Miami Dolphins: Adam Gase in trouble as team falls apart

The Miami Dolphins once again looked ill-prepared for football in Week 4, thrusting coach Adam Gase into trouble as his team falls apart.

NFL Week 4 was an uncanny mess. Atlanta, New England, and Dallas all lost at home. The Rams have the best offense in the league, the Patriots have the worst defense, and the Bills and Jets are actually winning games. Nothing makes sense.

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Through all that, one location of ineptitude shined through. The Miami Dolphins are a wreck. Everyone loves Adam Gase as a head coach, yet his offense is one of the worst in the sport. Do we give him a pass for extenuating circumstances, or is it time to question his sideline aptitude?

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate the Miami Dolphins in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem

As far as circumstances go, Gase has a few playing against him. He lost his starting quarterback prior to the season and is using a man who retired and was no longer interested in playing. He also has a poor and porous offensive line at his disposal. Are these faults of his coaching or of the front office’s design?

Gase’s situation, at least parts of it, mirror that of Ben McAdoo on the Giants. How much falls on the shoulders of the offensive guru coach and how much is the fault of the roster given to him? I would normally lean toward the latter, but the way Sean McVay is succeeding with Jared Goff and the Rams makes everyone else look really bad.

Miami has star talent on offense, probably even more so than both New York and Los Angeles. Yet a coach can only do so much with a possibly out-of-touch quarterback and shaky offensive line. The Dolphins can’t convert third downs. They don’t succeed in the red zone. They have Matt Moore as an alternative at quarterback, but the franchise showed what it thought of him when it brought in Cutler in a rush in the first place. Gase isn’t in danger of being fired, but he is on the precipice of losing any benefit of the doubt.

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Dan Salem

As of a fan of the New York Jets, I am thoroughly enjoying the train wreck down in Miami. You failed to mention how Buffalo’s new head coach has turned around their defense in his own worst-to-first accomplishment of sorts. It was noted by many other writers how this could be a knock on Rex Ryan. I blame Gase for the Dolphins’ struggles in the same manner in which Ryan was fully accountable for the Jets and Bills downfalls during his tenure as coach. Miami is undisciplined on both sides of the football.

Since I’m a Jets fan, I watched the entire game they played against the Dolphins. I also saw half of Miami’s London game this past weekend, as the only matchup available at 7:00 a.m. on the west coast. They commit more penalties than seems humanly possible. Jay Cutler is worse than any quarterback I’ve watched start games in recent memory. He’s playing worse than Ryan Fitzpatrick with the Jets last year. Considering that Colin Kaepernick is still available, I’d say Miami’s problems are rooted in their coaching staff.

The Dolphins were nearly shut out two weeks in a row, by mediocre football teams. They scored against the Jets as time expired, so basically they did not score at all. Buffalo is a really good football team. I watched them stifle the Jets in Week 1. Then I watched as those same Jets humiliate the Dolphins. It’s not simply the play calling, or the lack of discipline. Miami is not playing like a team.

Those playmakers you mentioned are out there on their own. The offensive line can’t block for Jay Ajayi. Cutler has no time to find receivers, yet he can’t seem to throw an accurate pass when he does. The defense is so angry with the offense that they aren’t waiting for the ball to be snapped before starting a play. Adam Gase was lauded after last season, and rightfully so. But he must shoulder the blame here as well. A team has to be stronger than a single player, even if that player is your quarterback.

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Ryan Tannehill is certainly missed, but the Dolphins are a bad football team. The season is young, but much like the New York Giants, its over in Miami. We can question the hype of the Rams offense, despite it playing great, or the deficiency of the Patriots defense, despite it playing terrible, but Miami is bad. We know this because the Jets are not very good and the Saints are not very good. Yet they both looked stellar against the Dolphins. Put Gase on the hot seat. He’s made a mess of things.