Miami Dolphins: Explaining Jordan Cameron’s struggles

The Miami Dolphins replaced Charles Clay with Jordan Cameron at the tight end position this offseason, but instead of being an upgrade for his new team, Cameron has actually given his old team, the Cleveland Browns, an upgrade, as current Browns TE Gary Barnidge has out played him this season, allowing the veteran journeyman to ink an extension earlier this week.

So far this season, the Miami Dolphins offense is just 27th in scoring, 29th in yards per game, and 29th in net yards per pass attempt, as Ryan Tannehill has noticeably regressed as a passer after previously showing enough year-to-year progress to warrant an extension in the 2015 offseason. Despite the fact that the Dolphins have stocked his cupboard with weapons, Tannehill has produced merely average stats, which, in all honesty, have flattered him. His struggles against divisional foes are well-known at this point, but, as always, it’s all too easy to start explaining the struggles of a 5-7 team by pointing at the QB.

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DeVante Parker, Kenny Stills, Greg Jennings, and Jordan Cameron were the Dolphins three big pass-catching additions to this offense this season, and, out of all three of the players, only Parker has managed to make a significant mark. The first-round pick out of Louisville has put up over 60 yards and a touchdown in each of his past two games since returning from an injury, and, well, that’s more production than what the other three have managed to this point.

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Stills has looked good at times, but he’s went from being one of the league’s most fearsome deep threats and breakout candidates to being a seldom-used afterthought in the Dolphins rather drab offense. Meanwhile, Jennings looks “done”, contrary to what I thought before the season started, and Cameron has been a monumental flop through 13 weeks.

Cameron’s lack of production has been especially puzzling, because many of us thought he would play a profound role in the offense. We all saw how Clay thrived in 2014, and we expected similarly big things out of an even more athletic player. After all, Cameron caught 80 passes in 2013 despite playing with historically poor Browns quarterbacks, and he even flashed 17.7 yards per reception as a seam-stretching TE last season amidst concussion issues.

This season, Cameron has just 25.5 yards per game and 11.8 yards per reception on his resume, and the arrow is pointing downwards. Whereas Jarvis Landry and Rishard Matthews have shined in the Dolphins short-and-intermediate heavy passing attack (befitting of Tannehill’s quarterbacking style, of course), Cameron has failed to feature in the Dolphins intermediate passing game.

In fact, the 27-year-old USC product is the owner of a rancid 44.8% catch rate, which puts him in between Stills and Parker in the catch rate range. However, Parker and Stills can easily justify their low catch rates, since they both average more than 17 yards per reception. Cameron? He hasn’t been a big-play threat in the Dolphins offense, meaning that he’s also the owner of an even more unsightly 5.3 yards per target.

Essentially, that means Cameron, who should have been a marquee free agent addition to Tannehill’s rather impressive arsenal of weapons, has been one of the worst pass-catchers in the NFL this year. It’s hard to justify a yards per target average that low, particularly when Tannehill’s 7.1 yards per attempt is hovering around the “mediocre” mark.

Recently, Dolphins interim head coach Dan Campbell stated that he wants to see more from his starting tight end, which prompted this excellent column from the Miami Herald’s Armando Salguero.

Part of what makes Salguero’s piece so good is the final line, “(I hate this offense),” which came before his plea for the Dolphins to get Cameron involved on deeper routes. Because, you know, Cameron averaged more than 17 yards per catch in his final season with the Browns.

The problem isn’t necessarily the deeper routes, and I’d actually like to call “BS” on the following comment from Tannehill.

When asked why Cameron hasn’t been involved much, Tannehill said, “I don’t know that’s a good question. I think that’s something that we took a step back and looked at last week is ‘Hey, we want to get our tight ends involved more.’ We have good athletes, good players and we’ve had a few opportunities, but we need to get them involved more. They’re not showing up like we want them to, like we think they should and I think that’s our fault as an offense of not getting them involved as much as we can. That’s something we’re looking forward to do over the next four games.”

Let me do some digging for you, with the help of Pro Football Focus and Pro-Football Reference.

I have no knowledge of the Dolphins situation in the locker room, and so maybe it isn’t my place to speculate here. But when I look at all of the numbers, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a fundamental trust issue between Tannehill and Cameron that needs to be solved via the coaching staff’s help.

See, in the first two weeks of the regular season, Cameron looked like a real “hit” in the Dolphins offense. In Week 1, he caught four passes for 73 yards against the Washington Redskins before following that up with three catches for 62 yards.

However, in the three games after those two outings, Cameron was targeted on four Tannehill-thrown interceptions, never catching more than three passes in any of those games. Against the Tennessee Titans in Week 6, Cameron had a touchdown reception, in which he held onto the ball after a vicious shot from safety Da’Norris Searcy, but he also was targeted on two picks, including one that was a blatant drop on his part.

Dec 6, 2015; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill (17) scrambles during the second half against the Baltimore Ravens at Sun Life Stadium. The Dolphins won 15-13. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

After that Week 6 game against the Titans, Cameron was never targeted more than five times in a single game. And in the two instances in which he was targeted exactly five times, the former Browns receiver caught just two passes.

Here’s the breakdown.

First six weeks: 7.2 targets per game (a lot)

Last seven weeks: 3.1 targets per game (a little)

Yeah, that’s a big difference. After averaging an outstanding 12.3 yards per target in his first two games of the 2015 season, Cameron averaged a ghastly 2.6 yards per target in that infamous stretch of three games that included four picks from Tannehill. Yes, you read that right, 2.6. I mean, that’s even worse than the number of yards per carry Daniel Thomas used to average as a rusher in the Dolphins offense.

Who’s fault was the 2.6 yards per target average? That’s hard to figure out, and here’s an example of why it’s a difficult question to answer. Linked to this sentence is the GIF of Tannehill’s pick in Week 3 when targeting Cameron (hat/tip to the NFL’s YouTube channel).

You be the judge. Was that Cameron running the wrong route, or was it just a really awful throw/decision/everything from Tannehill?

I already wrote earlier in this piece that Cameron has a 44.8% catch rate this season, but that stat doesn’t tell you the whole story. Per PFR, Cameron’s 60.0% catch rate on third downs is the highest on the team of the four Dolphins WRs and TEs with at least ten targets on third downs. Landry leads the Dolphins with 33 targets on third downs, but he catches just 48.5% of those, which is well below his season average catch rate of 67.5%.

That leads me to wonder if Tannehill doesn’t understand how to use Cameron effectively, in addition to his inability to trust him completely after that awful three-week stretch.

When I say “awful three-week” stretch, is that an indictment of Cameron or of Tannehill?

Take a look at these stats:

Week 3 26-of-49, 2 TD, 3 INT, 6.1 Y/A

Week 4 19-of-44, 2 TD, 2 INT, 4.5 Y/A

Week 6 22-of-29, 2 TD, 2 INT, 9.2 Y/A

So after Joe Philbin was fired, Tannehill’s numbers bounced back. Cameron’s? They didn’t, and, again, both of the picks Tannehill threw were when targeting his tight end.

That’s when Cameron’s role in the offense unraveled. His decline in production after the first two weeks overlapped with Tannehill’s drop in form, and it never recovered. The Dolphins pulled him out of the offense, and his numbers never rebounded since then.

There’s a lot of noise here, but that’s OK, because we can still come up with some explanations and build a tentative narrative for Cameron’s issues as a larger function of the Dolphins offense.

First of all, we know that Cameron’s decreased role and production can be seen at an exact point in time. Secondly, we know that both he and Stills are explosive offseason additions who haven’t been used extensively or to the best of their abilities this season.

Feel free to draw your own conclusion, but here’s my hypothesis.

The Dolphins don’t have a real plan set in place for what they want to do on offense, and they aren’t creative enough to try new things or use explosive, playmaking types like Cameron and Stills. Instead, they are perfectly content with asking Tannehill to make simple passes, perhaps out of fear that he’ll regress to the form he showed against the Jets and Bills who both have tough defenses and know how to play him (again, he stinks against AFC East opponents). There’s nothing wrong with using stars like Landry and Rishard Matthews frequently, especially since both players have been extremely effective thus far.

However, it’s important to remember that Cameron played well in Week 1 and Week 2, and he looked like a legitimate feature piece of the offense before he failed to make the most of his opportunities in three separate games. I think Campbell and the Dolphins looked at his poor performance against Tennessee and figured, ‘OK, we have a new regime in place, and we don’t want Tannehill to struggle again.’

Out of sheer fear, they scaled back Cameron’s role, saw that he still wasn’t making an impact, and haven’t given him a bigger chance since then. As opposed to modifying his role or trying to do something clever to coax more production out of him, the Dolphins have been content with keeping him as an afterthought.

Campbell’s recent comments could indicate that the Dolphins have noticed his rather promising numbers on third downs and are perhaps willing to try something to help Cameron and Tannehill develop a connection that seemed to be budding in the first two weeks before the INTs- and other issues- tore it apart.

Now, all of this could be completely wrong, but it will be interesting to see what Week 14 holds. The Dolphins will face the New York Giants on Monday Night Football, and the Giants are a safety-less team that is notoriously poor at covering tight ends. Per Football Outsiders, they allow a ludicrous 78.2 receiving yards per game to TEs, which means that if the Dolphins can’t experiment with Cameron this week, then they might as well announce themselves as the least creative minds on the offensive side of the ball in the league.

Nov 8, 2015; Orchard Park, NY, USA; Miami Dolphins tight end Jordan Cameron (84) against the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

There’s no reason why Cameron and Tannehill can’t get on the same page, and if it takes, as Salguero suggests in his column, different route combinations, then so be it. But don’t phase a guy out of your gameplan completely just because he didn’t bounce-back at the same time Tannehill did.

It takes a team effort, and hopefully the Dolphins find a way to get something out of Cameron. There is no doubt that Cameron’s struggles are more than just partially on him, but, again, this is a guy who flourished and had his breakout season with crappy quarterbacks.

Tannehill has his issues, but he is clearly NOT a crappy quarterback. Maybe he’s only “average”, but he is more than good enough for a player with Cameron’s physical tools to work with.

The Dolphins need to give him another chance, change their approach, and hope that he can look like a better offseason signing with time.

Sadly, there’s a good chance Cameron doesn’t get back on track, but we all saw him produce in the first two weeks and for good chunks of time in Cleveland.

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Nobody doubts his talent, and the Dolphins felt good enough about him to sign him this past offseason; it’s time for the Dolphins to truly integrate him back into their offense, especially since they’ve been one of the league’s worst scoring offenses this year.

What they are doing isn’t working despite Matthews’s and Landry’s numbers, so a new wrinkle is needed, and that wrinkle just might be a new, improved role for Cameron, who will, hopefully, greatly improve his efficiency as a result.

When you have a 6’5″, 260-pound tight end who is capable of catching 80 passes in a season (he’s done it before), “trust” is an important word. With no more than two receptions in a game since mid-October and no games with five catches or more, Cameron hasn’t been given much of a chance to earn Tannehill’s trust after losing it rather quickly.