Will the Dolphins continue to go with Dallas Thomas at right tackle?

One of the biggest storylines coming out of the game on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens was how bad right tackle Dallas Thomas played. Thomas gave up four sacks on the day and was the primary reason why Ryan Tannehill was pressured throughout the entire second half.

On Monday, Joe Philbin was asked whether or not he would give any thought to inserting Jason Fox in the starting lineup to replace Thomas. Philbin responded with a vanilla answer and said that they would play the 46 guys that give them the best chance to win.

Bill Lazor, who is always known for being honest, said that Thomas has a lot of work to do after the game he had against the Ravens on Sunday.

“I think Dallas has played better than he played on Sunday and I expect he will again. So was it a bad day? I’d say Dallas would probably tell you it was. I do have faith in Jason Fox and I think he’s an option for us also. I think it’s also my job as the offensive coordinator to make sure we’re putting guys in the right position. We thought we had a lot of those things yesterday but obviously it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. We’ll evaluate the scheme, are we calling enough things to help the offensive line in protection in both the timing of the pass, the way we’re helping them. We’ll also evaluate the players going forward.”

Up until the past few games, the pass protection has been pretty good. It could be the fact that injuries are starting to catch up to the Dolphins and/or opponents are getting enough film on the replacements. Either way, the Dolphins need to snap out of it and get better in a hurry. 

“I hope it was an exception. I hope it’s the only one that we have like that. It’s a little bit embarrassing for the group to have some unblocked players coming. Certainly, we’ll address those errors. There were errors that were made that we don’t feel should have been made, but they happened. So they are real and we’ll make sure we address it. You have to give credit to our opponent because I thought Baltimore did a nice job rushing the passer. They’ve got some veteran guys up front who understand not only the details and specifics of how you rush a particular person once you kind of start getting into them. I think they kind of got the taste of blood in the water a little bit and they took advantage of it yesterday.”

Lazor said that there are several things they can do to help, such as running the ball more, changing the snap count and more.

“We have a lot of things we can do to help. Everything from running it instead of throwing it, changing up the snap count, helping in protection, keeping more guys in, throwing it faster rather than taking time. It’s our job to make sure we mix up all of those things. Let’s face it also, at some point, it’s also the players job to block. I don’t want to downplay that.”

This story was written by Matthew Cannata. Follow him on Twitter: @PhinManiacs

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