John Donovan. Joe Moorhead. Dowell Loggains. Chad O’Shea. Chan Gailey. Who are these men? These are the offensive coordinators for Miami Dolphins tight end Mike Gesicki since 2014 — five different coordinators in seven seasons of play between the college and professional ranks. That’s no small number. Continuity among coaching staffs is always easier in theory than it is in application, mainly because the football world will be quick to find coaching candidates and offer a promotion at the first sign of success. Or, in the case of Gesicki’s NFL experience, the tolerance for shortcomings isn’t overly abundant.
They don’t call it the NFL the “Not For Long” for nothing, after all. Gesicki has seen it first hand — Loggains was flushed out along with former coach Adam Gase after the 2018 season, whereas O’Shea was dismissed at the end of the 2019 season for what we’ve since learned was rooted in concerns about the complexity of his offense.
Chan Gailey will be Gesicki and the Dolphins’ third offensive coordinator in as many seasons — but a valuable lesson Gesicki has already learned in his football career is that the concepts are more important the play caller.
“It’s just something new again this year; but at the end of the day, it’s just football, so you’ve just got to come out, know your role, know your assignment and go out and execute to the best of your ability,” said Gesicki when asked about how he’s applying lessons from the past to another year with a new coordinator.
“That’s really all that you can do no matter who’s calling the plays or what the plays are called or all of that kind of stuff.”
Indeed. You’ll often hear players discuss that once you master the concepts and route combinations at the NFL level, the rest of the puzzle pieces are easier to fall into place. Some playbooks use phrasing of coded words, others use a digit system. But mesh is mesh, smash is smash and dagger is dagger. And the little nuances may change from system to system. But ultimately, Gesicki said it best.
“It’s just football.”
