The Miami Dolphins didn't have the best Week 1 performance in any phase of the game, but they were especially poor on special teams, as they missed a field goal and put their defense in bad field position after some terrible kick coverage.
If the Dolphins want to put a watchable product on the field, there can't be these type of mistakes in the third phase, and that's something that special teams coordinator Chris Tabor told the media on Thursday.
"Well we've got to play better, got to coach better, and that starts with me," Tabor said. "There's a lot of things we've got to work on. We’re, I’d definitely say, obviously a work in progress but it needs to get a lot better by Sunday. This is a really good unit. They got really good returners. Punt
returner is electric, obviously Deebo Samuel is electric. But this is really more about us and what we need to get done and improve, so that's what we're going to try to concentrate on today and hopefully it carries over to Sunday."
Local reporters tried to get Tabor to explain what the issue was on the big returns, but he wasn't willing to point the finger at anyone specifically.
"I understand the question, but really, you comment on things like that, you're making excuses. We're not in the excuse business, we're in the production business and we got to get better. We got to coach better," Tabor said. "So we're all in it together. I'll say this, I like the guys that I have, and I know it wasn't up to what we want it to be, but I believe in them and I believe they'll get better. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. Hopefully you always see an improvement from Game 1 to Game 2, so we'll see if that takes place."
Miami has a thin roster and a tough schedule this year, and they simply can't afford to be setting their defense up with short fields to defend. And while they expect to see improvements heading into Week 2 now that the rust is knocked off, they have a tough challenge in stopping Deebo Samuel and Jacob Cowing on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: Dolphins coordinator has no excuses for poor special teams play
