Miami Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban, 10.15
Opening Statement…
The real emphasis going into the game was execution. I talked about it all week long. I felt like in the first three quarters of the game, even though we executed at times, especially offensively, we stopped ourselves with turnovers. Special teams penalties affected field position. We went for it on 4th and inches and didn't make it. And we kicked a field goal on a short yardage situation at the end because we felt like we needed points at that time in the game. I think the team showed a tremendous amount of character to come back in the game. We had two really good drives throwing the football at the end. Two good defensive stops to get the ball back. There were some positives in the game. I think special teams penalties hurt us dramatically in terms of field position. We need to execute. We need to take care of the ball. We didn't get any turnovers. They fumbled twice and got it back. We gave up two big plays on defense in the second half. One we were in position to make a play and didn't. The other we were playing three-deep zone and Coles ran a double pattern. Our guy bit because our eyes aren't in the right place which is a discipline issue. We need to play with more discipline so we can get more execution. I think the players want to win, I think they want to compete to win, but we've got to get it right. I'm not taking anything away from the Jets, they played a good game. They played hard. But, we need to execute better, make fewer mistakes and that's going to give us the best probability to have success. It's as simple as that. The positives on offense were Ronnie Brown having over 100 yards and the offensive line played a little better. We had some holes; Joey seemed to have good time to throw the ball. We made some great catches out there and saw some good things but we came up short again because we put ourselves in a hole to start with based on misexecution. So it's disappointing, but we are not discouraged. We were four games under .500 and we've turned it around before. We are not giving up on these football players. I believe in these guys, I believe in this team. I believe we can play winning football. We are going to continue to work at it as a coaching staff and we are going to work together as a group. Nobody likes losing; we need to continue to improve so that we can play winning football so we can have success
On if he considered going for it on 4th down before Mare's field goal attempt…
We considered it. We had one time out. We thought he could make the field goal, we had confidence in him. If you don't make it you don't have a chance to win the game. We stalled out at a tough spot, right on the edge of where we need to be. I would do the same thing again, I have a lot of confidence in him he's made a lot of those kicks.
On considering using no huddle in the first half…
We've gone to a lot of no huddle before and moved the ball. We moved the ball today; we just didn't throw it effectively enough. We threw a couple of interceptions early in the game. We ran the ball well today so we probably ran it more than we had plan to but we were controlling the line of scrimmage. We just squandered too many opportunities early in the game to score points.
On Andre Goodman's injury affect on the defense…
It affected the secondary a lot. When two of your top three corners aren't out there playing it puts guys in bad positions. At the end of the game we only had two corners left. It affected the chemistry and how we disguise our coverage.
On the effectiveness of the 2 minute offense…
I think when you go two minute, the defense isn't doing as many different things as you might get in a normal situation. We have a lot of confidence in Joey's ability to throw it, I think it was our choice not to throw it much because we were running it well. We did throw a couple of interceptions, one was a tip ball that was catch able one was a poor decision on his part.
On dropped passes…
We did have some drops, but we also had some great catches out there today. If we can continue to make those plays guys will get more confidence and probably end up dropping fewer passes.
On the offense playing with a sense of urgency…
That's one thing we've used our no-huddle for before. Being on the road you're a little apprehensive going to it. We were moving the ball offensively, we stopped ourselves on numerous occasions in the first half. We had a dropped ball right off the bat on third down, and we turned it over a couple times. We were moving the ball, but you only get so many possessions. The two minute at the end of the game was well done and it's good that we can come back and maybe some of that we will try to implement earlier in games.
On why he switched L.J. Shelton and Damion McIntosh…
We spent two weeks on McIntosh playing guard, he played left tackle for us last year. LJ said he played a little bit of guard in Arizona. We wanted to try it in practice, we tried it for two practices, he seemed to like it ok so we made the decision to change. I'm anxious to see how well we did, obviously we did some things better so maybe that's a positive for the offensive line
On what he told the team after the game…
I told them pretty much what I've said in here. Great comeback, very proud of them for the great competitive spirit; but also we have to be responsible for the holes that we dig along the way. Our big emphasis going into this game was execution and for the first three quarters of the game we didn't get the kind of execution that we needed. I'm not just talking about on offense, we gave up two big plays on defense in the second half, we didn't get any turnovers, we turned it over three times, we had numerous penalties that affected field position especially on special teams. We had some dropped balls. We did our share of misexecuting, which was the real focus on getting the probable result that we all want and that is to win.
