You know it’s bad when fans are starting to rant about how bad the coaching is and it’s only week two.
We’ve all had a lot of high expectations for the Miami Dolphins this season and why wouldn’t we? They spent $100 million dollars with $60 million guaranteed to bring in the best defensive tackle in football, Ndamukong Suh. They also signed Ryan Tannehill to a long-term contract extension. On paper, this team is built for a Super Bowl run, or at least the playoffs at a minimum. However, what we expected from this team is to automatically hit the ground running and play perfectly from the start.
That all went out of the window as soon as the final score of the second game was 23-20 with the Dolphins taking a loss to the putrid Jacksonville Jaguars.
Even though the Dolphins lost, what we need to believe is that the way the Dolphins have played should only lead us to think that it’s going to take some time for this roster to gel and become better. It’s surprising though because the way that the first stringers played in the preseason would have you to believe that they would start the season at a blazing pace. In the preseason, the Dolphins looked like the 1972 Dolphins but during the regular season they’ve played like it was 2007.
All we can do now is wait optimistically that Joe Philbin will get this team ready to compete on Sundays. It’s hard to believe in Philbin though because even the way Miami competed in the first game against Washington was a stinker and they nearly survived with a win. Their second game against Jacksonville was also a stinker. You know it’s a bad day when Blake Bortles escapes the pocket and scrambles for a huge gain.
You know it’s also bad when Allen Robinson is having a field day receiving the football. Robinson finished with six catches and a career-high 155 yards with two touchdowns. If those numbers were from Calvin Johnson, you could live with, but from Allen Robinson?
The most obvious glaring flaw that the Dolphins had was the way that their cornerbacks were getting torched. We knew that the secondary needed to get stronger, but the way that Jacksonville took advantage of Maimi’s cornerbacks was embarrassing. Brent Grimes got handled by Allen Robinson multiple times. Safeties got burned out of zone coverage several times.
Allen Robinson is legit and this is his breakout year. https://t.co/3cX8A7tgfI
— Rob Donaldson (@RobDFB) September 20, 2015
To make things worse, it’s been reported that Ndamukong Suh has started to ignore the play calls from defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle. During the loss to the Jaguars, Suh was working at his own pace, freelancing on the field and it created confusion for the rest of the defensive line.
The only positive take away from the Dolphins game that anyone can say is that Ryan Tannehill continues to show to everyone that he’s the quarterback of the present and future.
There were a lot of people asking questions if Tannehill could carry a team on it’s shoulders and lead them to victory. Tannehill is starting to show that he’s one of the top-tier quarterbacks in the league and had himself one of the best games of his career against Jacksonville. Tannehill played intelligently, he was smart evading the blitz, he didn’t commit a single turnover, and he was hitting receivers in stride early and often.
https://twitter.com/WillReeveJr/status/645709597546713088
Tannehill finished the game going 30-of-44 for 359 yards and two touchdowns. His passer rating also was a 108 and in his second game he improved in each of his statistical categories. Let’s also mention that he had a 68.2 completion percentage. Tannehill played with the fire that Dolphins fans have been waiting for.
Dolphins fans shouldn’t be happy about the loss that Miami suffered to Jacksonville. They should still be excited about the big game against Buffalo on Sunday. With a win against Buffalo, the Dolphins could set themselves up at the top of the AFC East leaderboard very shortly.
D’Joumbarey A. Moreau covers sports in Miami-Dade & Broward County. You can follow him on Twitter @DJoumbarey.
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