The Miami Dolphins defense has had their issues for the last month dating back to their game against the Patriots on Sept. 30. Their latest disaster came on Thursday night during a 42-23 meltdown against the Houston Texans.

Miami’s defense gave up 188 yards on the ground to Houston’s backfield. During the last two weeks, the Dolphins defense has allowed 436 yards rushing during their previous two games against the Lions and Texans, both resulting in losses.

When asked about how much blame should fall at the feet at defensive coordinator Matt Burke, Gase was quick to point out everyone needs to play better.

“First, I always look at players because to me, at the end of the day, they have the final say on a lot of this stuff,” Gase said on Friday. “I’m not going to blame anybody for anything because it’s not like we’ve been ripping it up on offense over the last three years. I just think the entire group – players and coaches – on that side of the ball just needs to do a great job of working together and making sure that everybody is on the same page and everybody is trying to do the same thing on the call. You can say all you want about scheme, but all of that (expletive) doesn’t matter. Play what we’re all supposed to play.”

If it is the players, Burke’s scheme or a combination of both, something needs to change with the Dolphins defense if they want to reach the playoffs. Before the year started, the Dolphins defensive line was thought to be one of their stronger units. But can be argued that it could be their weakest.

Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson came into Thursday’s game sacked 26 times on the season. Watson would leave Thursday’s game still being sacked 26 times on the year as the Dolphins could not record a sack on Watson. As a matter of fact, the Dolphins were only able to hit Watson one time the entire night.

Robert Quinn, Cameron Wake, and Andre Branch are making too much money for them to be putting up subpar performances. Yes, Wake and Branch have suffered injuries this year, but if players line up in between the white lines of the field, they should be judged, and Wake and Branch have played well below expectations this season.

Speaking of Watson’s performance, he torched the Dolphins secondary as he threw for five touchdowns and 239 yards as he only had four incompletions the entire night.

“I mean it’s not one position,” Gase said. “I know everybody wants to blame that because it’s the easy out, but it’s the whole group. We have to do a better job of a lot of things. There’s just a lot of things that we need to get cleaned up. We have to use our hands better at linebacker. We have to stop running around blocks on the defensive line. In the secondary, we have to know who we’re supposed to cover. We can’t cut guys loose. Some of the stuff that has occurred is fixable just by doing what we’re supposed to do.”

While the Dolphins lead the NFL in interceptions, their defense has performed poorly the last month. There’s a reason the Dolphins, who started the year 3-0, has lost four out of their last five games and it is because of the play of their defense.