Miami Dolphins: Has Adam Gase lost control of the team?

With yet another embarrassing primetime loss, fans are beginning to wonder if Adam Gase truly is the answer for the Miami Dolphins.

Had the Miami Dolphins been able to escape Carolina with a win yesterday, they would have moved to 5-4 on the season and leapfrogged the Buffalo Bills for the final Wild Card spot. So if it feels like a bit of hyperbole when you read this piece, it’s understandable. It feels strange to be writing a “the sky is falling” type article with the team only one game under .500.

But if you watched Monday night’s game, you saw a team that looked utterly and completely defeated. Worse, a team that looked like it has given up. After what fans saw, and have been seeing all season, it’s fair to wonder if head coach Adam Gase has completely lost control of this team — or if he ever even had control to begin with.

The Luke Kuechly interception. It was a mistake. A large mistake that killed a drive that could have tied the game or given Miami the lead going into halftime. A momentum killer, sure, but in the grand scheme of a game, it should have been a nothing play.

Instead, it turned out to be “the straw the broke the camel’s back,” as the Panthers went on to score on five consecutive drives. Watching your team get blasted like that is never easy, but it would have been easier to stomach if the Dolphins looked to be trying. Instead, after the interception and subsequent score, Miami looked like they had given up and accepted their fate.

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The rest of the game was Carolina consistently gashing the Dolphins defense in what may be the worst performance I’ve seen in more than 20 years watching this team.

Monday’s loss was the last in a string of three embarrassing prime-time performances. Dolphins fans were left scratching their heads and with a number of questions. One of the most prevalent seems to be, “Do we still trust in Adam Gase?” The Dolphins are still very much in the playoff picture, despite falling to 4-5 on the season. Gase led the team to their first playoff appearance in eight years last season. And yet, it seems like the sky is falling. With Gase taking a majority of the heat.

One look at the Dolphins offense — or lack thereof — this season and it’s easy to see why fans are on the fence about Gase just one season after heaping so much praise upon him. New Dolphins quarterback Jay Cutler is among the worst in the league in terms of average yards per pass. Wide receiver Jarvis Landry leads the league in receptions, but is 37th in the league in yardage. The 66-yard scamper by running back Kenyan Drake was Miami’s first rushing touchdown of the season.

They are an offense completely devoid of any identity, or production. For a coach brought in on offense prowess and touted as a “quarterback guru”, that’s a problem.

Perhaps even more troubling than the lack of offensive identity is the lack of control. Gase has often positioned himself to the media as a control-freak. Monday’s performance, however, made it clear that he still has not taken control of this team. Control isn’t a new issue for Gase in his time with this team. He’s called out his own players several times in the media questioning their commitment to learning his offense and doing things “the right way”. It’s hard to imagine it wasn’t the impetus behind the Jay Ajayi trade to Philadelphia. But control is still not there. I’m not sure it ever was to begin with.

Sweeping changes in an effort to send a message and regain control of the team isn’t a new tactic for Gase. Just last season, in the wake of terrible offensive performances, Gase abruptly handed Jamil Douglas, Dallas Thomas and Billy Turner their pink slips. The moves seemed to produce the desired effect, as the Dolphins went on a torrid pace from that point forward.

But with the same issues rearing their head again this season, it’s fair to ask just how profound an effect those moves had. Or do the Dolphins woes run deeper than the personnel on the field?

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Where do the Dolphins go from here? If they continue to lose, especially like this, fans may need to prepare themselves for a drastically different team next season. Jarvis Landry is a free agent and may not return. Ndamukong Suh’s contract needs to be restructured, but what incentive would he have to do so? Cameron Wake will be 37 by the end of next season. Will he want to return to Miami if they’re in full rebuild mode? Adam Gase has several times alluded to the idea that big changes are on the horizon.

As hard as it is for many Dolphins fans to believe after the disappointment of this season so far, things could get even uglier well before they get better.