DAVIE, Fla. (AP) — The Miami Dolphins are hoping to bounce back after a disappointing start as they did last season.
Coming off a 20-0 loss to the New Orleans Saints in London and dropping to 1-2, the Dolphins have returned to South Florida in preparation to host the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.
“It is what it is,” coach Adam Gase said. “I’m fine. They’re fine. We’ll come out here and we’ll go practice.”
The Dolphins have recent experience of bouncing back from a slow start, which they are hoping to repeat when they started 1-4 last season before finishing 10-6 and advancing to the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons.
“I think it gives us that sense that there’s no need to panic,” wide receiver Kenny Stills said. “We understand that the schemes that we’re running in the run game take a little bit of time for our guys to get on the same page.
“We know that we have players, we know that we have talent, and we know that we have great coaches so we just have to get back to the basics and fundamentals of things and execute the game plan every week, and we’ll get back on the right track.”
Gase said: “If you’re panicking, then you’re in the wrong profession. Your job is to come out each week, it’s a new week, start over. We had 24 hours to complain about everything and now it’s time to go back to work, and really everybody needs to look themselves in the mirror and realize, do your job and things will go right.”
Offensively, the Dolphins are last in scoring at 8.3 points per game, which includes scoring a total of six points the past two games, and are last in total offense at 249 yards a game.
“Just disappointment,” right guard Jermon Bushrod said. “I’m disappointed in myself. I’m disappointed that we can’t score. I’m disappointed we’re not winning these games.
“We just have to get better. I have to get better. It’s tough. It’s not a good situation that we’re in right now, but we can still fight our way out of it. We’ve got to put in some extra work.”
When the Dolphins landed in South Florida, they began to hear the news about the Las Vegas shooting. Cornerback Torry McTyer, who played at UNLV, received a phone call from his girlfriend.
“My girlfriend works at the hotel, Mandalay Bay, so she called me pretty concerned about what was going on,” McTyer said.
“A lot of her co-workers barricaded themselves in a storage room and they finally got the OK probably a couple hours ago to leave so I was up all night just thinking about that. I’m happy she’s cool and everybody she works with is cool.”
McTyer stayed on the phone with his girlfriend for a couple of hours while others also gathered information.
“I was so upset, I was so hurt about it,” Bushrod said. “It’s a bad time for the people in Las Vegas and for our country it’s not a good look. We’re sending out thoughts and prayers to everyone affected and to everyone who helped out, they’re heroes.”
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