We hire Flores as head coach a supposed defensive mastermind and brains behind the New England defense we were told (yes it’s belicheck). Flores comes in rips the defense up brings in his players we sucked last year. Replaced the defensive and offensive Coordinators and brought in an inexperienced defensive and an old retired one for offense. This year through two games we have probably the worst defense we have had in 10 years. We have zero strengths on defense. Can’t stop the run, can’t cover across the middle, can’t get sacks or much pressure at all. The defense he cost us BOTH games this year and while we may squeak out a win next week at the Jags (maybe) I don’t see us contending for anything above .500 now I was drinking the koolaid in the off-season but we look unprepared AGAIN and I’m so tired of being asked to be patient and wait so many other teams turn things around quickly but we always say we’re rebuilding and need more parts! I’m loosing faith in Flores to hire proper talented coordinators. how do we fix this? Or are we going to suck all season and say we need to revamp again next year? If that’s the case I’m going to start counting the days Flores has as head coach because it’s ridiculous. The GM needs a swift kick in the *** also, not impressed with his tenor either so far. Yes I’m frustrated but where does the buck stop and how do we fix it??
Youngest team in the NFL. Half the roster turned over. Reduced preseason. Lots of talent traded for picks. Available talent brought in to fill spaces. This team is still rebuilding. There would be no other possibility at this point. What I want to see is discipline. We had few penalties last year, I want the same again. And i want to see better discipline on tackling. And when Tua steps up I want to see talent.
This all day. Rookie defensive coordinator as well, and other rookie assistant defensive coaches. I predicted a middling year and I think that's what we're going to get. I think it's the most realistic.
Who's to blame? Grier for generally bad drafting, Boyer for being terrible at making adjustments, and Flores for choosing an inexperienced DC to lead the defense.
It's been that way for the past 25+ years, and the gullible homers keep drinking the koolaid every year.
Oh my bad. I forgot - high-paid secondary trumps all the rest of it. Stupid team. They should have built a division winner one year after a tanking season. Fire em all. And next time the new GM better bring in all the top players along with all the role players in a single season.
Great post! Sometimes I wonder what the hell people think. I know we’re all tired of next year but no one turns around this team in 2 years. Next year is the first year where I think we can properly evaluate our leadership. Let’s not forget that after the trades last year, most of experts thought we were the least talented team in the league.
Would just be nice if the defence could actually tackle someone first time. Even my missus glanced at the screen at one point and said 'Are they actually trying to stop him or just trying to look like they are?'. That was when Allen was dancing through them like a dad playing with his young son and his mates in a park. Ridiculous and embarrassing. Be interesting to see what the yards after contact is for the Bills running backs and QB.
Yeah well, the secondary should not completely fall apart because of one injury. Xavian seems to have lost a step after multiple injuries, Igbinogene is very raw, inexperienced, and lacks makeup speed. Bobby Mccain at safety is not working out, Brandon Jones has been underwhelming at this point. Our secondary seems overpaid and overrated right now.
You know, there's some good points in there that I know I haven't really kept in mind so far this season. 1. roster turnover again 2. no preseason. short camp etc. I'll add a 3rd... youngest roster in the league. I didnt look if that is true, but it's got to be damn close. I mean, those are 3 big things that are going to have a negative effect on a team. So, last week wasnt good. This week wasnt either, but we still put up 28 on the Bills, although I guess you could argue 20, because the Gesicki TD you could call garbage time if you wanted I suppose. Hopefully we're just looking at a scenario here where it takes this team a bit more time to gel together. We took some big lumps early last year and the team grew and played much better down the stretch. Hopefully we see the same outcome again this year, but I guess for me, I need to keep those 3 things in mind. Some may call them excuses; sure. But those are 3 things that are going to have an effect on a team like ours. KC, Baltimore, Seattle etc. etc. Yeah, it won't hurt them as much with them being so established in their systems. That's not the case here yet.
I'm trying to be patient with Flores/Grier and I did not expect to win either of the first two games. Competing in both was nice but I saw reasons to worry in both contests. Last week, our receivers got zero separation (thanks to holding). This week, they still got next to zero separation and we had to rely on talent to win 50/50 balls. Gisecki & Ford stepped up while Preston Williams dropped the potential game-winning pass...and then we go right back to him on the 2-point conversion. Also, why did we not kick a field goal on 4th and 1 from the 1? Looking at the final score, that would have tied the game and sent us to overtime. I know it's not fair 2nd guessing after the fact, but we had just wasted 3 downs without our best short-distance back on the field and the odds of scoring a TD were low. Take the points. I questioned several moves on Flores today and I have to say, I'm not impressed so far this season. Very little pressure from our front 7. Mixed secondary coverages. Poor line blocking both passing and running. Poor route running. Just a lot of sloppy play in particular and some discipline-related penalties. Entering the 2nd season and flipping the entire roster, I don't see the team that's going to turn into a "perennial playoff contender" just yet. That doesn't mean we won't get there, but that also means we had a 3-year rebuild to go from an average team to what....maybe an average team at best in year 3? That's just not good enough and I really doubt Flores/Grier makes it the full five years without some playoff games. Our trend is to fire in year 3 and I think that would be a catastrophic mistake for this franchise (just like I think it was a catastrophic mistake to fire Gase). I'm just so fed up with the 3-year rebuild cycle. It's too soon to demand excellence today and COVID certainly didn't help, but I think it's going to be a long season and these types of cries to "fire the staff" are only going to get louder.
Buck stops with Flores plain and simple. As others have said this is still a rebuilding year, so I'm not too upset yet. But there are absolutely no excuses come next year. If we aren't in the playoffs next year, then I think we need to look for a new HC. And before someone says playoffs is too demanding after 3 years, first of all note that with the expanded playoff system you only need to be one of the top 14 out of 32 teams = top 43.75%. That's barely above average! And secondly, most HC's that ended up successful over long careers, as well as most HoF coaches, actually showed by year 3 the ability to produce a consistent winner (understanding there are some notable exceptions like Landry and Belichick). I view HC's like QB's. Keep trying until you find the right one. Flores is in year 2 of a 3 year trial period (hopefully Ross sticks with that). But this isn't year 3 yet, it's year 2. So give him a little more time.
I am not giving up hope entirely that the defense starts playing better, eventually. After all, there was no preseason and it's a young team. But the way things are looking, we're going to be drafting pretty high again.
If we follow similar trajectory as last year, we will likely start seeing some significant improvements every few games. We went from being the worst team of all time in weeks 1-2 to a 5 win team by the end of the year. This year we have more talent, but a HARD schedule (thanks to the NFC/AFC West matchups). Tua is a wild card.
This is laid at the feet of a one Chris Grier... dude has been an albatross around the neck of this organization for over 20 years. Flores aka mumbles also doesn't inspire much confidence.... it's clear he was another in a long line of coat tail riders in NE.
Last season with a roster of nobodies...players traded left and right for draft picks, the Dolphins started 0-7. No one had a problem with that because “you” were jumping up and down for joy. “Tank for Tua...Tank for Tua” was the cry for joy. Then the Dolphins, with this same roster of nobodies went 5-4 the final 9 games of the season...and you were upset. “We’re gonna lose Tua”. “Flores needs to be fired”. The madness was nonstop. Enter 2020... The NFL had no preseason Using all of those draft picks, the roster is turned over yet again. This is the youngest team in the NFL. This is the 2nd game of the season with brand new young raw talent and what are we hearing? Yep, Flores needs to be fired. Everyone needs to take a breath. Last season doesn’t count. The Dolphins gutted their roster and last year’s team wasn’t the Dolphins, they were the Minnows. You need to realistically look at THIS season as Flores rookie season with a rookie team. This team is going to need time to grow. They are young and our team has had so many problems for so many years, you can’t expect to simply run the lamp and say “Genie, I wish the Dolphins win every game this season”. It doesn’t work that way. What everyone needs to look for is steady improvement at every position week after week. It’s highly unlikely but I would be ecstatic if we were 0-10 then finished 6-0 and did so decisively. I think that would cause a lot of pause for every team we played next year. Fingers crossed
Great post Dark Knight! Let’s also not forget that last year we had the worst defense in the NFL. This defense is young and a lot of new starters. Let’s see where they are 8-12 games into the season and whether we’ve seen progress from last year.
Great take on this! I agree 100%. Everyone needs to get off the cliff and calm down. I don't think anyone coming into the 1st week really believed we were going to win either of those games and yet there we are at the end of the game yesterday in striking distance. And the offense did it against a pretty darn good defense. Which brings us back to the original topic of the thread, the Lack of defense. I am not sure who exactly is to blame and frankly I don't care. I do want to know what they are going to do to fix it. Iggy got torched yesterday all game long but he is a rookie drawing a really tough assignment after Jones went down with a groin injury (do these guys stretch properly before they play?). Loosing Jones hurt us more than anything else in this game but the point was made earlier about how we shouldn't fall apart because of only one guy. I agree but after watching that yesterday X does NOT look healthy at the moment or at least is not in great shape like he would normally be. It takes a minute to get back from a knee injury and he didn't get activated until less than 2 weeks before the season start. He just isn't in game shape yet. That said, I believed the secondary would be the strength of the team this year and they've been pretty terrible through the 1st 2 games so far. I also see guys over-pursuing and getting out of position allowing cut back lanes all over the field. The tackling has been awful. Those things smack of undisciplined play. IT's so poor at the moment I can't make out what the defensive game plan is when they are on the field. These guys need to maintain their gap responsiblity and assignments. Until they get the basics right they won't improve and that seems to me to be where the coaches need to focus going forward.
I think I'd argue the pass rush and also discipline. There's time for things to improve, obviously, but it looks like the guys brought in to do the job...can't. If that remains true, then time for someone else. Discipline - I hate, hate, hate, to see missed or late tackles when you've got defenders standing there and somehow a guy makes it past them. It's one thing if a guy is in the open and you have to catch up, but if you have him right in front of you, then brings the fella down.
In the NFL your secondary is only as good as your pass rush, you might be able to get away with not effectively pressuring the QB in high school and college, but at this level a top QB with time will shred your defense into pieces.
The biggest problem, as I see it was no preseason games. Granted, every team had the same handicap this season but not every team had this big of a turnover in personnel either. Everyone just needs to accept the first 4 games of the season are our preseason games. Mistakes are going to be made. Injuries are going to happen. All last season we ALL discussed this...we all basically forecasted this season. We all knew this was coming. We weren’t able to forecast the coronavirus and the effect it would have on the season but we all knew this was going to be a tough year. Wins and losses should not be the focus this season. Collective improvement should be. Remember, we’re playing the long game here...building a team that’s going to be perennial winners, not a brilliant flash of 1 great year only to return to perennial mediocrity
I think the other big thing is outside of Jones who hopefully isn’t gone long, we are relatively healthy. You’re seeing a lot of big injuries across the NFL right now.
Regarding the defense being bad, it's really looking like the primary effect of COVID-19 is that defenses are bad everywhere, and I suspect the primary reason is no crowd noise, which not only removes a major source of home field advantage (psychologically) but also allows for better communication on offense. This has led to more scoring, yards, and also fewer INT's and penalties overall. So it's not just us where the defense looks worse than expected. These stats were similar in weeks 1 and 2, so let me just post combined stats for weeks 1-2: Points per game: 25.0 (about 2 points higher than ever before) Yards per game: 371.0 (about 20 yards higher than ever before) 1st downs per game: 22.9 (about 2.5 higher than ever before) INT's per game: 0.7 (0.1 lower than ever before) Passing TD's per game: 1.7 (tied with highest ever) Rushing TD's per game: 1.1 (0.2 higher than ever before) Penalties per game: 5.9 (not an NFL record, but about 0.8 lower than in previous 8 years) Drives that end in scores: 39.5% (about 3 higher than ever before) Passer rating: 95.8 (almost 4 points higher than ever before) etc. Couple this with play on the field actually looking like normal NFL games (including last week) and I do not subscribe to this idea that missing pre-season games is having a major effect. It actually looks like there's no effect. I think the primary effect is lack of crowd noise, and if that's the case we're going to KEEP seeing this effect, on average, throughout the rest of the year. "On average" of course. Doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't improve, but maybe one should set the expectations a tad lower than in previous years. Lack of crowd noise may be producing an effect as big as the biggest rule changes in NFL history (e.g., in 1978 for the passing game).