Whether it's labeled retooling or rebuilding, the Dolphins are undergoing another in a long line of renovations after losing their No. 1 receiver, Pro Bowl center and most dominant defender, respectively, in Jarvis Landry, Mike Pouncey and Ndamukong Suh.
What is it the Dolphins are searching for and why can't they find it?
In a sit-down interview at the Annual League Meeting in Orlando, coach Adam Gase acknowledged that his team is still seeking an identity as he embarks on his third year at the helm.
"That's a tough question," Gase told the Around The NFL Podcast. "Hopefully we're developing the kind of team that figures out the right way to win the game for that week.
"It's tough to explain as far as exactly what we're looking to be because we've changed a lot of our personnel and every week is so different. You're playing all of these different styles of teams and you have to be able to morph into what you need to do to win that game."
If that sounds eerily similar to Bill Belichick's opponent-specific approach, it's no coincidence. Gase's football philosophy has been influenced by his dynastic AFC East rival.
"The beginning of my career was [Alabama coach] Nick Saban," Gase explained. "I think Mike Martz had a big impact on me. Then you look at, I think, Josh McDaniels had a big impact on me. And two of those guys are from that tree. That has allowed me to kind of learn from their experiences."
While the Patriots have succeeded with Belichick and Tom Brady as twin Goliaths, the Dolphins have no such pillars to function as reliable underpinnings for their own structure.
Here's what else we learned from Gase's appearance on the Around The NFL Podcast:
- Gase expressed a level of frustration with the business decisions that ended Miami's relationships with Suh, Pouncey and Landry.
"The whole process of all of this is not easy," Gase said. "In this day and age, there's a different relationship there. I think it's not so much here's who's in charge and there's this hierarchy there. Players and coaches and front offices, everybody's kind of in it together. And when somebody leaves it's tough. I mean it's tough for everybody.
"When Mike Pouncey gets released, that's not easy to go through. It's horrible. That's somebody that this organization has been with for a long period of time. ... All he's been trying to do is help this organization win. He's given everything he has to it. And when that time comes and we wend up doing that, that's a brutal phone call to have to make and have that conversation."
- If free-agent quarterback Jay Cutler resumes his 2017 plans to enter the broadcast booth, Gase expects his formal pupil to pull no punches:
