If there’s any winning to be done by the Miami Dolphins this season, the team has a lot of work to do as they head into the bye week.

Brian Flores knows it.

After facing off against a tough line-up of opponents to kick start the 2019 season, and his head coaching career, the Dolphins have been largely embarrassed on the field, now having been outscored 163 – 26.

Brian Flores has a grand and unenviable task on his hands to keep an inexperienced locker room together, to direct and oversee improvement and to keep his players focused on the remaining 12 games ahead.

Flores met with the media on Monday afternoon to discuss his reflections upon the season to date and to express his thoughts as to where he has seen improvements so far.

On the team’s attitude overall after a winless start, he said:

“We’re going to move on and really look towards the next day and the next challenge. I think they’ll do that, but obviously there’s some disappointment in that locker room reflecting on the first four weeks of the season…”

It seems that Flores will always demand that his players remain mentally and emotionally strong. He wants them to stay determined and “Always upbeat, always positive. That’s what I’m looking for out of this group. To go the other way – it helps no-one.”

As for the first quarter of the season? Flores’s response as to how he thought it had gone was delivered with some of his trademark honesty:

“Not so good. We made a lot of changes to the roster, kind of building the team on the fly in a lot of ways… At the same time, trying to build a team, build some camaraderie, communication and build some rapport – I think that’s been a big part of these first four weeks. I think that’s trending in the right direction as far as the team coming together, getting to know each other, building relationships in the locker room, off the field, on the field. That to me is very, very important on a team… As far as on the field, we’ve got a long way to go and I think they [the players] know that.”

Flores noted that he has begun to see more positives show themselves, particularly in the past 2 weeks, but he is fully aware that they are “not good enough”. He added that the level of communication had improved “across the board”, as well as some improvement on 3rd down which had enabled them (at times) to sustain drives.

He was clearly and visibly irked by the handful of missed scoring opportunities and mentioned inconsistency with tackling and coverage as issues which needed to be fixed.

The first 4 weeks have come to a close and Flores’ goal for the 2nd quarter of the season is to “Put a full game together… Got to string more plays together consistently. And that’s everybody – players and coaches… But there’s a lot that goes into that. Culture, coaching, execution, fundamentals, conditioning.”

However, despite an 0-4 start to his head coach campaign, Flores doesn’t at all sound like a man who has been broken, beaten down. Instead he exudes the quiet confidence of leader and a teacher who has plans to obtain the best out of his students.

Flores claims to like his running back group, who have been largely unproductive and inconsistent behind a makeshift offensive line. He praised Kenyan Drake for his production and hard runs against the Chargers but added that Drake “Has to do a better job with ball security – that’s 2 weeks in a row where he lost one… We’ll do a lot of evaluating, we’ll evaluate the whole team…”

Defensive End, Taco Charlton, who leads the team with 2 sacks in his 2 games as a Dolphins is still learning the defense. Flores noted that Taco was out of position on a few snaps but added that he brings and energy and toughness to the defense. He has a “long way to go” from a pass rush standpoint in putting all of his skills together, but “there’s a lot of potential… [Taco had a] couple of good rushes, couple of not-so-good rushes. We’ll just keep working and I think he’ll help us.”

One thing you’d probably bet on, on a Brian Flores led team, is a certain level of discipline when it comes to penalties. In fact, despite some understandable miscommunication amongst such a rag-tag group, the Dolphins currently sit 4th in the league in terms of fewest penalties per game (5.8).

You’d be also entirely correct to assume that Christian Wilkins’ suplex and the resulting 15 yard unnecessary roughness penalty during Sunday’s loss annoyed him:

“It’s 10-10. We just missed a field goal and we’re right in it. We don’t need those. He knows that, I think everybody on the team knows that. I thought it was a bad penalty… I love Christian. He knows that. I’m gonna coach him hard, especially a kid like this who’s got so much ability and leadership potential. I think he’s gonna be here a long time and be the face of what we want to be about – and that’s not it… I was upset. I’m still upset, but it’s football. You’ve gotta get over things quickly.”

Jason Sanders, who missed field goal attempts of 51 and 53 yards on Sunday remains in Flores’ good books:

“He’s a good kicker, he can make these kicks. I’ve got a lot of confidence in him, I still do. I just said that in front of the entire team. We’ll keep kicking him, and he’ll make them… He makes them in practice day after day, after day, after day. I think he’ll be just fine.”

Flores specifically named lineback Avery Moss and rookie guard/tackle Michael Dieter as the most improved players he had seen on the roster since their arrivals. “Michael Dieter has really made a lot of improvements since he got here… Go back to the first presseason game.. he looked like a deer in the headlights and now he’s out here playing tackle against the Dallas Cowboys, in a hostile environment and he didn’t bat an eye.”

Flores mentioned that the is “optimistic” that the team will see the return of Jomal Wiltz, Bobby McCain and Albert Wilson for the Dolphins’ next game against the Washington Redskins on 13 October. As for now, the Dolphins head into their bye week and Flores expects he’ll be required to take some time away from the facility:

“I think my wife has got something planned, so whatever she says, we’ll do. If it was up to me I’d be here, but it probably won’t be up to me.”

Something tells me he won’t be away for long.