Miami Dolphins coaching staff having quite a terrible week so far | Opinion
Never mind the wins and losses -- well, the losses -- but any way you measure it, this has been a terrible week for the Miami Dolphins coaching staff.
It began, obviously, on Monday night when Brian Flores and his staff absorbed their seventh loss in as many games in a manner that had to sting. Because in that game, there was a highly questionable call by defensive coordinator Patrick Graham just before halftime, which Flores defended vigorously afterward, that was patently wrong, not to mention unsuccessful.
And in that 27-14 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Dolphins turned the ball over four times and two of those were interceptions by former Dolphins first-round pick Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Then on Thursday night, as the country watched the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers play on FOX, former Dolphins third-round pick Kenyan Drake went bonkers -- rushing 15 times for 110 yards and one touchdown, and catching four passes for 52 yards including a two-point conversion in the fourth quarter.
So why is all this bad news for the Miami coaching staff when it primarily has nothing to do with their players?
Because it shows the Miami staff’s failure to fulfill a basic tenet of their job.
Let’s start with the Drake issue first. He was traded to the Cardinals for a conditional sixth-round pick that could turn into a fifth if all goes really, really well for the former Miami running back in Arizona.
And, honestly, that’s not a bad return for a player who is unsigned for 2020 and hasn’t really produced at a high level since December of 2017, so the Miami personnel department did good work here.
But the problem is the reason Drake is in Arizona and he didn’t produce well in Miami leads directly back to Dolphins coaches.
Drake was traded because he wanted out of Miami. And he wanted out, according to multiple sources, because he felt he was underutilized and poorly utilized by not one, but multiple Dolphins coaching staffs. So despite efforts by general manager Chris Grier to sign Drake to a contract extension early in the season, Drake wanted nothing to do with that because he didn’t want to sign up for more underutilized and poorly utilized.
He didn’t want to sign up for being a backup to players he appreciated as teammates but felt he was more talented than -- such as Kalen Ballage and Mark Walton. And that’s exactly what he was in Miami. Remember, at the start of training camp, this coaching staff inserted Ballage as the starter ahead of Drake.
Ballage had done nothing in actual games to surpass Drake, but there he was running first-team ahead of Drake. Ballage started the first two games of the season. And after Drake got starts the next two weeks, the Dolphins replaced him with Walton the last three games.
And you wonder why Drake saw no future for himself in Miami?
So this happens and I want to believe the problem is with Drake because, after all, these coaches know their players, right?
Except, they might not. Not really.
Drake goes to Arizona and performs at a very high level all of three days after arriving there. And, yes, it’s only one game. But Drake just delivered a game filled with power running and explosion and pass-catching the likes of which this Miami staff had not been able to get out of him.
And worse, these coaches didn’t much try to get such a performance out of Drake because, again, Drake was slotted behind Ballage in training camp, before a game was even played.
I made this point on Twitter Thursday night and Dolphins fans -- I get it, you don’t ever want to think something is wrong with your franchise amid the past 20 years of failure -- suggested the coaches were still right because it wasn’t just one staff that dumped on Drake, but two.
Laughable.
Because the same Dolphins fans that mercilessly rip the previous coaching staff were using that previous coaching staff’s decision-making as a crutch to help prop up the current staff’s decision-making. The same fans who have seen this coaching staff go 0-7 were thinking the player producing before their very eyes still must not be that productive.
OK, so maybe this is just happenstance. Maybe Drake just had a good night and he’ll go back to averaging 3.7 yards per carry as he was with Miami this year. And maybe he’s not that good.
(My opinion: Kenyan Drake is an explosive third-down back who should touch the ball maybe 15-17 times per game, with 10-12 runs and maybe 3-4 pass targets in space).
But if the Drake example doesn’t resonate, because you don’t think he’s talented, then what can you say about the Minkah Fitzpatrick situation?
In that situation, once again, the personnel department loved the guy. Grier loved him so much he drafted him No. 11 overall in the 2018 draft when owner Stephen Ross wanted to trade down.
But the Flores coaching staff didn’t love Fitzpatrick as much. The Flores coaching staff that has really proven zero in Miami -- insisted Fitzpatrick must play multiple positions because that’s what their defensive system values and calls for. This defensive system, by the way, is currently No. 32 in the NFL in points allowed.
Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, wanted to be slotted into one position where he could learn and dominate -- like he did for Pittsburgh on Monday night.
Neither side budged. Grier was forced to trade the unhappy player. And, again, he did a good job getting good return for Fitzpatrick although it has yet to be seen if the pick will rise to No. 11 overall in the 2020 draft. But the trade return is not the point.
The coaching staff’s inability to make it work with an obviously good player resulted in the Dolphins being a weaker, not better team. Amazingly, Mike Tomlin, who has accomplished way more in Pittsburgh than Miami’s coaches have for the aqua and orange, put Fitzpatrick in one spot and let him play.
And it’s working. Fitzpatrick has three interceptions in five games with the Steelers. He had zero interceptions in two games for the Dolphins.
Which leads me to the greater concern: This week Dolphins fans have watched two games in which a 22-year-old Fitzpatrick and 25-year-old Drake produced at a high level. That’s what we were told would happen when Flores and his coaching staff were hired.
The staff, we were told, would develop Miami’s nucleus of young players.
Except that staff has butted heads or disagreed or otherwise misused two young players from that nucleus to the point they had to be traded to another team. So Miami’s young nucleus this week is kicking butt elsewhere.
Add that bonehead call on third-and-20, a call that resulted in an improbable Pittsburgh touchdown that shifted the game away from the Dolphins, and it’s quite obvious this coaching staff needs to have a great day on Sunday against the New York Jets.
Because so far this week they’ve been exposed as not too wonderful.
This story was originally published November 1, 2019 at 12:51 AM.
