Adam Gase explains roster purge and Tannehill/Parker

I mean looking back and trying not to have a bias angle for the team, but it does look like those guys were just not being the best we needed them to be in certain capacities.

Ajayi was a pric and only wanted to run certain plays, got full of himself after some success.

Jarvis was an animal on the field but a poor leader of men, too immature.

Suh is a diva plain and simple, and also not a good leader of men, doesn't care about his legacy imo.

Pouncey is just not a smart guy, he's been overpaid for years considering the games and practice time he missed..more than compensated fairly, should of protected his legacy and taken a paycut.

I love the point about how they were in position to make a run after beating the pats and just showed their azzez..poor leadership.

I do believe a great coach should be able to connect and galvanize a team, but Pouncey, Suh, Juice, and Ajayi are not his players.

 

It's probably only me, but when he talked about Parker I was like, Parker? Oh yeah, I forgot about him. When I think of our offense and it's possible productivity this up coming season he's the last person I think about, if I remember him at all. I hope that changes after week 1.

 

I struggle to label Suh in the same fashion as the other immature players. Suh isn't immature, not a diva either. He's an extraordinary talent, but moreso, I think he sees his talent as a business asset. I don't think he plays for fun. He's competitive and wants to win, but he's in it mainly for the money. I don't have a problem with that.

 

Reads like a smear campaign to me

 

That's the thing- we could "force the ball" to anyone so they can rack up 1k yards and 8 TD's...we did that not too long ago with Hartline because there really wasn't anyone else to throw to. And guess what? Hartline had the bigger single game. Imagine what would have happened if we targeted Drake or Grant 160 times and he had Landry's 100+ catches?

We'd probably be talking another 500+ yards and 5+ TD's (I broke this down in another thread what each receiver would have looked like with 101 catches....Landry was 2nd to worst behind Fasano).

I have always liked Landry on the field, but he's a guy you should throw to 3-5 times per game on short down/yards or across the middle on early downs. These 10+ pass games simply made others key him and killed far too many drives. Once you add in the tantrums and the fights though, he's just not a guy I want on our team. Great player, but far too selfish for someone so limited on what he can do.

 

I don’t think anyone had a problem with that, he just wasn’t worth the overpriced amount we would have had to pay him going forward. (As evidenced by his $14 million dollar paycheck for the upcoming season.) He did everything we asked, and we paid him like it.

No, Landry is a different situation though. I am a little surprised we did the right thing and let someone else overpay for him. The old dolphins would totally make a stupid decision and overpay for a player like Landry. Less is more sometimes. I think we will miss Suh’s reliability more than we will miss Landry.

 

yeah I agree. I've said it multiple times - I don't think we miss Landry at all with our current WR lineup (assuming no major injuries). I believe if we add a TE in the draft, our receiving corps will be even better.

 

The only think I can hold out hope on is that a lot of the players that were on that team Last year we’re here before Gase..

I was so disgusted after the pats game and said on the board that I felt that the dolphins were acting way to cocky afterwards considering that haven’t accomplished jack sh## as a team, I said if they show their azz against the bills it means something ain’t right in that locker room..

There was no damn good reason why they came out looking like that except that it must be a locker room problem..

What I’m really confused about is how much blame should I be allocating to Gase in this matter, I mean maybe this team didn’t respect the move to not give Matt Moore a legit shot st the job, maybe it’s the coaches job to find ways to connect with players so that they do t let what happened in Buffalo happen ya know..

But I keep coming back to this, he gave it a shot with others people players, now it’s time to get his

 

That's a smart viewpoint because you really don't learn anything about adversity on a winning team where everything is falling in your favor. But when things go wrong, key players get hurt and a hurricane knocks down your stadium, you learn really quick who's going to work even harder because you're at a disadvantage.

The media is big on calling this a "culture change" but I think that's inaccurate- we just want folks who are committed and willing to outwork everyone else. That mentality starts with leaders in the locker room so there is some culture there, but it's really more about unselfish football and doing what's best for the franchise.

Landry and Ajayi didn't do that. Pouncey couldn't do that with his hip pain. Suh obviously didn't do that taking 20% of our entire cap space...his on-field production was irrelevant since we were paying him the cost of 3-5 solid starting players. I don't think any of these moves were about ability as much as all the little intangibles that produce 22 solid starters.

 

Yeah that's a good point. No matter how you look at it, there has to be a takeaway that we saw something from this last year that Gase just was not good at. That doesn't mean he isn't a good coach, but we know he isn't that guy that can motivate anyone, reach everyone, and finds a way to put his team in a position to win, regardless of talent. I think its fair to say while he is evaluating the team, there should also be an ongoing effort to evaluate him as well.

While it is unfair to expect the impossible, at least some measure of blame has to find its way to Gase. Its clear it was more then just a few guys that didn't buy into the program. An attempt to change culture means that it was more negative then good in that locker room, I would have hoped that change should have been a key point in adjustment at the start of the 2nd year.

He gets a pass from me on the actual outcome of the season. I had written it off when Tannehill went down. However, I had hoped to see what type of a leader he was when things didn't go as planned. That was what we got a glimpse of this last year.

 

I think the mistake he made was thinking cutler could save the day and not taking into account the dynamics of the locker room when you say no to Matt Moore.. that’s the blame I can assess to him..

If Moore got hurt then you get your guys ready to play with whoever and you take the hit for the year.

 

Looking back a few months later, it's not hard to see what Gase saw in Cutler. I mean, just in week one when the guy didn't even know the playbook and everyone's name, he's stepping up in the pocket, slipping around and making effortless plays. Not too many QB's around can do that in this league. So I can see why Gase thought he was the best possible answer- Cutler has all the tools to be a Hall of Famer. He just doesn't have the consistency.

At the same time though, Gase also said Moore his starter....and then he was QB2 without a single on-field competition. That's the one thing that really upset me and I'm sure it pissed Matt of something fierce.

 

Gase knew this team was going nowhere with matt Moore from the prior year. As soon as gase started having to get away from the pa and motion based coverage ids matt Moore showed up ugly.

You put week in week out starter scheme and game plan and qb ask on his plate and he fails.

He found out that cutler mentally checked out of taking contact to make plays in the pocket execution wise when he decided to take the tv gig.

Thus the qb execution was in the toilet. Miami left a ton of plays on the field in 2017 completely due to qb execution.

You can’t check a qb box off by making a proper pre to post snap read the grad carries from there to letting progressions develop and execution of the throw both from a leverage aspect and placement.

And the latter half of that was completely missing with jay cutler.

But Miami couldn’t have asked the qb to do the same things as cutler either play calling wise with matt moore. Much more limited.

Frankly I’m just glad it’s over. On both.

 

Right, it was a pick your poison type situation, but I don’t think the locker room and the dynamics of team chemistry were properly thought out when they didn’t let Moore compete for the job

 

It was only a waste of time because jay cutler checked out on contact

As in willingness to take it to make plays.

I don’t know how gase could have known that off 2015 in Chicago unless cutler showed it then.

Cutler always relied on that arm to offset poor mechanics and footwork. Once that labrum tore he lost that 40 yard flat footed rope fastball but we still got the same **** mechanics and footwork.

In that regard it was an absolute fail but I can’t knock gase for knowing that team was going nowhere with matt Moore. And looking to another option and given it was August when tanny went down options barring trading for someone elses trash frankly were gonna be very limited.

 

I think it had more to do with limitations of one qb far outweighing the other in terms of qb ask as a play caller and game planner.

You couldn’t run all that empty stuff pre snap with matt Moore and him not screw it up.

He also blew every protection adjustment call or account for the unblocked man by design even at times as in ball must come out immediately.

Bottom line is matt Moore as a starter is a brutal option. Too much limitations.

Thus the proper dubbed matt diminishing returns Moore.

 

Don't remember when he started "Brooklyn?"

 

media guys out here in LA were saying the ''diva'' word when describing suh, citing they can tell, and that he's cancelled two pressers because he doesn't want to share the stage.. the business man is fu##in up his legacy..

 

Agreed. While Cutler ended up being a poor option, he had a better chance of success than Moore. There's no way Moore deserved to be a starter. Fans got excited by a few long passes, but coaches watching film knew how poor he was. That was why Moore had to take a pay cut to return as a back-up. He had to be named the starter when Tannehill went down and we had nobody else, but that's just what you tell the media and fans. The team knew he was not a real option.

 

Exactly, in hindsight it is easy to say it would have been better to have the ten million, but at the time, Cutler was an easy decision.

 

I am probably not going to be liked for this post but I've never been a fan of Moore as a NFL QB, backup or starter. He is without a doubt a great dude and loved by the team though. I am hopeful that in this draft we could get a replacement for Moore and then who knows, we could make Moore a coach.

I am also not a fan of Cutler by any means and thought signing him was a huge mistake. I pretty much wrote off last season after RT went down. I had high hopes leading up to that point though. Honestly though there wasn't any QB available that would have changed my mind or given me hope that we could get to the playoffs.

So I think with all the above in mind going with Moore last year might have been a better decision. Not that it would have given Miami more wins, it just wouldn't have been wasteful. The Dolphins were not at a point where the team could win on a regular basis with a backup QB or anyone else that was available.

 

I think you pretty much summed it up.. it’s not that I thought Moore is a capable long term starter just the better decision for the team considering all the circumstances..

 

I’m of the opinion Ryan Tannehill never gets hurt Jarvis Landry is still here right now.

Ajayi maybe not cause he went into trying to hit a home run on every carry mode once there was 8 in the box and cutler couldn’t make teams pay for it.

Although tanny would have kept them more honest. The only team I saw with tanny full sell out to stop the run was San Fran in 2016 and he torched them for it.

 

I keep wondering with Ajayi if the lack of success as an offense overall might have contributed to his trying to hit the home runs every carry. Kind of a combination of lack of maturity and a very competitive nature.

 

I would partially agree with this, but I am confident that Gase was letting Ajayi know how he felt about the freelancing. It seems that Ajayi was only concerned about himself. I think I remember Gase saying during the first year that guys need to stick with the play and stay within the system. I liken it to the OL. It takes a while to gel, but when everybody consistently does what they are supposed to do, it usually works out better than if they do not.

 

Believe it or not, there's only a small group of us here who really liked Moore- we've always been in the minority. The one thing we'd point out from the peanut gallery is that Moore was forced to play his early years with concussions and never fully seemed to recover. He's always been one head-hit away from retirement and it's very possible that the hit came a few years ago when RT first went down. Moore honestly should have retired years ago and just lived his life.

But that brings us to the other side of Moore, the fierce leader and competitor that teammates want to go to war with. He has fantastic vision and has never flinched at the chance to gamble for the big play, which is exactly why everyone loves him so much. His best games as a Dolphin can rival stat lines from any HOFer because the dude is absolutely fearless. After all, are they really going to bench their backup? He knew he had nothing to lose and took every chance he could.

This past season changed him though because he deserved to start out of the gate- I think that doomed his career because he knew time was running out and he'd never get a fair shot in Miami.

 

Just because you know Moore can't be relied upon for a full season didn't mean you don't keep him as a backup. He's fine in short bursts, just over a full season his shortcomings get magnified.

I also don't think he deserved anything. From the reports in training camp on Cutler, I really have a hard time believing Moore would have beat him out. Cutler looked great in camp.

 

Okie dokie.

 

My read is in Miami with cutler 8 in the box qb can’t offset I got to do it on my own.

But I can show you on tape where in the super bowl game even Ajayi bypassed the blocking and tried to bounce it and left yards on the field.

So I think it’s a part of him as a player.

I really think the empty and single set 11 personnel based o gase ran with cutler once Ajayi was dumped for pennies on the dollar was tbe o gase wants to run. The vision.

They just added a 2 way go slot in Amendola and a scheme based personnel wr in Wilson also. So miamis not going away from 11 based personnel o.

 

Ajayi was so slow into pass routes so slow getting his head turned around, such a horrible route runner from the position he was useless in the pass game, imo one of the reasons why our offense got better when he left was because he became a huge tell and that made the offense predictable

 

I don’t really get the tell side of things if anything I think Drake was more a tell coming in cause up to his late season run you could set your watch to off tackle or wide zone or draw with Drake’s run.

The durability of the player as a lead back is still to be determined. But that could probably be said with Ajayi also. That cat took hard contact on repeat but he definitely limited the versatility ask of the position. He also dictated to the opposition.

I don’t think drake threatens opposing dcs the same way in terms of how teams have to play it.