People gave Flores a ton of credit for taking his self-imposed cast of misfits and managing to get 5 wins, including two over eventual playoff teams and one in which the team beat the defending champs in a game that was the difference between homefield/bye week and not, which was a huge reason their season ended early in the playoffs and that their dynasty POSSIBLY ended in acrimony. It's easy to look at that and say "great coaching job", and a lot of people did. But a closer look reveals that the makings of sustained success wasn't necessarily there even in our wins. We played improved defense, but we also carried over surprisingly few players from the team that finished last year on defense. We didn't have a sustained rushing attack. We got a ton of help from trick plays and play fakes every week that only a team with nothing left to lose feels confident in running - we certainly haven't seen anything from the same ilk when the games have actually mattered this year.
The five games the resulted in inordinate amount of praise towards the coaching staff were mostly because of the play of Fitzpatrick, a guy who, aside from being the team's leading rusher, was a threat to come out every week regardless of opponent and lead a downfield passing attack whether or nor we could even pass block that well. This isn't an attempt to give Fitz qualities he doesn't have - the guy is clearly a career choke artist who racks up big plays and surprising wins yet always bowed out when he could make the playoffs, always failed to follow up a good season with a second. But in his own words he was the perfect guy for a team like the Dolphins. Give him a team with nothing to lose and let him air it out, he's likely to make enough plays to get a few wins here and there, and likely to not go an entire game without generating some exciting offense at some point. Since he thrives with his back against the wall, he turns should-be blowouts into respectable scores. We failed to scheme up a consistent running game at any point last year. We really couldn't pass block. Fitz delivered production that the coaching staff didn't even really merit - and certainly Flores agreed to some extent as we fired our OC.
I was mad that Fitz played so much last year, but I could understand it. We were far worse than even our 5-11 record indicated, but because of the buzz that Fitz's offense generated, so many people were buying into what Miami was doing. But the honeymoon period from that boost is for the most part over - except that in a game where we got our butts completely handed to us, in the scoreboard it shows as a three point loss. Nevermind that the game was over before we got those 8 garbage points and extra drive's worth of production. Nevermind that by and large the offense playing as well as could be expected was the only reason why a game where the defense just completely didn't show up.
People want Tua to start because they want something to be excited about, but Tua's run is pretty far off right now because Flores needs the respectability that Fitz can bring. It makes them look a lot better than it is. And that same thing is why, when last year should have been all about finding out what a young QB had, we instead had to ride a veteran just to main respectability. At least the offense doesn't look as in bad of shape as it did when we gave Rosen his "shot" last year, but it's still hard to imagine the team being handed over to a rookie who might not be able to do that much with receivers struggling to get separation, play calling being inconsistent, and us utterly failing at running the ball when we need to (not just when we catch the defense playing back due to the threat of the pass).
The five games the resulted in inordinate amount of praise towards the coaching staff were mostly because of the play of Fitzpatrick, a guy who, aside from being the team's leading rusher, was a threat to come out every week regardless of opponent and lead a downfield passing attack whether or nor we could even pass block that well. This isn't an attempt to give Fitz qualities he doesn't have - the guy is clearly a career choke artist who racks up big plays and surprising wins yet always bowed out when he could make the playoffs, always failed to follow up a good season with a second. But in his own words he was the perfect guy for a team like the Dolphins. Give him a team with nothing to lose and let him air it out, he's likely to make enough plays to get a few wins here and there, and likely to not go an entire game without generating some exciting offense at some point. Since he thrives with his back against the wall, he turns should-be blowouts into respectable scores. We failed to scheme up a consistent running game at any point last year. We really couldn't pass block. Fitz delivered production that the coaching staff didn't even really merit - and certainly Flores agreed to some extent as we fired our OC.
I was mad that Fitz played so much last year, but I could understand it. We were far worse than even our 5-11 record indicated, but because of the buzz that Fitz's offense generated, so many people were buying into what Miami was doing. But the honeymoon period from that boost is for the most part over - except that in a game where we got our butts completely handed to us, in the scoreboard it shows as a three point loss. Nevermind that the game was over before we got those 8 garbage points and extra drive's worth of production. Nevermind that by and large the offense playing as well as could be expected was the only reason why a game where the defense just completely didn't show up.
People want Tua to start because they want something to be excited about, but Tua's run is pretty far off right now because Flores needs the respectability that Fitz can bring. It makes them look a lot better than it is. And that same thing is why, when last year should have been all about finding out what a young QB had, we instead had to ride a veteran just to main respectability. At least the offense doesn't look as in bad of shape as it did when we gave Rosen his "shot" last year, but it's still hard to imagine the team being handed over to a rookie who might not be able to do that much with receivers struggling to get separation, play calling being inconsistent, and us utterly failing at running the ball when we need to (not just when we catch the defense playing back due to the threat of the pass).
