More of the same or just a slow start? Dolphins’ Gailey answers for Week 1 struggles
The Dolphins’ new-look offense on Sunday looked a lot like their old-look offense.
Tight running lanes. Little separation for the receivers. And Ryan Fitzpatrick asked to do basically everything.
Through one week, the Dolphins rank 28th in yards (269 per game), 31st in scoring (11), 27th in passing (182), 24th in rushing (87), 28th in yards per carry (3.2), 26th in yards per play (4.6).
And their best player, DeVante Parker, is iffy at best for Week 2 after his hamstrings flared up again.
“We had to change some things,” Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey acknowledged Tuesday. “Everybody runs a route differently. [Jakeem Grant’s] a good player, but he runs things differently than DeVante does. We don’t have time-on-task from last year with Fitz and Jakeem like we do with Fitz and DeVante. It changes some things. It changes some thought processes.
“You have to adjust. I need to a do a better job of adjusting when it does. It’s the first time I’ve dealt with it with these guys, so hopefully I’ll be better next time.”
Sunday in New England, the Dolphins had no pass play longer than 21 yards and no run longer than 12 — and that was a Fitzpatrick scramble. Remove that broken play, and the Dolphins averaged just 2.9 yards per carry.
Gailey’s explanation, after watching the film?
“They moved some of their people more than we had seen before, and we didn’t handle movement very well. We’re going to get that too in the run game. We’ve got to improve that facet of what we’re trying to get done. We just didn’t get our base package run game running like I want to.”
And they didn’t get Matt Breida that ball as much as they wanted to, either. (“We’d like to play Breida more,” Gailey acknowledged.)
Breida, the running back acquired from the 49ers draft weekend, was a spectator for much of the first quarter. He was on the field for just 14 snaps, far behind the 39 logged by Myles Gaskin. Breida had five touches in 62 Dolphins plays.
How did that happen?
“We have players who play certain packages for us,” Gailey explained. “When the package that we were using Jordan [Howard] for wasn’t doing as well, it ended up lessening his play time. Myles went up because we were more in the spread offense and doing things that we had him in there for. We were trying to use all the packages and be spread fairly evenly if we could, but it just didn’t work out that way by the end of the game.”
Back to the offensive line: The Dolphins started four new players, including rookies Austin Jackson and Solomon Kindley.
The run blocking was not good. But the pass protection was actually a bright spot. The Dolphins allowed a lone sack, and the Patriots only hit Fitzpatrick five times in 36 dropbacks.
“We did a good job, I thought, in pass pro for the first time out,” Gailey said. “We’ve got some communication things we need to take care of in the offensive line, but as you continue to develop, the continuity there along with young players there for the first time out, they did a pretty good job. The tempo and the speed is going to keep getting bigger and faster every week, just because. ... We missed some stunts, but we picked some up. They’re going to keep trying that.”
And teams are going to keep playing press man on the Dolphins’ receivers until they prove they can beat those coverages for chunk plays.
Throwing to Grant, about the only player who got open consistently Sunday, would be helpful. So would getting something out of Malcolm Perry or Lynn Bowden Jr. The Dolphins made both rookies with big-play potential inactive in Week 1.
“Lynn’s much further behind right now because he just hasn’t been here,” Gailey said. “I’m excited about what he might be somewhere down the line, as I am Malcolm. They haven’t been here long enough and been in the fire so to speak to say we’re really going to expand their packages at this point. We are taking it on a week by week basis with where we’re going with that. If we have DeVante, that might not open something. If we don’t have him, it might open up something. We’re just kind of waiting and seeing on that.”
