- Joined
- Jan 15, 2012
- Messages
- 8,986
Mario has done an excellent job in acquiring talent, flipping the roster and remaking it with an emphasis on the trenches while beginning to stack elite skill talent as well. While his task here is hardly finished, he has been able to recruit at an elite level despite mediocre results in the field thus far in his first 2 seasons.
With the TVD era being over, the need to find a starting QB capable of taking this team and program to the next level has never been more apparent or more crucial. The all out pursuit of Cam Ward and subsequent failure to land him has brought two things to the forefront. The first being what I have already mentioned and that is just how badly this team is in need of a leader at the most important position who can provide consistently good to great play and elevate this offense to a point where we will be able to compete at a playoff level.
The second is more uncomfortable and the reason for this post. The problem Mario is faced with is the compounding and an exacerbation of the issue of perception that he came to Miami with in the first place. There was a growing perception that Mario was/is a destroyer of quarterbacks and by extension, offenses. He is known to be excessively conservative and a mediocre game day coach at best. Wether that perception was fair or not didn't matter. When he arrived in Miami one of the first things Mario should have gone out of his way to put to bed was that lingering negative reputation he had with QBs and with offense. That never happened and outside of the first 4 games of the 2023 season and the finale vs BC he actually double and tripled down on what is best described as a basic, slow, plodding, unimaginative and painfully conservative style of offense. The fact that this offense actually finished #26 in total offense was a minor miracle and a testament to the value of having a greatly improved offensive line.
However the problems weren't only in the style of offense. There were clearly issues with game management and Cristobal's style of game day coaching. In addition to this the inability to incorporate the game breaking speed available to this staff was jaw dropping. Players like Chris Johnson, Ray Ray Joseph and others went totally ignored while players like Brashard Smith were criminally underutilized. Shannon Dawson our second offensive coordinator in as many years was mostly not up to the task as he was unable or unwilling to do much outside of his base offense. Offensively we were routinely out coached and Dawson seemed to be unable to make teams pay for blitzing. Where were the screen passes? Where were the passes to the TEs? To the RBs? Where was the variation in the running game? Where was the development of the QBs?
Which brings us to the present. Mario had to know that in order to be able to get good to elite QBs to be interested in coming here he had to be able to offer an appealing type of offense to play in and a staff to develop them. It is crystal clear that at this point we offer neither! For as detail oriented and organized as Mario is purported to be, I find it shocking that he couldn't look far enough into the future to realize that having Shannon Dawson as his OC/QB coach just wasn't going to cut it in terms of being able to compete with other programs for elite QB talent plain and simple. So what exactly are we in position to offer a QB who is in demand? What QB is seriously going to want to play in this offense? What QB do we expect to be blown away by what we can offer in terms of development?
So now what? So we stick with Dawson for the sake of continuity and hope that we magically find a QB in the portal and that said QB proves to be the missing piece that we needed to make Dawson's mediocre offense look somewhat palatable? Do we bring in a 3rd coordinator in as many years? As bad as the optics would be, I am actually in favor of moving on from Dawson if the right option presents itself. Put me down as being in favor of making Ken Dorsey an offer to be OC/QB coach. Pay him as much as you need to get him here. Please note that I'm not in the pro Dorsey camp because he is a "Miami guy bro" but because he is absolutely qualified, doesn't run a bro style offense, is a proven developer of QBs, is very cerebral and intelligent, plus being a storied alum he has a vested interest in seeing the program succeed. Also he is intensely competitive and the type of guy who would have absolutely no problem telling Mario to eat a bag of dycks should the situation present itself. Plus he is available. Dorsey just makes a lot of sense if he is willing but I'm completely open minded to other options either in the college or the pro ranks. Assuming we keep Dawson because the optics of having a 3rd OC in 3 years would look bad then we need to bring in a proven QB coach to help him out or maybe bring in another offensive coach as an "offensive assistant" to help Dawson diversify the offense. The most important thing is that we make a move, any move in order to better position ourselves to be competitive in the QB market.
With the TVD era being over, the need to find a starting QB capable of taking this team and program to the next level has never been more apparent or more crucial. The all out pursuit of Cam Ward and subsequent failure to land him has brought two things to the forefront. The first being what I have already mentioned and that is just how badly this team is in need of a leader at the most important position who can provide consistently good to great play and elevate this offense to a point where we will be able to compete at a playoff level.
The second is more uncomfortable and the reason for this post. The problem Mario is faced with is the compounding and an exacerbation of the issue of perception that he came to Miami with in the first place. There was a growing perception that Mario was/is a destroyer of quarterbacks and by extension, offenses. He is known to be excessively conservative and a mediocre game day coach at best. Wether that perception was fair or not didn't matter. When he arrived in Miami one of the first things Mario should have gone out of his way to put to bed was that lingering negative reputation he had with QBs and with offense. That never happened and outside of the first 4 games of the 2023 season and the finale vs BC he actually double and tripled down on what is best described as a basic, slow, plodding, unimaginative and painfully conservative style of offense. The fact that this offense actually finished #26 in total offense was a minor miracle and a testament to the value of having a greatly improved offensive line.
However the problems weren't only in the style of offense. There were clearly issues with game management and Cristobal's style of game day coaching. In addition to this the inability to incorporate the game breaking speed available to this staff was jaw dropping. Players like Chris Johnson, Ray Ray Joseph and others went totally ignored while players like Brashard Smith were criminally underutilized. Shannon Dawson our second offensive coordinator in as many years was mostly not up to the task as he was unable or unwilling to do much outside of his base offense. Offensively we were routinely out coached and Dawson seemed to be unable to make teams pay for blitzing. Where were the screen passes? Where were the passes to the TEs? To the RBs? Where was the variation in the running game? Where was the development of the QBs?
Which brings us to the present. Mario had to know that in order to be able to get good to elite QBs to be interested in coming here he had to be able to offer an appealing type of offense to play in and a staff to develop them. It is crystal clear that at this point we offer neither! For as detail oriented and organized as Mario is purported to be, I find it shocking that he couldn't look far enough into the future to realize that having Shannon Dawson as his OC/QB coach just wasn't going to cut it in terms of being able to compete with other programs for elite QB talent plain and simple. So what exactly are we in position to offer a QB who is in demand? What QB is seriously going to want to play in this offense? What QB do we expect to be blown away by what we can offer in terms of development?
So now what? So we stick with Dawson for the sake of continuity and hope that we magically find a QB in the portal and that said QB proves to be the missing piece that we needed to make Dawson's mediocre offense look somewhat palatable? Do we bring in a 3rd coordinator in as many years? As bad as the optics would be, I am actually in favor of moving on from Dawson if the right option presents itself. Put me down as being in favor of making Ken Dorsey an offer to be OC/QB coach. Pay him as much as you need to get him here. Please note that I'm not in the pro Dorsey camp because he is a "Miami guy bro" but because he is absolutely qualified, doesn't run a bro style offense, is a proven developer of QBs, is very cerebral and intelligent, plus being a storied alum he has a vested interest in seeing the program succeed. Also he is intensely competitive and the type of guy who would have absolutely no problem telling Mario to eat a bag of dycks should the situation present itself. Plus he is available. Dorsey just makes a lot of sense if he is willing but I'm completely open minded to other options either in the college or the pro ranks. Assuming we keep Dawson because the optics of having a 3rd OC in 3 years would look bad then we need to bring in a proven QB coach to help him out or maybe bring in another offensive coach as an "offensive assistant" to help Dawson diversify the offense. The most important thing is that we make a move, any move in order to better position ourselves to be competitive in the QB market.
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. The perennial title holder of slow/methodical/bro-ball offenses during the last 2 decades (I understand that's not completely accurate and it's changing, but they definitely are known for that).
