Dolphins coaching mistakes have lost games, playoff positioning
Loss to Carolina (continued)
For argument sake, let’s say the Dolphins strategy worked out, they stopped the Panthers and forced a game tying field goal with 1:30 left. The Dolphins would have a chance to win the game with a field goal in regulation or at worst go to overtime. The flaw in that strategy is that if the Panthers picked up a 1st down while the Dolphins were calling timeouts, they could bleed the clock, kick a field goal and give the Dolphins the ball back with no time and no timeouts. OR, they could use the free timeouts (they were out of them at the time) and try to score the game WINNING touchdown (which they did). The Dolphins gave them more time to try to beat them!
Let’s step back though. What if the Dolphins had let the Panthers run another play before calling a timeout. The snap for 2nd and 10 would’ve gone off around 1:22 and if the Dolphins were successful at stopping them, they could’ve considered calling a timeout. Or, they could’ve seen what happened on 3rd down, which would’ve left about 0:50 on the clock. If you stop them on 3rd down, THEN you call a timeout, let them kick the field goal and see what you can do with the remaining time to kick the field goal. In this case, you’d have about 0:45 left and 2 timeouts to try to get a field goal. AT WORST, you go to overtime. Instead, the Dolphins coaches gave the Panthers an opportunity to beat them….and they did. I could see calling defensive timeouts if it was a 7 point game when the worst thing that can happen is overtime, but I 100% do not agree with the Dolphins coaches here and think it was one of the worst coaching mistakes I’ve seen.
Overall – The disturbing thing about this season is that the same problems seem to be occurring over and over. The pass-happy nature of Mike Sherman…..abandoning the running game when it’s working…..failure to make adjustments at halftime and score after the half (and scoring no touchdowns in the 4th quarter)….Not using Dion Jordan more…..Resting Cameron Wake on crucial plays down the stretch of games…..it’s all makes you want to scream.
I will give Philbin credit for his record on challenging referee decisions. He’s perfect on the season (though Clay’s catch on Sunday was bobbled and shouldn’t have been ruled a catch). He must do a better job of reining in the pass-happy offense and motivating his players. He needs to put his players in position to make plays (i.e. rolling Tannehill out more). Through 1.5 years, I can’t say that I’m confident Joe Philbin and his coaching staff are the long term solution in Miami.
For the latest Dolphins news from PhinNation.com, be sure to bookmark our site in your browser!