Dolphins players and coaches trying to figure out how to win

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
Yes, that headline might make you think twice and might make you think to yourself that the coaches and players should already know how to win. However, in the NFL, we all know it’s hard to win on a consistent basis and teams often need to get into a routine and figure out what works best for that particular group of coaches and players. With the Dolphins at 1-1, they are trying to find their way and establish a consistent routine and way of doing things during the season. However, Joe Philbin says that it’s not as easy as one might think.

“Every week is a new week. I’ve said this to the team on a number of different occasions, it’s obviously important that you build off of the successes that you have the previous week and accentuate the things that you do well. Every game takes on a life of its own,” Philbin said. “I don’t know that you can sit there and say that we’re going to run the ball for 195 yards every single week. I don’t know if that’s real feasible to do in this league. You have to take it one (game) at a time, game plans change, matchups change and you have to do whatever you think gives your team the best chance to win.”

Philbin did offer different things that would make a huge difference week in and week out and that would be all about the play on the field.

“I don’t want to oversimplify things, but I told the team today, we were minus-two in the turnover margin. I know you don’t want to hear that, the team doesn’t want hear that, but we’re minus-three for the season. That’s not a good place to be after two games, number one. They (Buffalo) had twice as many explosive plays as we did, number two. Again, I don’t look at it as the game following the New England Patriots, I look at each game independent of the one that we just played and those two things are not sustainable to win a lot of football games. Then you throw in a blocked punt and a kickoff return for a touchdown and you’re looking at an uphill battle all the way around.”

Defensive lineman Olivier Vernon says that players need to keep believing in the system and the way that the coaches do things. Once you don’t buy in anymore, things can fall apart pretty quickly.

“You’ve just got to have faith. You have to believe in what the coaches are having us do. You have to believe in the system. You’ve got to keep doing it, keep doing what you’ve been doing. Things aren’t always going to go your way, how you plan on playing the game, especially in practice during the week, you’re going to get curveballs. Just bouncing back from that and moving on. You’re going to learn and just keep on moving.”

At 1-1, the Dolphins are not in a bad spot but as we all know, things can spin into a downwards spiral pretty quickly. Let’s hope they get back in the win column on Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.

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