Joe Philbin admits to making several mistakes in game against Packers

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
There were many questionable decisions in Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers and Joe Philbin addressed them head on at his press conference on Monday. One of these decisions included the offense running the ball on third-and-9 on their final offensive drive.

“Absolutely, yeah. It was second-and-9 with 3:05 to go, I believe. We called a pass play. We had talked about it. As I told you, in our staff meeting as coordinators, we talked about it. If I’m not mistaken, we had some pressure and we had some free runners at the quarterback. I got a little antsy. I didn’t want to see us fumble the football or do something potentially devastating, i.e. Buffalo 2013 when we fumbled the ball and set up a field goal for them. That was second-and-8. So yeah, I was the one who told Bill (Lazor) to run the ball on third-and-9. Absolutely, I certainly did. I got a little queasy when I saw those guys running free with the quarterback running for his life, so we punted the ball. That was that decision, but absolutely, that was totally on me.”

The other questionable decision was calling a timeout with six seconds left in the game. While some argue that the Dolphins’ defense was gassed, others argue that it would’ve prevented the Packers from re-grouping and getting their next best play in. Philbin also questioned this decision out loud.

“The clock was stopped and they lined up. As I said yesterday, it certainly didn’t turn out to be the right decision, but it’s something I’ve done in the past and obviously will continue to think about doing in the future. I’m most concerned about our team and what our team does, if our team knows the call and maybe we can communicate one or two little things that could help them do their job. I think it’s well worth it. That was the rationale behind it. I don’t want to sit here and say that was a great decision by Joe Philbin. I’m not sitting here saying that, but I get paid to make decisions. That’s what I did at that time, and that’s the logic I had behind it.”

It was good to see Philbin addressing these and not hiding from them but it still doesn’t change the result of Sunday’s heartbreaking loss.

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