A closer look at new Dolphins offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains

The Miami Dolphins appear set to hire former Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains to the same position on the Dolphins’ staff. Loggains is available after the Bears fired head coach John Fox this offseason, with Loggains having filled the offensive coordinator for the last two season - replacing Dolphins head coach Adam Gase when he left the Bears to join Miami. Loggains was the quarterbacks coach for the Bears in 2015, working with Gase.

To get a better idea of what Miami is getting in Loggains, I turned to Lester Wiltfong from Windy City Gridiron, the SB Nation team site covering the Bears. Here is what he had to say about Loggains:

In my opinion, he had a much better year calling plays last season. He started out really shaky, but I thought he settled into a rhythm towards the middle of the year, but then he had an inconsistent finish. The quarterback carousel (Cutler, Hoyer, Barkley) didn’t deter him from getting a bit too pass happy at times in 2016. Jordan Howard only averaged 18 carries per game in Chicago’s last four games that season, while averaging 6.1 yards per carry. If Loggains would have stuck with the run more down the stretch, the Bears may not have lost their last four.

Being pass happy was a complete 180 from what Loggains did this season. Run, run, pass was his series of calls most of this year. It was a running joke among those that followed the Bears, but I honestly think that had more to do with head coach John Fox wanting things to be easy for rookie quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. I’ve never seen a more predictable offense in all my years of watching the NFL, but some of that could have been because they didn’t fully trust the rookie with the entire playbook. Towards the end of the 2017 season it seemed like Fox allowed Loggains to open things up for Trubisky, and the offense looked competent in flashes.

His predictability wasn’t the only thing I didn’t like about his offense this year, it was the lack of creativity. He should have used more spread concepts for Trubisky, more RPOs, more scheming his receivers open, and I don’t think he called a slant until week 8.

Then again, the Gase / Loggains pairing helped Cutler to a really good season in 2015, so maybe the problem with Loggains’ offense this year was more on head coach John Fox’s conservative approach.