O-Line problems......Again

[hordman]

Not an Omar Kelly fan in the least, but he's been beating this war drum since the early Tannehill days and to be quite hoest and he's not wrong and this going to hurt Tua AND his playmakers around him in the long run.

Why the fock this organization and get a decent O-line put together? Bad evaluations, poor coaching, etc? What is it?


Kelly: Chris Grier, Dolphins need to fix O-line before unit’s struggles hurt Tua Tagovailoa’s development | Commentary
By Omar Kelly

South Florida Sun Sentinel |
Aug 15, 2021 at 12:24 PM

Have we learned nothing from the Ryan Tannehill era, and his redemption tour in Tennessee?

Tannehill’s struggles in Miami can be attributed to many things, but a significant part of the reasons he’s thrived with the Titans has to do with Tennessee possessing things the Dolphins rarely gave him.

Tannehill has a physical and reliable running game, and a consistent offensive line that protects him. He has used both to deliver upper-echelon stats and playoff wins for the Titans.

Hopefully Dolphins general manager Chris Grier is paying attention because Miami is seemingly repeating the same mistakes the franchise made in seven seasons with Tannehill.

Tua Tagovailoa throws with accuracy and anticipation. He possesses uncanny pocket presence. Those are all traits Tannehill still doesn’t have. Imagine if Tagovailoa got a reliable running game, and solid protection.

Tagovailoa is going to be fine — if — the Dolphins can keep their relatively small (listed, some would say generously, as 6-1, 217 pounds) and durability-challenged quarterback healthy.

And — if — the Dolphins can establish a rushing attack to release some of the pressure placed on the second-year quarterback’s shoulders.

Both those ifs involve a good offensive line.

While it might seem like an overreaction to chastise this team for Saturday’s preseason game against the Bears and last week’s performances in their joint practices in Chicago — especially since the Bears possess one of the most physical front sevens in the NFL — what we saw in the trenches shouldn’t be ignored.

The Dolphins couldn’t run the ball effectively against the Bears on Saturday, averaging 2.7 yards on the first half’s 18 carries, and failed to score in a goal-line situation in the first half.

And last year’s rookies — Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt and Solomon Kindley — got pushed around plenty by the Bears all of last week.
“Robert Quinn had a good like jump-chop kind of swim karate-chop move. It was the most efficient I’ve seen it done before,” said Jackson, the left tackle Miami used the 18th pick in the 2020 NFL draft to select. “It was good to go against that and learn how to beat it really. I’m just taking away a lot from those guys, really.”

It’s early, and hopefully all three improve. But what if they don’t, and last season’s struggles continue this year?

But that’s not the only issue with this offensive line.

The center play has been just decent. Is that the goal?

The fact Miami didn’t properly address that important position of need properly in the offseason remains a head-scratcher. And now fans are left to crossing their fingers with center Michael Deiter, and guard Liam Eichenberg, the former Notre Dame standout the Dolphins traded up to acquire in the second round of this year’s draft who suffered a shoulder injury last week.

With Jesse Davis seemingly on a snap count because of knee swelling he’s experienced since the spring, there has to be some worry whether the unit’s most veteran player will be able to protect at a high level for an entire 17-game regular season. If not, it’ll expose the fact that Miami’s depth on the offensive line is lacking, which Saturday’s game showcased.

[Dolphster]

Ah yes, the first pre season game of the year.  When writers pull out all the stops to say anything to try to get people to read their football articles in mid August.  The only thing he got right was his assessment of the O-Line during the Tanny years.  The Bears game and the Bears practices last week mean absolutely zero.  Nothing.  Less than nothing.  The only thing that matters or means anything in the first pre season game of the year is what injuries come out of the game.  The Dolphins are putting together what will be a good O-Line.  They will be "pretty good" this year if they stay healthy and they even have better depth this year in previous years.  Barring any big personnel turnover, they will be even better next year.  The individual talent is there but most of them were rookies last year.  O-Line guys see things and experience speed in their first NFL season that goes way beyond anything they experienced in college.  It takes a full season just to adapt to how fast and strong opponent D-Line guys are and to learn the complicated blitzes that go way beyond what they see in college.  It also takes a full season of playing as a unit to function as one.  It is glaring when an individual gets beaten for a sack.  But other than that, O-Line play is much more about a unit operating together than it is about individual play. 

[EDGECRUSHER]

I'm not saying anything about their performance because the games didn't even start, but if they do play poorly again, that's all on coaching and has been for over a decade now. We have spent lots of 1st and 2nd rounders on O-Line help and even signed and traded for talent too. To assume they are all busts or play poorly is insanity, the coaching is the constant.

Hopefully, we don't have conversations like this again this season.

[ArtieChokePhin]

I'm not saying anything about their performance because the games didn't even start, but if they do play poorly again, that's all on coaching and has been for over a decade now. We have spent lots of 1st and 2nd rounders on O-Line help and even signed and traded for talent too. To assume they are all busts or play poorly is insanity, the coaching is the constant.

Hopefully, we don't have conversations like this again this season.

Seeing how many former Dolphins were starring on other teams during the Tanny years, I absolutely agree.   If the guy sucks on your team but kicks ass on another, it is 100% on your coach, not your GM.

[Dolphster]

Seeing how many former Dolphins were starring on other teams during the Tanny years, I absolutely agree.   If the guy sucks on your team but kicks ass on another, it is 100% on your coach, not your GM.

I agree with you on that one.  There may be the rare situation where a guy is either a late bloomer or something like that.  But the vast majority of the time I agree with  your point.

[CF DolFan]

Poor O-line play and no running game is the perfect recipe for Tua to be a star qb on another team. Feels like we've seen this story before.

For the freaking life of me I cannot figure out why we can't get a freaking decent O-line and running back. Seems like every since the days of Richie Incognito we have really sucked at putting it together. Are we doing some sort of "woke" training so as not to hurt their feelings or something? It's past the point of being ridiculous.

[Tenshot13]

All of our starting linemen are either rookies or 2nd year players, except Davis who is a vet and Dieter who is a 3rd year player.  What did you guys expect?  It might be another year before these guys are good, the best we can hope for now is average, and even then a couple of them might bust.  

[EDGECRUSHER]

Keep in mind, a lot of our offseason moves were spent on either improving the Line or just having a way to negate their shortcomings. We added some O-Line depth and drafted another linemen in the 2nd round. We have lots of guys on the Line who can play multiple spots, so we don't need to go through the trash heap to replace a RG if an injury occurs.

To make up for their shortcomings and help Tua, we got two really fast Wideouts who can be productive without going for the HR ball like Parker. You don't need 10 seconds in the pocket for quick slant routes. Combine this with Albert Wilson coming back and I really feel that even if the Line didn't improve one bit, it will seem like they did due to the moves we made. As of now, I'm not worried.

[Phishfan]

I'm not saying anything about their performance because the games didn't even start, but if they do play poorly again, that's all on coaching and has been for over a decade now. We have spent lots of 1st and 2nd rounders on O-Line help and even signed and traded for talent too. To assume they are all busts or play poorly is insanity, the coaching is the constant.

Hopefully, we don't have conversations like this again this season.

The coaching hasn't been constant for a decade.

[EDGECRUSHER]

The coaching hasn't been constant for a decade.

Yes, but it's been more consistent than the amount of on field personnel we have had. Maybe it's an organizational thing, I really don't know but I can't pin the blame on 40 different guys across 10 years.

[fyo]

Yes, but it's been more consistent than the amount of on field personnel we have had. Maybe it's an organizational thing, I really don't know but I can't pin the blame on 40 different guys across 10 years.

Maybe it's harder to field a good o-line than it looks?

Maybe a complete lack of consistency at ANY level in the Dolphins' organization isn't exactly helping?

[fyo]

For the freaking life of me I cannot figure out why we can't get a freaking decent O-line and running back. Seems like every since the days of Richie Incognito we have really sucked at putting it together. Are we doing some sort of "woke" training so as not to hurt their feelings or something? It's past the point of being ridiculous.

For reference, the Dolphins "recent" o-line peaked in 2009 after a solid 2008 (*cough* Jake Long *cough*), followed by a steep decline and a decade of utter garbage with the exception of two blips by the way of pretty decent run-blocking in 2014 and 2018.

Incognito was a Dolphin from 2010 to 2013:

The first year was on the down-slope of the Jake Long anchored line and (looking at advanced stats) we were almost exactly average in both run and pass, but still elite in short situations and in avoiding stuffs (the real hallmark of the "Jake Line").

By year two of Incognito, the line was getting bad fast. Overall run blocking was average, but that elite short game crashed to worst in league, the elite stuffs were just average, and the average pass protection league worst.

Incognito's third year in Miami saw a line that regressed to the mean. Overall run blocking slid a bit, but the really bad aspects improved to mostly average.

The last year of Incognito in the land of the Dolphins saw the offensive line absolutely crash, performing among the 5 worst teams in pretty much every metric out there.

Despite all the noise surrounding Incognito's departure, the line improved massively in its first year without him, from an abysmal bottom-of-the-pile performance to a top 10 line in run blocking and some of the best past protection of the Tannehill era.

All in all, our line wasn't anything special with Incognito here, so regardless of what you think about the whole bullying situation Richie Incognito wasn't a part of anything like a good line in Miami. If you want to heap praise on someone, I would argue Jake Long deserves the nod.

If you want to place blame anywhere, I would argue the drafting of a handful second and third round busts in the years following the drafting of Long at least warrant a mention. John Jerry, Jonathan Martin, Dallas Thomas, Billy Turner, and Jordan Phillips... ouch.

[Pappy13]

QB's and RB's can make average offensive lineman look good too. Marino used to do it every year. Take a step up in the pocket or to the side and watch defensive ends run right by. Get rid of the ball when the play isn't there. Wait till the last second and then deliver the ball with a defender right in his face.

Sure some of it is on the offensive line and some of it is on the QB and RB as well. Seen plenty of happy feet in the pocket with Miami QB's since Marino retired and running backs that either didn't let the play develop or they couldn't hit the hole when there was one.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

The offensive line has seen Little improvement.

[masterfins]

The offensive line has seen Little improvement.

I don't think they can bring back Larry Little, he's 75.