Every word Jeff Hafley said on Miami’s 0-2 start, secondary communication issues and Sunday’s home opener

Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley spoke to reporters on Monday as his side prepares for Sunday’s home opener, sitting at 0-2 to start the season.

Hafley gave the latest on Chop Robinson and Jaylen Wright’s fitness, provided an update on Kyle Louis, and broke down where the tape shows genuine progress despite the record.

He also addressed the communication issues that plagued Miami’s secondary against San Francisco, Austin Jackson’s tough matchups against elite pass rushers, and what he wants to see from his team in their first game back at home against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Here’s every word he had to say:

What is the latest with Chop Robinson?

He’s in the protocol. He’s exactly where we thought he’d be right now. So we’ll see how he does come Wednesday.

How’s Jaylen Wright?

I would say he will be day-to-day. So we’ll see what he’s able to do on Wednesday.

And Kyle Louis, I didn’t see him on the sideline. Was he there? Did he come back?

He’s back here today.

Did he have a procedure or anything like that?

No.

As far as Bradley Pinion, I asked Sully on cut down day about him and Sully said that he had a conversation with him. Have you had a conversation with him since yesterday or what? How do you handle that with him dropping the ball?

I handled it like I handled it last night. He’s punted for a long time and he’s probably never dropped a ball like that before, and I’m sure he won’t do it again.

What was your evaluation of Austin Jackson over the last couple weeks?

Some good, some to get better. Plenty of opportunity for us to help him more. If we’re honest and we look at it, he’s been up against Crosby and Bosa. I think those are two of the better players in our league. So he’s had some good moments, and just like anyone else, he’s had some tough moments against them. There’s times when we can help him out more as coaches.

Chris Bell’s snap count yesterday. How much of that is getting back into the swing of things, getting more familiar with the offensive scheme, getting back into football shape?

I think it’s all the above, and we had limited overall reps yesterday. So it’s a combination of all three.

What are you seeing as you look back at the first two games that maybe are some of the positives that people in the media or fans don’t see when they look at just the result and say, “Okay, this team’s 0-2 and not playing good football overall”?

Overall, when you turn on the tape, there’s an element of toughness and how hard we’re playing that jumps off the tape, and I hope everybody sees that.

Every person I’ve talked to in this business — whether it’s a coach, a scout, somebody from an opposing team, a coach from another team — it jumps off the tape. That’s really important to me. We have to establish that and build off of that. When you turn on the last couple plays of the game on both sides of the ball, they’re playing just as hard as they did on the first.

Those are things we can control. Our run defense — I thought we played really good run defense against one of the better rushing offenses in the NFL yesterday. I’m not talking about the scrambles, we’ve got to clean those up. Purdy, I think, was their leading rusher, and McCaffrey had about 10 carries for 20-some yards.

Their longest real run in the game was an eight-yard run on play 50. So I thought we cleaned up the run defense even from the first game — their average was like 3.4 a carry. When you have 37 rushes, you’re going to get your yards, but we’re playing better against the run. Still room for improvement, it’s not where we want it to be, but I thought that was a step forward yesterday.

As far as the offense goes, we ran the ball better yesterday, and that was important to see. We moved the ball in that first half on every single drive, and we should have had 13 points against a really good team in that first half — should have been 14-13 — and it wasn’t, so it wasn’t good enough. But when you’re looking at things to build off, those are them, and obviously there’s a lot to work on.

What has Malik done well in these first two games and what would you like for him to get better at?

I think there’s moments when the ball’s out on time. He’s been able to extend plays, take shots down the field. He’s been extremely accurate. He’s kept drives alive with his legs. I just think it’s the consistency right now, and it’s getting comfortable with the guys around him and getting in rhythm — the drop-back pass, which unfortunately we’ve needed for the latter half of the second half in both games.

When they know you’re going to drop back, it’s going through the progression, it’s being on time, it’s having the receivers on time. I think those are the things early in a year a lot of quarterbacks are working on. We’ve played two games, and I’m excited to see him continue to improve. I know he’s working really hard at it, and it’s going to take all 11.

I saw a picture postgame of Kadyn Proctor interacting with Trent Williams on the field. I don’t know what was said between the two, but how valuable can that be for a rookie to pick the brain of an all-pro like Trent?

I didn’t see it, so that’s a great question if you get a chance to talk to him — but it can be very valuable. He’s one of the best to ever play his position, and it’ll be interesting to see myself when I ask him what he had to say.

Without speaking on specific positions, I was going to ask if your tape review led you to conclude that maybe you should make lineup or rotation changes at any position. Were there any positions where you said to yourself, “We’re just not good enough here, I’d like to change the personnel, use someone else”?

We have to make sure there’s constant competition. If that means someone plays more or less as we evaluate the tape, yeah, there are certain positions where I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were those conversations. We need to continue to have those conversations.

What did you see from Michael Taffee yesterday?

I think he had the team high with nine tackles. As for how many of those were good tackles in the offense as opposed to last-line-of-defense tackles — they were both. He’s a very instinctual player who was around the ball quite a bit. He’s physical, he’s a good tackler. From that aspect I thought he did a really nice job.

There are some things, as a young player like all these other rookies playing, that he’s going to clean up, and we’re going to help him do that. But he’s a guy I’m really pleased with the way he’s playing. There’s still a lot of room to improve for him and a lot of the young guys around him, which is exciting.

The singular most concerning thing in the secondary for you — is it communication, technique, something else? What’s the biggest concern, would you say, just from yesterday’s game?

I would probably say the communication. We had some busts that are very unlike us, that I haven’t seen in practice, hadn’t seen in camp. We need to help each other out more back there and communicate more. That starts with coaching, then down to the players. We looked really hard today to try to figure out why that happened, because it hasn’t shown up before.

Clearly that was the biggest issue yesterday — the communication. I was trying to watch some of those big chunk plays, those busts, and trying to figure out what went wrong on those plays. Obviously it’s hard without knowing what the call was.

Is there any context you could provide as far as, say, the couple that went to George Kittle? How did he get open over the middle on the touchdown — was Willie Gay supposed to stick with him, or was he expecting someone else to be there?

Some of those were communication, right? We didn’t have a guy where they were supposed to be — we got into the wrong call, or didn’t cover our man. All of the above, which is the stuff that, again, was kind of surprising because it hasn’t been like that. Something was off, and we’ve got to go back to work and fix it.

We haven’t seen many rollouts or boots with Malik. Has there been a conscious decision to have him operate from the pocket as much as possible?

A lot of the play-pass has gotten him out of the pocket, but there are certain times, versus certain defensive ends, that you’re not going to want to boot a rollout too — and we’ve happened to play some pretty good ends right now. But those are a big part of what we’re going to do, and we’ll continue to.

Regarding the team’s spirit and mentality — I know it’s only been two games — do you rely on the team captains to say something to them, or do you just let this go, and say “it’s only been two games, I don’t need to tell them to keep their mentality up”?

No. The way we’re building this thing right now — win or lose, we’re not going to come in and there shouldn’t be a difference. You can’t change who you are, you can’t let circumstance dictate your behavior. If you let circumstance dictate your behavior, then we have the wrong guys. Whether we win or lose, we’ve got to come in, we’ve got to look really hard at the film. It can’t be hanging your head, moping around, anybody afraid to say hello to me or be themselves with me.

We just have to look in the mirror, coach really hard. Win or lose, you’ve got to do it again, right? Unfortunately we’ve lost, so we’ve got to get better and fix it. But there’s no — like I said, watch the last two plays of the game and you’ll get the answer you’re looking for. This team is going to be built, the foundation is going to be laid where we’re not going to act a certain way based on what happens to us. That’s really important to me and to us.

What will be key in cleaning up a lot of these penalties?

You’ve got to look at all of them, right? Is some a lack of focus? Is some just getting beat and grabbing a guy? Is some fundamental in technique? It’s not even the amount of them that’s jumping off — it’s the timing of them. Every time we crossed the 40-yard line yesterday, we were put in a really tough situation, and that’s been stressed. Are there some young guys making those mistakes?

Yeah, there are. Is that an excuse? No, it’s not — not anymore. We’re in week three, and we’ve got to coach that really hard and emphasize it really hard. It’s the pre-snap ones that can’t happen, and that’s disappointing to me, and we clearly need to fix that. The stuff that happens in between the play — the hold here, the illegal contact when you’re trying to be aggressive and jam a guy — those kind of go through the flow of the game. But it’s the ones where you’re in the critical situation, where you have to have hyperfocus and execute your job, whether it’s on two or whether it’s lining up and not covering up a tight end. Those are the things we’ve got to get going on. There has to be a sense of urgency with that, and I’m not happy with it.

There was a report that the team is signing Bills linebacker Andre Jones off the practice squad. Can you confirm that?

Yeah, I mean, that’s the plan right now, talking to Sully. So we’ll see how that goes.

Was that fueled at all by wanting to improve special teams play primarily?

I think it’s fueled by both. With Jalen Tolbert — he’s one of those veterans you’ll occasionally see on an inactive list who has a body of work in his career.

How has he handled it? Do you feel like he’s still keeping himself in tune to step in if needed?

100%. I had a great one-on-one talk with him. We randomly ran into each other and I pulled him aside and told him how much I appreciate it, how much he’s embracing his role right now. That doesn’t mean he’s accepting the fact that that’s his role right now, but I told him his time’s going to come and we’re going to need him.

Right now his job is to practice as hard as he can to continue to get better on offense and defense, to be the best teammate he can be, to help some of these young guys who are unfortunately for him playing ahead of him. But that’s part of being on an NFL roster and understanding your role. His time will come, and I truly believe that. I have great admiration and appreciation for how he’s approached it, and how all our guys are handling everything right now who are in roles like that.

You talked about the communication on the back end and how the Niners stress that for any defense they face. Is there some benefit early in the season to get a tape like that out there, to teach a young team from the perspective of an offense that can challenge you in so many ways?

What do you mean?

Like, compared to if it’s later in the year and you play a team like that that puts that on tape — is it better to have it in week two, so you can say “this is where teams are going to stress you, we can correct it from now, early in the season,” compared to later on?

We practice against this stuff with Bobby all throughout training camp and OTAs, which is why I was surprised. Bobby stresses us in practice, Bobby stresses us in training camp. We just have to figure out why it happened in this game and fix it this week. It’s the home opener, fans are coming back to see a team that’s currently 0-2.

What would be your message to the fans for the first home game?

Get out and support the team, make it loud. We’ve played two games, right? We’ve got a team that’s young, that’s giving everything they have. I can’t wait to get them in the stadium and give it everything we have for the fans and for the city. I wish we had already played a game at home, it feels like forever, and I’m fired up to be in there.

Going back to Austin Jackson — you mentioned the elite competition he’s faced in Bosa and Crosby. Do you chalk it up more to the fact that he’s facing these elite guys versus a potential regression on his end, or how do you see the totality of the work?

Chalk what up?

Just the — I don’t want to say lackluster play, like it hasn’t been up to what we’ve seen from him in the past. Is that just a very small sample size because he’s facing a Crosby, a Bosa, two guys who are among the best at that position?

I’m not saying there’s lackluster play — that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying there’s an inconsistency, where he’s had some good moments and he’s had some moments just like the rest of us. That’s kind of how I answered your question the first time, and I appreciate the follow-up, but it’s exactly like I said to you the first time.