‘It’s disrespectful to the team’—Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley pulls no punches in addressing one of Friday night’s costly mistakes
Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley follows up on his sideline interaction with running back Ollie Gordon II after a personal foul penalty on Friday night against the Commanders.
Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley has done plenty of coaching since arriving in South Florida this January. Sure, the program is just getting started, but this young team needs plenty of direction.
Hafley is offering it. Although Friday night’s 20-7 preseason loss to the Washington Commanders gave Hafley the first chance to (publicly) offer a different kind of coaching. Tough love. Early in the second half, second-year running back Ollie Gordon II drew a personal foul penalty after a 3-yard run. The call was related to a post-snap exchange with a Commanders defender. Gordon II came off the field and was met immediately by Hafley, who offered some words of instruction before sending Gordon II on to the sideline. That exchange, in and of itself, is small. But it’s planting seeds for something much, much bigger.
Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley creates a very clear expectation for post-snap penalties
“I’m not a big fan of pre-snap penalties and post-snap penalties like that — those are not acceptable to me. It’s disrespectful to the team, it’s selfish, and it’s how you lose games. I’m not going to play players that can’t control themselves and get us 15-yard penalties and have us go backwards and put our team in a bad position, put our coaches in a bad position. And that’s a big learning lesson. I went over it with the team today.
Ollie and I had a great conversation again this morning and you know, hopefully he’ll learn from that and our team will learn from it, but those are the quickest way to lose football games and there’s no place for that. And when I pulled him out, I’m not going to tell you exactly what I said to him, but it was a chance for me to look him in the eye and let him know that that was not okay and that I had to take him out and he had to learn his lesson, because if you’re going to have a standard, there has to be consequences, or then your standard is just a bunch of BS if not.”
Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley
On Ollie Gordon II's personal foul on Friday night
First and foremost, I can appreciate Hafley’s candid, direct approach here. Not just with the media in discussing this incident, either. But the nature of the way he appears to have discussed things with Gordon II. Ollie Gordon II is a young player whose run-in with a Commanders defender on Friday night ultimately cost the team 15 yards on a night where yards were hard to come by after the opening possession. It killed a drive and put the offense behind the sticks.
Hafley making sure the standard is set and the consequences are clear for his young team is absolutely necessary. ‘It was a chance for me to look him in the eye and let him know that that was not okay’. Not a lot of room for misinterpretation there. And Hafley is very matter of fact about it all. He has a great knack for stating things as they are but being sincere in doing so.
Amid all the focus on culture in Miami, it’s easy to see why Hafley was determined to be qualified for this job at this time. Because this is a formative moment for that culture. Assuming, of course, that the players are listening. I would assume that the consequences that awaited Gordon II on Friday night helped make sure that was the case.
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