Dolphins coaches see Ryan Tannehill as just a game manager

Pryor knocked Dolphins wide receiver Rishard Matthews out of the game with a crushing hit in the first quarter of the Jets’ 38-20 win on Sunday. Campbell, of course, was promoted to head coach on October 5, the day Joe Philbin was sacked following a 27-14 loss to the Jets in London. Quarterbacks coach Zac Taylor will fill in as the play caller for Dan Campbell for the remainder of the season. That’s exactly what took place Sunday afternoon in the Meadowlands, as the Jets overwhelmed Miami with decisive play-calling, using the pass to setup the run, and never letting their foot off the gas pedal.

By the time the Dolphins converted for the first time on third down, with 4:25 to play in the third quarter, they were already in a 21-0 hole. The touchdown was a 17-yard pass from Fitzpatrick to Marshall, who had three catches on the drive to begin his dismantling of Grimes. Head coach Todd Bowles didn’t have an update on Williams following the game.

Miami was down three touchdowns before breaking up the shutout on a five-yard pass from Ryan Tannehill to Jarvis Landry with 2:30 left in the third quarter – on the Dolphins’ first trip to the red zone since the first quarter.

Taylor, who played quarterback at Nebraska, has been part of the Dolphins staff since 2012, where he’s served as Miami’s quarterback coach. Plus, to get technical, even if the Dolphins bounced back, they’d lose tiebreakers to the Jets as well as the 5-6 Bills, each of whom have swept Miami. The Jets swept the Dolphins this season for the first time since 2007 and they needed it in the worst of ways.

Unfortunately, the concepts and, by extension, Tannehill (though it very well could be the other way around) proved much less effective this season. Big Blue came back to win the game, highlighted by a 99-yard touchdown by Victor Cruz. They were able to pick up one first down in their first possession of the second half but could not pick up the necessary yardage to keep the offense on the field.

“I just felt like it was time to move in another direction”, Campbell said.

“That’s what you want – you want to be playing meaningful games in December, and that’s kind of where we’re at right now”, said Fitzpatrick, who trimmed his omnipresent beard earlier in the week in hopes of changing the Jets’ fortunes. The receiver had nine receptions for 131 yards and two TDs.

“What I want to see us do is run the ball”, Taylor said. The Jets (6-5) came out with an exclamation point in a dominant victory over their AFC East rival in the Miami Dolphins (4-7). Wideout Eric Decker (five catches for 62 yards and a touchdown) dropped a sure touchdown two snaps prior to Marshall’s first touchdown but scored in the third quarter. Beckham made another acrobatic catch in Sunday’s loss to the Giants and has 72 catches for 1,005 yards and nine touchdowns this season.

But it’s now Taylor’s job for the final five games of a 4-7 season and he said he plans to streamline the offense and simplify it.

Let’s check out some of the notable players and stats from this one so we can figure out why things happened the way they did.