Miami Dolphins: Less is More This Season
The new motto for the Miami Dolphins is “less is more”. With the new regime, there’s a lot from the old one that they’ll quickly fix. They’re stripping the team right down to the bare bones to try and maintain sustainable growth and compete for years to come. They’ve cut the unnecessary contracts, ousted aging players, and kept their draft picks on the conservative side.
But its not just player contracts the Dolphins are trying to eliminate. It’s not just a culture change that will get everyone on the same page. Its not even a “win, now” mentality that Miami hopes to shed from their new narrative. The Dolphins are simply trimming all fat from the start to finish.
One of the most important areas Brian Flores will have to address to help turn this team around and that’s mistakes. Sure, every coach since the dawn of time has preached mistake free football but Flores will have his work cut out if he doesn’t want to be just another hired and fired short term coach. After a few short weeks his vision is already on display.
So just how does cutting high profile contracts and aging stars guarantee they’ll have more success than the previous regime?
Simple, it comes down to development. The Dolphins now have cut all their high ego players and went out and got young talent that is passionate for the game of football. They kept all their team leaders and talent that will put the team first. By doing so, they bad habits won’t plague the locker room.
And discipline has already been display at this year’s OTAs. Accountability and discipline to be exact. Notes from camp have the team going back to the days of Pop Warner football where the offense makes a mistake and the whole team does push ups. The same can be said for the defense. As juvenile as this display may seem it instills a major change in mindset. There’s consequences to mistakes. Mistakes such as penalties, improvising plays, and general lack of knowledge in regards to the playbook was the number one downfall of the Gase era.
Gase took the same approach but failed. Any player that went against the grain was quickly jettisoned or cast off. But that was his problem, he created the egos and entitlement that eventually doomed the team. Often they’d be in games, only for the fit of emotions to change their course. Bad penalties and fighting would cost them momentum. Gase had players with passion, but not discipline and it cost them games.
But, its not just building the team through draft picks and mass cuts of bad contracts. No the Dolphins “less is more” approach with good players who can form good habits is the way the team turns around. Without the egos, the Dolphins can cut the mistakes. They might not have a ton of talent up front but mistake free football should be able to keep games from getting away from them this year and they might even steal a win or two. Miami won’t be a powerhouse team, but mistake free football could be the foundation to building a winning tradition.
Rick ODonnell aka Caveman Rick has many years covering the Miami Dolphins, Sports, and all sorts of movies and television.
