The up-and-down Dolphins are currently up. But the head coach is down on the kicker and the punter.
Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reports that coach Joe Philbin called out kicker Caleb Sturgis in a team meeting for missing a field goal against the Bears. For the year, Sturgis has made only 78.6 percent of his kicks, putting him at 28th among all kickers.
“We told him today, we were in the team meeting today and we said we’ve got to make those field goals,” Philbin said, via Salguero. “We kind of went through that sequence where we took a sack and knocked ourselves back, and made the field goal more difficult.
“That being said, I said to him right there in the whole team meeting, we’ve got to make those field goals. He knows that and I suspect that he will work at it and he’ll get better at it.”
Philbin also has concerns about punter Brandon Fields.
“Early on we got the punt blocked in Buffalo,” Philbin said. “He just hasn’t looked as comfortable quite yet back there, as he has in the two years that I’ve been here, the previous two years. I’m confident he’ll work his way through it and he’ll get back to being the outstanding punter that we all know.
“For his standards, it’s not quite what we’re used to. I think he would acknowledge that, but I’m very, very confident that he’ll get back to that soon.”
As Salgueo points out, Fields gross punting average of 43.3 yards ranks 31st among all punters. His net of 31.8 ranks last among all NFL punters.