For those of you wondering about what the "Coaches Corner" in Club has to offer, here is a sample from Coaches Corner Entry #1...
During the summer I'll do some features on practices I attend and examine how our off season is going and some of the scheme and personnel developments that are going on. In season I'll be doing features on games - both pre game and post game assessments on what we may be game planning and evaluating how we did.
Coaches Corner Entry #1:
Last season was a rough year for our Dolphins offense. When looking over some of our problems with a coaches eye, here were some of the questions I asked myself that I've used to address my own scheme's over the years. These are some basics in coaching offense that every scheme needs to evaluate when determining its future and current success or failures. As a fan, these are the things too that we should be looking for when we watch our team. Some good news is that Coach McDaniel's scheme has a long history of doing these things, and having attended coaching clinics with his people over the years these are also cornerstones when they do self evaluations from year to year and week to week.
Question: How do we determine of our Offensive staff is doing a good job?
I can tell you right here and now what to look for to determine if our coaches are giving us that edge in terms of scheme. While it might not be easy as a fan to understand all the reads, schemes, and other complexities of what is going on there are some really telling signs of an effective offense. If we don't see these things it's definitely a "coaching issue" not a player issue. The argument can always be made that our players talent or intelligence is limiting what our staff can do, but if that's the problem we are going to be a big fail anyway.
- Did we see player and scheme development during the offseason? Has our offense hit the regular season running or are we rusty, making mistakes, and struggling for success moving the ball?
A poor offseason will always be followed by a slow start in the regular season when it counts. Offense is all about repetition, timing, and building chemistry. A poor off season kills a teams chances in the early season. Coach Flo made this mistake over and over, and his poor starts are part of the scheme problems and lack of offense we saw in his tenure.
- Of course, the most obvious sign of offensive success is are we moving the ball consistently and scoring a lot.
This is the ultimate sign of a quality offense. If they get to the endzone being vanilla all the time then all the better, but most teams require lots of coaching adjustments, movements, and quality play calling that compliments everything else that we do, including drafting or signing players.
- Have we brought in the tools we need for success in the Off season?
What an amazing start we have in the McDaniel era in Miami. Tua is our man. We signed an entire new left side of the OL with Williams and All Pro LT Tstead. Perhaps one of the top 3 trades in Dolphins history brought us the most dynamic playmaker in the NFL with Tyreek Hill coming to Miami in an amazing Grier move (once again) that cost us basically two 2nd round selections and some change. We resigned one of the most productive receivers in the league with Gesicki and have a record setting playmaker in WR Waddle. Explosive. Dynamic. Yup - That's us under new play caller and HC Mike McDaniel in Miami. Add to that our new OL coach and OC, both of whom have well established knowledge and success coaching in our system and you have an important base to begin transforming our offense. Perhaps equally important, we brought back most of our defensive staff and scheme and look to hit the ground running. I expect a strong start this season right out of the gate.
- Have we eliminated all Pre Snap penalties?
Pre snap penalties are demoralizing and a sure sign of a lack of discipline. Over the years I've coached all the levels of high school football all the way down to 6-7 year olds in youth football. Even young kids like that can be taught to be fast off the ball and not commit pre snap penalties or misalignments. Those types of mistakes are the ultimate fail and one of the signs that a player is both undisciplined and lacks cognitive function (he's stupid). There is absolutely no reason for an NFL player or any other to repeatedly have pre snap penalties. Any coach that continues to play players that commit pre snap penalties is part of the problem.
- If we aren't moving the ball then what are the symptoms of our issues?
(If not threatening to score all the time) and not scoring a lot, are we using formations, motions, shifts, etc that create big plays for us? If we aren't moving the ball and you don't see those things, I can tell you right now we have the wrong guys leading the offense. An effective offensive play caller builds a base offense around the things we do best as a team, and drills his squad over and over on how we can expect to get attacked. Part of that teaching is helping our players understand where we can expect the defense to be and the types of schemes they will likely use to try and stop us. Of course in the NFL they will see a whole lot of looks and schemes, but remember these players don't have school or a job to go to. There is plenty of time to practice all of this and put in all of our adjustments. If every week you have to adjust on the fly in games then you aren't doing a very good job as coaches anticipating what you might see each week. Even worse, if you see teams doing the same thing every week (like stacking the box with 8 to stop the run) and we have no major big plays against that, then our staff is worthless. An old saying in the coaching world is "if you get beat by it expect to see it again next week. "
- If we fail to see big plays every game, then our coaches haven't broken down and figured out the defense.
We should have 2-3 big plays every game that give us a chance to win. These don't have to just be "long" touchdown plays, I'm talking more about plays at key times that impact the game in a huge way. Teams like the Patriots have proven that even marginal players can make big plays as a result of great scheme. That's what we should expect to see. Our scheming and play calling should create "Big Play" opportunities on both sides of the ball week after week. Movements, misdirects, setting things up should all come together to put the opposition at a disadvantage every time we line up. If we don't see these things, then our coaching hasn't figured the opposition out and/or our players haven't been "dialed in" to the keys to victory.
- We should see consistent production each week from our core focus players.
Our workhorse types. Guys that we game plan around so hard every week that they always impact a game, even if its creating a more open field because the defense has "sold out" to stop them. It should be obvious when this happens as the game develops. This also leads to our staff being able to identify this and have quality backup plans B, C ,D. Anticipate the best ways to stop you and have a few plans to kill it.
- As the season progresses, we should see offensive improvements across the board on offense.
Confidence. Better timing on routes. Better holes for our rushing attack. Improved ball control on O and improved creating turnovers on D, and more general synch in all aspects of Miami Dolphins football. If we don't see it, then that falls squarely on the coaching staff. This one kind of falls on the side of coaches taking responsibility for their players, because the bottom line is regardless of injuries the players on this team have been chosen by this staff. Thus, like New England has proven over and over - Next man up is a thing. If the next man up isn't getting the job done, that's because the staff picked the wrong guy or they haven't prepared him enough for success.
Our players should always EXPECT to win because our coaches have done such a great job preparing them that there is no way they can lose.
So just to wrap this Coaches Corner regarding Successful Offensive Coaching up in a nutshell, ... Yes an obvious sign of effective offensive coaching is we move the ball and score. However, if we are not doing that effectively the questions to ask ourselves are:
- Do we have an identity as an offense? Do we have players that are cornerstone producers that serve as our workhorse players that we can count on each week?
- Do we use formations, shifts, and motions to create mismatches often? Are we seeing big plays explode each week as a result of these schematic adjustments and practices?
- When teams "sellout" to stop our base do we have clear adjustments to make them pay for it? Are we seeing big plays and effective offense when teams sell out?
- Are we getting better or worse as the season progresses?
These are the things that Coach Flo's offense failed at over the past few seasons. We lost coaches and hired less experienced coaches that had not yet proven themselves at the job they were hired to do in Miami. Coach McDainel has gone the exact opposite route in terms of hiring coaches and determining his scheme.
Offense will no longer be an afterthought. We no longer will go into games playing conservative and trying "not to lose the game". We will attack on both sides of the ball and our offense will take what the defense gives us while also working the same base scheme from week to week. We will finally have an identity again on offense.
When we look at our successes and failures this season on offense, here is where we start!
Hope to see you all in Club...
D-Mike
