After showing potential in two drives, Dolphins offense looking for more versus Bills
The first handful of offensive plays to start the first and second half of an NFL game are typically scripted. After a week of practice and game planning, a coaching staff and its players will settle on plays they feel comfortable with, giving the defensive matchup.
The plays aren’t called in a specific order, but they’re ones the offense feels confident running, allowing the unit to gauge how they are executing and what the defense is presenting.
The beginning of the first and second half of the Dolphins’ season-opening win against the New England Patriots couldn’t have been scripted better. A 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to take an early 7-0 lead. A nine-play, 75-yard touchdown drive out of halftime to retake a 17-10 lead.
However, outside of those scoring possessions, the Dolphins mustered just one field goal in seven drives. As the offense continues its maturation process ahead of the home opener against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, it’s looking to finish drives more consistently.
“I think we just came out, knew what we wanted to do, knew the plays that were going to be called and we just executed,” running back Myles Gaskin said. “We prepared all week for it, and I think we were really hyped to be out there and ready to get this ball rolling.”
After Miami’s opening drive, which ended in a 3-yard touchdown run by quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the next four drives totaled 72 yards and three points. Similarly, after the first drive of the second half, the next three drives, which included the final possession to run out the clock and close the game, accumulated 25 yards.
“Both sides were playing this game behind the game,” co-offensive coordinator George Godsey said. “They did a good job adjusting and then it took us a little bit to get adjusted from there. We scored right before half and then in the second half, we made some adjustments there that we were able to score on the first drive there. It was a little bit of back and forth and that’s how we feel every NFL game is. There are good coaches, there are good players and it’s difficult out there at times.”
The Dolphins ran an up-tempo offense on the first drive, which Tagovailoa and Godsey said could be used more often as the season goes forward. Last Sunday, the Patriots possessed the ball for 13 more minutes, limiting the amount of time and possessions Miami had.
“I think it’s just the mentality of literally taking what the defense gives you,” Tagovailoa said. “You look at the Patriots defense, they try to keep everything in front of them. They try to minimize a lot of the chunk plays. Whatever they gave us, that’s what we’re out there to take.”
The Dolphins will add another key piece to their offense against the Bills, as wide receiver Will Fuller returns from finishing a six-game suspension stemming from last season. He’s expected to make his team debut, but coach Brian Flores said he will have to work to rebuild his chemistry with Tagovailoa after missing a significant part of training camp with an injury.
Fuller’s speed will be a welcome addition to a wide receiver corps that had an impressive debut against New England. DeVante Parker and Jaylen Waddle each caught four passes, for 81 and 61 yards, respectively.
“In the defensive room, the first thing they tell the [defensive backs] is, ‘Don’t get beat deep,’” Fuller said. “So, I use that to my advantage, just play as fast as I can and that keeps a defense on their heels. We’ve got a lot of speed so a lot of guys can do that.”
Tagovailoa noted that the Bills’ defense “provide[s] a good amount of problems for us,” and with a high-powered Buffalo offense that finished second in scoring last season, the Dolphins will need to finish drives more often.
“From an operation standpoint, it was pretty clean from our perspective,” Godsey said. “We were playing on the road. That environment is not an easy environment. We saw a lot of teams here in this first week where maybe it wasn’t as clean with let’s just say line of scrimmage penalties, delay of games, in and out of the huddle, having to call timeouts. That part of it, Tua did an excellent job of getting us from coach to quarterback, to huddle, to the line of scrimmage. Then we know we left some plays out there.
“It’s the first week, thankfully. We’ve got some room to improve and that’s the way we want to look at it. We want to improve each week. We’ve got to eliminate the turnover and be 100 percent ball security. We know we can do some better things in the run game and in the pass game. Fortunately we get another opportunity here coming up, and again it’s against a very formidable opponent. We need to be correcting the mistakes now and making sure by Sunday that those fires are put out.”
