Kelly: No Need To Sound the Alarm on Dolphins Offense
I’ve watched a lot of BAD Miami Dolphins offenses during my tenure covering this franchise since 2007.
Cam Cameron’s legendary one-and-done season was my entry point with this franchise, and I still have flashbacks of that 1-15 season in my nightmares.
The Chad Henne era lasted three years, and featured a ton of check-downs, and then it was followed by Ryan Tannehill and six seasons of watching Miami’s 2012 first-round pick get sacked 8-10 times a day in practice and annually lead the NFL in sacks taken.
My point is, I’ve lived through the struggle all Miami Dolphins fans have become familiar with until Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa ended the era of offensive ineptitude last season, producing the NFL’s sixth-most productive offense.
That’s why these last three practices, which featured a dismal performance in the Hard Rock Stadium scrimmage and two lackluster joint practices for the offense against the Atlanta Falcons, won’t faze me.
I've seen the abyss. This isn't it.
McDaniel’s offense isn’t struggling. It's not embarking on a sophomore season slump.
It’s experiencing some growing pains heading into Friday night’s preseason game against the Falcons, which likely won't include key starters like Tyreek Hill and Tagovailoa playing many snaps, if any.
"Some of the overall philosophical details of technique we were having to sell on guys. Now they can answer the test. Now they know when it’s not good enough. Now they have an expectation," McDaniel said earlier this week. "I would say I’m very pleased with where we’re at right now, it’s just an incomplete story. In terms of being from Year 1 to Year 2, I expect it to be much better. I feel like it is. But that means nothing if we just take steps backwards for the next two weeks.”
TIME TO EXPERIMENT FOR THE DOLPHINS OFFENSE
With exactly a month to go before the regular season opens on the road against the Los Angeles Chargers, there’s no better time to experiment with the offense — testing its limits — than now.
That’s why we’ve watched series after series of Tagovailoa lining up with Freddie Swain and Chris Coleman, two of the many undrafted receivers the NFL’s top-rated quarterback has lined up to work with this camp.
There’s a constant rotation of left guards and tight ends working with the first-team unit as Miami’s coaches audition for starting spots, and roles.
During this week’s practices we witnessed far less motion to the offense than I’m used to seeing. Why? Maybe because fans in attendance have started to film every possible second of practice, sharing it with the Internet.
Do the Dolphins look ready for the start of the NFL season? Not the offense. Not even close.
But this is the time to test the offense’s boundaries, and the limitations of what’s possible.
This isn’t an excuse for the last three days. It’s an explanation.
ARMSTEAD'S ABSENCE A FACTOR
Terron Armstead has participated in less than a dozen 11-on-11 snaps as he works his way back from a knee scope this offseason. The Pro Bowl left tackle won’t even sniff the field during the preseason, and considering his troublesome medical history, that’s absolutely fine.
Anyone whose eyes have seen practices at Miami’s Baptist Health Training facility can see that Robbie Chosen is one of the team’s top playmakers, but nobody can explain why he’s sparingly worked with Tagovailoa until injuries to Erik Ezukanma, Braylon Sanders and now Jaylen Waddle started to water down the receiver unit.
If the Dolphins really were focused on putting on a good show instead of fine-tuning the offense, helping it evolve from year one to year two, they would have started camp with Chosen higher on the depth chart, in my opinion.
We’d be watching tailbacks like Jeff Wilson and De’Von Achane work in their roles, not a rotation.
“The whole point of training camp is coming out here and getting better and improving each day on the things that we focus on,” said wide receiver River Cracraft.
A couple of the interceptions Tagovailoa has thrown the past three practices were in situational periods, third-down situations with time expiring and his options limited as his team was in need of a touchdown. Does that make it better? Not really, but players like Tagovailoa use failure as fuel.
“There were things that we wanted to try. So when you do go into the game, should you try it again? Should you not try it? That’s at your discretion,” said Tagovailoa, who led the NFL in a number of important statistical categories last season. “I think it’s good because you learn so much from those things. But outside of that, you just continue to keep moving forward with it and keep playing.”
That’s why these last three disappointing practices could end up being beneficial for the Dolphins in the long run, and not a warning sign that the offensive ineptitude this franchise has featured for two decades — until last season — has returned.
