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The Dolphins jumped out to a 17-0 lead over the Panthers in Week 5 but eventually blew the lead, allowing Carolina RB Rico Dowdle to go for 206 rushing yards. Miami HC Mike McDaniel emphasized the defense’s need to get on the same page so teams are forced to be put in tougher situations.
“If you can’t get it right during the game, they will continue to do the least risky thing,” McDaniel said, via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. “It’s not how you win football games in this league. We have to figure that out immediately. I’ll start on the plane. . . . We need guys playing on the same page. You don’t give up that many line of scrimmage yards unless you’re uncoordinated in certain ways. If play calls need to change for that to occur, [we will]. It can’t continue to go on like this. It’s already gone on too long.”
The Jets dropped their fifth straight game to start the season, losing in a 37-22 blowout to the Cowboys that wasn’t quite as close as the final score might indicate. It’s not the start anyone in the building envisioned at all when new HC Aaron Glenn was hired this offseason. The Jets weren’t expected to be good, but most people figured they had enough talent to at least be frisky. Instead, they’ve been awful, especially and unexpectedly on defense. It’s left young stars like Jets CB Sauce Gardner and WR Garrett Wilson at a loss.
“It’s hard to process,” Gardner said via the Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt. “It keeps me up at night trying to process stuff. So I try to think of the good through all of this because it’s hard for me to sleep, seeing like: Dang, why aren’t we winning? Dang, why is it every time something is going good for us, something bad — we take one step forward and two steps back? It’s been tough trying to think, trying to pinpoint what it really is. I can’t process it.”
“No one expected this,” Wilson added. “I couldn’t say I knew what I was getting into as far as the growing pains that come with that, and I’m not going to sit here and say this is what (all) new coaches go through, but I still have that faith that we’re going to be better off for it.”
Glenn couldn’t say much after the game except ask for patience and analyze what went wrong. The Jets turned the ball over while not getting any turnovers of their own — in fact they are the first team in NFL history to start 0-5 without forcing a turnover — and were plagued by missed tackling. All those were points of emphasis for Glenn in practice in the week leading up to the game.
“The practices have been damn good,” Glenn said. *“They are. It’s just the fact that when you get in games and something bad happens, the response...
