Miami Dolphins Chad O’Shea thinks scheme is about players

The Miami Dolphins new offensive coordinator spoke for the first time with media about his vision for the Dolphins offense and the scheme he will use.

For 18 years Chad O’Shea was comfortable coaching the wide-receivers for the New England Patriots. He made Julian Edelman a star and was a catalyst to the development of Wes Welker as well. Now he is tasked with taking a mundane ordinary and average offense and making them something exciting and great.

O’Shea needs to use his time in New England and translate that to building a strategy and conceptual vision that will help ramp up the Dolphins offense and make them successful. His vision for the future seems to be one that is driven by the skill set of the players. An old concept of success but one that Dolphins coaches have failed to accomplish in the past.

(Conceptually, what is your vision for an NFL offense in terms of strategy? I know you come from the Patriots system where you guys were pretty multiple in terms of what you were doing, but how do you create that? How do you create that as an offense conceptually?)

"“I think that you have a foundation and some core beliefs that you have offensively, but I think the key is to do what your players do well. It’s our job as a coaching staff to identify what are the skillsets of the players and how can we utilize that skillsets to be a productive offense. That’s why we don’t talk about specific scheme. We talk about being multiple. We talk about being able to adjust. That’s a word that definitely is an important part of our offense is the ability for the coaches to adjust in the way we think as far as our scheme, and our players to be able to adjust and might be able to adjust weekly depending on what we need to do to win the game.” – MiamiDolphins.com"

Clearly what O’Shea is talking about is something that is evident under Bill Belichick. In New England the Patriots will change their approach on offense to suit the team they are playing. They have been a passing team that features the slot receiver, a tight-end featured team with multiple TE sets, a strong running game, a power running game, and so on. The talent is there but the Patriots get more out of their talent than any other team.

The reason is simple, they do what Chad O’Shea believes the Dolphins should do. Adjust the coaching to fit the skillset of the players they have.

O’Shea has a big task in front of him but he has talent. Once they are healthy. Kalen Ballage, Kenyan Drake, Albert Wilson, Jakeem Grant, Kenny Stills, and yes even Mike Gesicki. Under Adam Gase, those players were expected to fit into Gase’s plans and system but what if Gase would have fit his system to those players instead of the other way around?

That is what we are hoping to see with O’Shea and Brian Flores and Patrick Graham on defense. Schemes that fit the skillsets and coaches who can identify those skills and tailor the schemes to fit those abilities. If O’shea can deliver on that lip service, Miami might be able to find themselves turning a corner.