The Miami Dolphins need patience and stability from Stephen Ross

Stephen Ross is either too patient or not patient enough depending on how you feel about the men he’s hired to coach the Miami Dolphins.

Everyone has an opinion on Adam Gase’s inability to produce tangible results during his tenure just like Philbin before him. Most feel neither coach was very good. I get that. But, do we really know? Is three or four years enough time to tell? In Philbin’s case, I believe it was for several reasons. He had stability at QB and the team was regressing. Bullygate happened on his watch and that dealt a crushing blow to the offensive line which they’ve yet to fully recover from. As time went on you could tell the players were not producing and there were signs his message was not being well received. I believe most thought after his third season he wasn’t going to be the answer. Stephen Ross gave him a fourth.

Adam Gase’s story is similar in some ways and very different in others. Gase came in with a stellar reputation for being a quarterback whisperer. The problem he faced was he had miserable luck in keeping Tannehill healthy. It’s pretty tough to win with a very average roster without your starting QB, especially when Cutler and Osweiler were your primary backups. He had nobody to blame but himself as those two players were surely his decision, but the mismanagement of the salary cap preceded him and hindered him greatly. That wasn’t his fault.

The decisions to let Pouncey, Ajayi and Landry walk were somewhat surprising, but also explainable if you consider the cap situation. Was it his inability to want to manage the personalities? Or were they cap related? Tough to say with certainty, but it’s also tough to compete without talented players. The Pouncey move backfired as Kilgore quickly landed on injured reserve. Ajayi’s departure felt more like a punishment in nature as it was clear there was a disconnect there.

Gase clearly wanted more out of Ajayi then he was willing or able to give. The Pouncey decision I felt was the wrong one at the time as he was recovering from a pretty significant surgery and I knew he’d get stronger with time and another offseason and that’s exactly what happened. Still, though, Pouncey was expensive and many questioned if he would be worth the expense, a fair point at the time. Either decision would be a gamble and it’s apparent now Gase and Grier made the wrong one. We can second guess all these decisions, I suppose, but the end result is they were worse at center. They were worse in the slot as Amendola does not have Landry’s ability.

Losing Ajayi didn’t really hurt the club as much as many thought it would, but it would have been nicer to have him as he brings a toughness that we lack. The real mystery to myself and many others was the use or lack of use of Kenyan Drake. He’s explosive, if not disciplined. He needed to be more involved in the offense and used with a little more creativity.

The biggest offensive issue on this team throughout both these tenures were sub-par offensive lines combined with a quarterback seriously lacking the ability to function under duress. Neither coach could field a productive line or coax more out of Tannehill.

The defense went into the 2018 season lacking talent. McMillan was a mystery, Alonso was at best a liability in coverage, and Baker was a rookie. On the backend another rookie in Fitzpatrick, Howard proved to be a stud when healthy, and apparently, Rashad Jones and Matt Burke/Adam Gase were not agreeing on his positioning or role in the defense. McCain played various roles, but when placed outside didn’t fare particularly well. This all due to the coaches inability to get Tankersly or McTyer ready to contribute in camp.

Up front, the defense was a mess severely lacking a pass rush and the Wide-9 was rigorously tested against the run. The wide-9 never appeared to work as intended with this teams personnel.

So the team regressed on both sides of the ball for many reasons, coaching, youth, injury, scheme, poor play, and lack of depth.

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Seeing this, Ross decided a rebuild was mandatory and according to reports Gase wasn’t on the same page. We’ll never know the whole story.

What we do know is rebuilding can take some time. Ross has to be patient with Brian Flores and Chris Grier and let them struggle through it if it is indeed a struggle at all. He’s got to fully commit to letting the process work. That means closing his eyes for 3 years while the staff clears the roster of players not producing to the level of their salaries. That means giving Grier time to bring in talent and the coaches enough time to mold that talent into a tough, disciplined team.

They’ll need to make some tough decisions along with a few mistakes along the way. This team needs stability in the worst way. The management has to have that long-term vision they keep referring to, but rarely practice.

There is no logical excuse for not having a legit QB and back up QB. There is no excuse for not having a functional offensive line. There is no excuse for a team light in talent to be in cap difficulties. The Dolphins need to be better from the top down. Ross needs to know when to be patient and when not to be. It’s usually pretty obvious.

Only then can we see the team we’d all like to see.