Coaching staff impressed with explosive plays from Dolphins' offense

Written by Steven Wilson at 11:45 AM EST | Twitter: @stevenjwilson11

Despite ranking 20th in the NFL with a 5.4 yards per play average through seven games this year, the Miami Dolphins coaching staff was pleased to see a few explosive plays from their offense this past Sunday in Jacksonville.

Mike Wallace had a 50-yard reception, second-year tight end Dion Sims caught a pass for 38 yards, Jarvis Landry returned a kick 32 yards and Lamar Miller and Ryan Tannehill both had runs of 30 yards.

“I think I said to you guys last week, 12 yards is an explosive run in the way we do things,” said Head Coach Joe Philbin. “To have a couple of 30-yard runs is great. We really liked that and obviously we haven’t had a lot of 50-yard passes, so we’ll take those any time we can get them.”

The offense was productive in spurts, but against a Jags defense that ranks 25th in the League in yards allowed per game (382.4), it should have been better.

“I’m happy with those (plays), yes,” said Offensive Coordinator Bill Lazor. “We would like more, absolutely. If you look not just at one game, but right now, where we are going into this next game, you look over maybe the last chunk of games that’s where you would like to take the next step offensively is making some of the more explosive plays. Ryan (Tannehill) has added a few with his legs, which helps. I thought it was nice to see Lamar (Miller) make a safety miss yesterday and he’s had some explosive runs.”

Miami’s quarterback carried the ball five times against the Jags defense finishing second on the team with 48 total yards behind featured back, Lamar Miller, who carried the rock 14 times for 78 yards.

“We have to continue to get more of those, and we have to continue to emphasize explosive passes because it’s hard to go the whole distance to make them,” continued Lazor. “To me, our third-down conversions now are not great. Our numbers yesterday were middle-of-the-pack and, when you look at the details of it, a lot of those are runs. How do you get the third downs better? You don’t get in it. You make some explosive plays one first and second (down). That will help.”

The Phins had a total of 17 first downs in the game – 7 on which were from the rushing attack – but converted just five-of-their-12 third-down attempts – which was almost as bad as Jacksonville’s 40-percent conversion rate.

“The production overall offensively really wasn’t good enough,” stated Coach Philbin. “We have to go back to work. We have to put together a good plan for the players. We have to coach it up and we have to do a better job there. We have to execute better. It’s a joint thing, everybody.”

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