The Miami Dolphins are 3-1 with Tua Tagovailoa acting as their starting quarterback — but it would be foolish to pretend everything is fine and dandy with the Dolphins offense throughout this stretch of play. It’s the ultimately challenge: Miami entered into the 2020 NFL season with some well established limitations on account of simply having too many holes to fill on their roster in just one season. And the subsequent 6-4 start has exceeded many expectations, especially when you take into account how limiting some of Miami’s shortcomings as a roster are.
And what makes this tightrope act from the Dolphins all that much more challenging is that there’s no reinforcements coming courtesy of free agency or the NFL trade deadline, which has already passed. Miami has to work with what is currently on the roster and that’s it.
Over their last five games, the Dolphins have exceeded 300 yards of offense just twice. They’re averaging just 252.4 yards per game over that stretch. Is that number inflated by a defensive/special teams performance against the Los Angeles Rams that put 21 points on the board with just five offensive snaps in the 2nd quarter? Yes. of course. But the issues came to a head in Week 11 against the Denver Broncos when Miami ran into Vic Fangio’s defense — who simply ate the Dolphins’ rookie quarterback alive.
There will be dynamics of that game that teams look to copy every week until Miami shows they can stop it. And while the coaching staff can adjust plenty, Miami is exactly what we’ve seen them be from a personnel perspective around their young quarterback: limited.
Both Tua Tagovailoa and Ryan Fitzpatrick are among the NFL’s top four most “aggressive” passers according to Next Gen Stats, which means their pass attempts are going into tight coverage more frequently than other NFL passers. Why? Because Miami’s receiver don’t often get open. Between DeVante Parker, Mike Gesicki and Preston Williams (currently on IR but Miami’s de facto WR2 when healthy), none measure according to Next Gen Stats as any better than the 7th-worst receiver in the NFL in regards to creating separation on their targets.
Dolphins need to cook up some rub concepts and man-beaters to breathe a little life into the passing game. Nobody is getting open with any consistency this season. Two of four highest aggressiveness totals and three of the seven worst separation figures in the entire NFL. pic.twitter.com/2UIOwOU22l
— Kyle Crabbs (@GrindingTheTape) November 23, 2020
Miami needs more explosive weapons and more dynamic route runners — but none will be walking through the doors in Davie this season. They’ve got to ride with what they’ve got. So look for the team to help Tagovailoa out by shifting the focus back to RPO concepts to continue to give their young quarterback the chance to have multiple solutions on each play. And when Miami does run routes, they ought to search for more opportunities to rub routes off of one another and manufacture some open targets and separation for Tagovailoa as compared to asking him to thread the needle at a higher frequency than even the most accomplished NFL passers.
If Miami can do that, they can breathe a little more life into this offense versus what we’ve seen of late and get things back on track for a potential postseason push over the Dolphins’ final 6 games of the 2020 season.