental errors will always circulate back to coaching. It was almost a given to see Ndamukong Suh and company jump offsides at least once per game. It wasn’t uncommon to see a player commit a dumb penalty either such as an unsportsmanlike conduct after stopping the opponent on third down.

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Penalties such as these reflect back onto the coaching staff, and it shows that Gase does not yet have the full grasp of his team. That’s a problem. It doesn’t mean that Miami will be looking for a new head coach this offseason, but if the Dolphins start off slow next year, the rumblings will begin. When healthy, Miami has a solid team, but they can ill afford to give other teams second and third chances because of stupid mistakes.

Aside from three controversial touchdowns overturned in their favor this season, a large part of the Patriots continued success stems from them being a smart team. It’s very rare that you will see a New England player commit a penalty or do something foolish that would cost his team. Even Rob Gronkowski waited until the Patriots were up by 20 in the 4th quarter to do his WWE move on a defenseless player that led to his one-game suspension. As much as we may hate them, Bill Belichick‘s team understands that it’s very hard to win a game in this league, but it’s very easy to lose it.

Gase was hit from all different angles this year, and although he fought valiantly, it did indeed turn out to be a sophomore slump for him. He’ll have his shot at redemption in 2018, however, with Miami the likely candidate to contend with New England for the AFC East crown. This season was a good learning experience for Gase. It may be time for him to relinquish the play-calling duties, and focus more on being the head coach rather than a coordinator. Despite the setback, this is still his team, and with a healthy roster, he should have the Dolphins competing for the playoffs once again in 2018.

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