On Saturday night, Dolphins coach Adam Gase called out the team’s offense for lacking “juice.” He’s now giving them a cookie.
“I feel light years better,” Gase told reporters on Wednesday about the team’s offensive performance. “We needed to go through that. We needed to see what happens when just about everything possible could have gone wrong. Somebody screwed up on every play. It was like second-and-20 and then we were third-and-17. That probably needed to happen. I think guys just kind of took a step back and realized it’s about just doing my job and then things will work out. The more guys we have doing that, the better chance we have.”
So what has changed?
“I think the last two days they’ve come out with a different mentality,” Gase said. “I think Ryan [Tannehill’s] done a good job of jumping in that huddle right away and being that guy – chirping a little bit, getting the linemen going. And then I think the rest of those guys have really just been doing their job. The receivers have been in the right spots. I know we’ve had some drops here and there. It happens [when] we throw the ball as much we do during practice. I think for the most part it’s just going back to guys are just, instead of just worrying about the outcome of everything, they’re saying ‘Hey, we’re sticking with our process.’ We’re going to make sure that we do a great job of just doing what we’re supposed to do.”
The preseason opener on Friday will be the next tangible evidence of whether the offense is improved.
“I can’t wait to see,” receiver Jarvis Landry told reporters. “It’s kind of hard to judge not having that scrimmage aspect these last two days, but having the chance to go up against another opponent — and having them try to match our intensity, try to match our tempo — is something that we’re looking forward to seeing.”
They’ll get that opportunity against the Giants at MetLife Stadium, facing a new-look defense that features old teammate Olivier Vernon.