Tuesday 8 a.m. update:
Knowshon Moreno, who returned from an elbow injury to carry the ball five times against Green Bay, was placed on injured reserve today with an ACL injury. Moreno's contract is up at the end of the season.
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Monday 8 p.m.:
According to a person with direct knowledge, the Dolphins have reinstated defensive end Derrick Shelby, who was suspended for the past week after he was charged with resisting arrest without violence and trespassing at a Fort Lauderdale nightclub.
Neither the team nor Shelby's representation was willing to discuss the issue tonight. His attorney said he was not authorized to comment.
According to Pro Football Talk, the player's union might have been unhappy with the Dolphins for suspending Shelby without pay. A source confirmed there has been contact between Shelby's camp and the player's union.
A teammate expects Shelby to try to get back the money he lost during the suspension, but Shelby's camp has not confirmed that.
The Dolphins will need to make a roster move to create room for Shelby on the 53-man roster.
Shelby's usual workload was filled Sunday by Terrence Fede (16 snaps), Chris McCain (12) and Anthony Johnson (nine). Shelby has two sacks in four games this season.
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Monday 1:30 p.m. report:
Joe Philbin and his coordinators assuredly wanted to move on Monday, like any coach would after a gut-wrenching loss and another dangerous opponent looming in Chicago.
But Philbin, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle patiently answered lingering questions that begged answers regarding several strategic decisions that backfired in Sunday’s 27-24 loss to Green Bay.
Such as:
### Philbin indicated that he told his coordinators he wanted to try to get a first down if the Dolphins were nursing a lead late. So why did they run on a third and 9 and 3:01 left after an incomplete pass on the previous play? (Lamar Miller gained one yard on that rushing play.)
Philbin said he told Lazor to run the ball on that third down play.
Why? Philbin said “we had pressure and we had some free runners” on the previous incomplete pass play.
He said “I didn’t want to see us fumble the football or do something potentially devastating, like Buffalo when we fumbled the ball.” Philbin was referring to the game last October where Ryan Tannehill fumbled on a sack at the Miami 44 with the Dolphins preserving a lead and 2:48 left. The Bills recovered the fumble, then later kicked a field goal to win the game.
"That was second-and-8," Philbin said of that Bills' game. "So yeah, I was the one who told Bill (Lazor) to run the ball on third-and-9. Absolutely, I certainly did. I got a little queasy when I saw those guys running free with the quarterback running for his life, so we punted the ball. That was that decision, but absolutely, that was totally on me.”
How often does Philbin tell Lazor what play to run? “There's some. Not a ton,” Philbin said.
### Why did defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle have Phillip Wheeler alone on coverage on tight end Andrew Quarless on Aaron Rodgers’ game winning four yard touchdown pass with three second left?
"If you know their history, their two main targets in the red zone were (Jordy) Nelson and (Randall) Cobb, almost exclusively this year," Coyle said. "They had been in that formation only twice and both times they tried to throw the ball inside to the inside receivers during the earlier part of the season. It was a difficult spot for Philip to be in and the guy made a great throw and it was a tough position for him to make the play on. It was that close, a great player made a great play. We had been in that defense a couple of times in the game. One time, we got a sack (and) one time, we had great pressure on him (Aaron Rodgers). I can question it, we all can question it, but we saw the results.”
So why not use Jelani Jenkins or Koa Misi on Quarless in that sequence?
Philbin said Misi “wasn’t ready to go at that particular point. Sometimes, linebackers cover tight ends in coverage.”
Coyle said if Misi had been available, “it might have been Jelani as opposed to Philip” in coverage.
But why Wheeler instead of Jenkins on Quarless? “That was the call,” Philbin said. “We have to do better. It was a coverage we know, coverage we practice, something we believe in. It’s easy to say that play cost us the game. There were a lot of plays prior to that one that could have changed the outcome of the game.”
Wheeler said he didn’t practice that all week, and Philbin said he didn’t know what Wheeler meant by that and didn’t know if that’s true.
“I can’t say we ran that play in practice, but our linebackers cover tight ends in practice a lot,” he said.
Coyle confirmed Wheeler’s account. “He didn’t practice it because they hadn’t run it,” Coyle said. “You don’t start creating plays you don’t anticipate happening. Has he been in that situation in some other point in time in camp or one on one drills? Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he was working on that play during the course of the week. You only have so many snaps in a week to practice. You don’t start inventing things that aren't out there.”
### What did Coyle think about Wheeler criticizing the coaching? (Wheeler blamed 50 percent of the result of the play on his coverage, 50 percent on the defensive call.)
Coyle didn’t directly answer. “I wish we were successful on the call," Coyle said. Obviously, we weren’t. I think you always kind of, after a game like that, there are a number of different calls throughout the game that you might say, ‘Geez, I wish we would have done this, I wish we would have done that.’"
### Should Wheeler have instead lined up in Quarless' face on that play?
“There was space," Coyle said. "When you line up real tight, they’re going to throw the ball, a real fade over the top of you and that’s not a position that linebackers and sometimes even safeties are as accustomed to being up there in tight press. His alignment was OK. You’ve just got to be careful of a cardinal rule for everybody in coverage is never get pushed into the end zone, make the receiver have to run around you once you get down around the goal line. Again, he ran a difficult route, not so much a back-shoulder, but almost like a fade stop. If you look at it, he’s throwing the ball before the guy has even stopped. If you go back and watch the tape, you’ll see that, the guy stops and the ball is on him and Philip is trying to get a hand in there.”
### Why call a timeout before Green Bay’s winning touchdown?
"It certainly didn’t turn out to be the right decision, but it’s something I’ve done in the past and obviously will continue to think about doing in the future," Philbin said. "I’m most concerned about our team and what our team does, if our team knows the call and maybe we can communicate one or two little things that could help them do their job. I think it’s well worth it. That was the rationale behind it. I don’t want to sit here and say that was a great decision by Joe Philbin. I’m not sitting here saying that, but I get paid to make decisions. That’s what I did at that time, and that’s the logic I had behind it.”
Coyle said the timeouts “were good decisions because it gave us a chance to anticipate formations. It also gave our rush guys a chance to catch a little bit of a blow, to be able to crank it up full speed, to make sure that everybody was on the same page. Sometimes, in the chaos of an on the ball drive at the end of a game, you’re worried about the communication and things like that, so you take the time to ensure that everybody is on the same page and we could get things communicated well.”
### Were the Dolphins prepared for Rodgers’ fake spike that resulted in a 12-yard completion with six seconds left?
“We cover that in training camp and practice,” Philbin said. “We’re not in control of play calls for them. It’s something we expose our players to.”
Coyle said: "The fake spike, everybody is making a big deal about the fake spike, but the fake spike, if it had been the touchdown, I think would have been a bigger issue. The fake spike, we’ve got to tackle the guy, get him on the ground and the game is over, they don’t get another play. So it wasn’t so much that the fake spike cost us the game."
But was Finnegan supposed to be that far off on Davante Adams on that play? “I don’t remember how deep he was but he could have been a little closer,” Philbin said, adding that Dolphins’ defensive backs were sometimes “a little too deep.”
Overall, Philbin took some accountability: “I have to do a better job, first and foremost. I’m the head coach. We need to do better.”
On other issues:
### Philbin bemoaned that “the running game was inconsistent. Until Ryan had that 40 yard run, we didn’t run the ball well.”
The Dolphins had 10 yards on 10 carries in the first half against the NFL’s most porous run defense and finished with 112 yards on 23 carries.
### Philbin said the Dolphins’ slow starts cannot continue. Miami has been outscored 60-40 in the first half. “We had 90 yards of offense in the first half," Philbin said. "I have to get us off to a better start offensively. I have to get concepts players know in the passing game. We have to start better.”
### Of the Dolphins players making their season debut, Philbin said Reshad Jones “for the first time back did a good job” and Mike Pouncey, playing his first NFL game at guard “did well. He had some good finishing blocks.” Will the Dolphins continue with Pouncey at guard? “Our starters are our starters,” he said.
Lazor, on Pouncey: “The guy is a great athlete who also has power. He can probably do whatever he wants to do up front. It’s only going to get better.”
### Asked what he second-guessed, Lazor regretted that Miami didn’t score a touchdown after blocking a Green Bay punt. Knowshon Moreno lost two yards on a fourth and goal run.
"When we got the ball on the five, we had better plays than the one I called the first time,” Lazor said.
Though Fox’s John Lynch said Tannehill should have audibled out of that play, Lazor said he disagreed with that.
Twitter: @flasportsbuzz
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