Miami Dolpins offense looking to build on their success each week

Written by Matthew Cannata at 6:45 AM EST | Twitter: @PhinManiacs

The Miami Dolphins offense has had its share of ups and downs this season so far and they’ve been working to stabilize it so they can get more consistent each week. It’s a work in progress, especially with a new offensive coordinator but with the team just about halfway through the season, they are starting to hit their stride with plenty of room to grow.

“Bill has done a great job. We’re still evolving offensively, we’ve had seven games,” Joe Philbin said. “We’re certainly not where I hope we’re going to be before this is all said and done in the 2014 season. I think there has been signs of improvement and development. There is still a long way to go. Bill has done an excellent job. He’s a very good teacher, he’s a good communicator. He’s related well to the players. In terms of Ryan, obviously Ryan is a good athlete. You guys have seen him in the first seven games use his feet sometimes to either get out of trouble or in the running game, both. I think that’s given our offense a boost.”

A big reason for their success when they’ve had it this season has been the re-vamped offensive line. Although they’ve given up 17 sacks, they’ve given Tannehill plenty of time to make a decision in the overall scheme of things.

“I like what they’re doing. We’ve had some ups and downs. It’s still kind of like our entire offensive unit. It’s certainly not a finished product yet, but I think we’re getting excellent effort out of the guys and it takes a while. We’ve had a couple of different starting lineups in there, so we’re working through some of that. But I like the way the guys play the game. It’s a smart group, it’s high effort group. Certainly, we want to protect the quarterback a little bit better than we have the last couple of weeks.”

However, as I mentioned, the offense hasn’t been consistent from week to week and they’ve been lacking explosive plays. Philbin is of course looking to change that but admits he needs to figure out what the exact problem is first.

“It’s a lot of things. Sometimes it has been in terms of, I think our run explosives are close to being where we want them to be. There are still more there. The passing game, the same things we’ve always talked about. It’s a function of a lot of things. It could be protection. It could be catching the football. It could be the precision of the route. It could be the accuracy of the throw. It could be a combination of all of those. It’s usually what happens in the passing game. You’ve got to have all of those things to have a good passing game.”

“The only way I know how to do it is you come out here, you give the players a good plan, you do your best to put them in a position to be successful. You come out here and you prepare as hard as you possibly can on the practice field, in the meeting room. You go out there on the field as a team together. You potentially have to make some adjustments based on what you see as the game unfolds, and you just have to hang together and play as hard and as well as you possibly can and do the same thing coaching. It’s a joint effort. We have to do a better job, too. I have to do a better job. I’m confident we will.”

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