NFL Miami Dolphins

Coaching Blunders Doomed Miami Dolphins’ Week 6 Upset Bid

Joe Philbin, Miami Dolphins

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Well, that was brutal. I was in the stands for the Miami Dolphins’ loss yesterday to the Green Bay Packers, and this one hurt. Sure, getting blown out is painful, but losing in the final seconds is infinitely worse. This was a gut shot.

The Dolphins did everything right on the field in the second half to win the game, but in the end coaching doomed the team again. There is only so much a fanbase can take before the cries for heads to roll become so loud that they can no longer be ignored. While I can’t repeat the vast majority of the comments that I heard while leaving the stadium, there was one consistent theme that pervaded: The Dolphins’ late-game coaching is abysmal and infuriating.

With Green Bay backed into “fourth down and the ballgame” with no timeouts remaining, the Dolphins inexplicably called a timeout after taking down Aaron Rodgers, giving the Packers a chance to regroup and set up for what would be the crucial conversion that sunk the collective hopes of Dolphins fans everywhere. Couple that with the horrendous coverage the Dolphins had been playing against one of the league’s elite receivers in Jordy Nelson, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Giving Rodgers and the Packers’ offense a chance to organize is tantamount to loading all the chambers of the gun and playing “Russian Roulette” with yourself, and Rodgers, as has been his custom throughout his storied career, delivered the deadly blow. It left those of us in the stands holding our heads and wondering, “Why?”

There seems to be no explanation other than that Joe Philbin doesn’t have the capability to make the right coaching decisions in the clutch. For 56 minutes, the Dolphins played well enough to win football game, and in four minutes the coaching staff managed to destroy everything positive that the team had done.

Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Until Dolphins owner Stephen Ross realizes that placing trust in Philbin is insane, the team will continue to lose the close games.

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