Time for the Miami Dolphins to Start from Scratch After Latest Embarrassing Loss

If the Miami Dolphins want to make changes to their team, all they need to do, apparently, is call up the New York Jets for a friendly game of football, and they'll be ready to make firings in no time.

After losing 38-20 to the Jets at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, the Dolphins fired offensive coordinator Bill Lazor. This comes just shy of two months after the Dolphins fired head coach Joe Philbin and defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle following a 27-14 loss to the Jets at Wembley Stadium in Week 4.

All these moves have been leading in one direction (and I'm not talking about Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson). At the end of the day, the Dolphins are going to make major changes to the organization. That's the story of their life, it seems. They've been making the same mistakes, week after week, year after year.

They can't stop the run. They can't run the ball, and at times, they don't even want to. 

One of their biggest mistakes has been their failure to commit to hitting the reset button at multiple stages of Stephen Ross' tenure as team owner.

He failed to fire general manager Jeff Ireland when he switched from Tony Sparano to Joe Philbin at head coach; he failed to fire Philbin when he finally found the fortitude to fire Ireland; and after adding more cooks to the front office kitchen this offseason, we're probably headed toward more half-measures.

Year	2013	2014	2015
Plays	1001	1040	669
Yards	5007	5601	3725
Yards/play	5	5.4	5.6
Points/game	19.8	24.3	20.5
3rd down %	35	40	27.7
Red zone %	56.5	51.4	56.7
Tannehill's rating	81.7	92.8	88.7
Net yards/pass	5.5	5.8	6
Yards/rush	4.1	4.7	4.6
Sacks	58	46	33

Ross will probably find a way to make changes to his coaching staff without making too many adjustments to the power structure. Dolphins vice president Mike Tannenbaum, who was hired in January, might be safe from the axe; general manager Dennis Hickey and interim head coach Dan Campbell, however, can't say the same.

So far, all the changes have been no-brainers. The Dolphins have talent, but their team has underperformed in nearly every conceivable fashion. That usually falls on coaching. The defense had slowly declined under Coyle, and the offense had regressed in Lazor's second year (though it was still better than when he arrived).

Quarterback Ryan Tannehill has put up some of the worst (and definitely the hollowest) numbers of his career in 2015, even as the Dolphins have leaned almost exclusively on the passing game. Tannehill might be a better option at quarterback if he had better coaching, but at some point, the quarterback has to take some of the blame. 

The problem is, there are only so many changes the Dolphins can make. Thanks to Tannehill's new contract, the Dolphins are married to their former first-round pick for at least one more year. The team signed Tannehill to a four-year extension worth $77 million in new money with a $21.5 million signing bonus. The Dolphins would be on the hook for more money than they would save by cutting him, at least through 2016.

So, the only real option is to help him out as much as possible. 

Whether you think he deserves some, all or none of the blame, there's no arguing that the quarterback play has to improve if any coach wants a prayer of making it past his third year with the Dolphins. That's especially true, given the report from Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald that Tannehill is the Dolphins' quarterback for the foreseeable future—possibly even all the way through his contract, which runs through 2020. 

With that, the Dolphins will have to dramatically improve the pieces around Tannehill to ensure the offense can succeed with him at the helm. That means finding him a better offensive line, bringing in a coaching staff that can play to his strengths and continuing to add to his skill-position weapons beyond "the big three" of Jarvis Landry, Rishard Matthews and Lamar Miller. 

Those are all things that can be accomplished by making changes in the front office and the coaching staff, assuming those changes are for the better. But after six—going on seven—years out of the playoffs, it's clear that something has to change.