Dolphins - 29, Chargers - 21
COACH LYNN: Today, I felt like we got outplayed, outplayed in all three phases. Take my hat off to the Dolphins, they did a heck of a job.
I was disappointed in special teams and some of the things that went on there. When you go on the road, you can't give opponents anything. And I felt like we started the game out with a blocked punt and then offsides, that was just not very smart. Put us in the hole off the bat.
But the guys battled back. I love when we came out at halftime, we said we needed to stop go down the field and run the football and slow down the pass rush, and I thought we did those two things.
But then we gave up a couple big plays again on defense. And they got two scores ahead and they got away from us a little bit in the second half.
But overall just wasn't good enough. And that's on me. I understand that. But overall it just wasn't good enough.
Q. It seemed like on offense you just really never got into much of a rhythm until that last series. What was happening on offense?
COACH LYNN: That team pressured more than anybody in the National Football League just about. They brought a lot of stuff. There's only so many things you can do. And they challenged our protection. And at times we did not protect very well. At times they brought one more than we can block.
And they played the game with it. They got to us before we got to our guy. And that's the way it went.
Q. You guys stuck to the run quite a bit. Was that to try to combat that pressure?
COACH LYNN: Well, you've got to slow it down. We feel like if we could establish the run and then we could set up the run-action pass and take our shots down the field like we've always did. Justin did that very well. But we had to do something to combat that pressure.
Q. What did you think about the way Justin played? Obviously statistically it was not one of his best games. What did you think about his performance?
COACH LYNN: He had one turnover. Other than that, you know, he had to get rid of the ball sometimes a little early. Couple times I thought he got rid of it a little too soon. But he also moved around, made some plays with his legs and kept his eyes down the field and hit some open receivers.
It's a great experience for him, but none of us played -- none of us played well enough today, obviously.
Q. You got it right. You guys started the game off not so well and got behind the 8-ball it seems. But with that being said, do you feel that running the ball as much as you did kind of take you out of your game plan? Or was that the Dolphins dictating to you how you should run your offense?
COACH LYNN: We were never that far out of the game to not run the football. Two scores down, all the timeouts, you can still run the football. Plenty of time left in that game when we came back out there in the third quarter, I do believe.
So when we have to throw it, I feel like at the end that's what we did. But we had to run it to get back in it and keep them honest.
Q. When I say that, I feel that Herbert is probably your most explosive player on the field. He's your opportunity to get you more points. Ended up giving him more touches to Kalen Ballage, and kind of putting the ball in Herbert's hands. Was that the strategy to combat the pressure?
COACH LYNN: Any time it's second and short, third and short, Kalen, my running back is usually going to touch that ball. We're going to take the high-percentage play.
But in this game, with the pressure we were under and the disguises they were giving us, no, I didn't think it was smart to throw the ball 50 times. It might have been a lot more going on if we had done that.
I feel as long as we were in the game then we had to keep them off balance. We had to stay balanced as we could but then throw it when we needed to.
Q. You're 3-and-16 with games eight points or less, I believe, the stat is. How do you change that?
COACH LYNN: Don't think we're okay with that.
Q. Certainly.
COACH LYNN: These guys are working every week and coaches are coaching. And we go out and we play to win the game. We don't play to lose a one-score game. We play to win the damn game. We didn't get it done.
Q. After these last two losses, these last two weeks you thought the team was really close. Do you still feel that way?
COACH LYNN: Today we got outplayed. This wasn't one of those games where it came down to the wire. Feel like we showed up today. Losing this game today, I can see why -- when you make those mistakes on teams and when you make the mistakes that we made offensively and defensively.
Defensively we had our hands on three balls that we did not come down with. That should have been three interceptions. When you take advantage of those type opportunities you don't win these games.
Q. Does a loss like this change your opinion about how close this team is?
COACH LYNN: No, it does not at all. Not at all.
Q. Why not?
COACH LYNN: Because you're going to have games like this throughout the season. If we would have won the rest of those games we still could have had a game like this, it doesn't change how I feel about this football team.
Q. Just with the special teams, seems like you brought it up obviously in your intro, seems like I'm asking you about this every week, there seems to be a play every week, a blunder that has a huge impact on the team. There's multiple special teams penalties every week, seems like. What has to change with special teams to improve?
COACH LYNN: That could be personnel. And there's some guys out there today that won't be out there next week, I can tell you that. We'll talk about that as a team, but that was disappointing to see.
Q. Did you look at it as a situation where you lost a lot of your experienced special teams players to free agency in the offseason and don't have the experience in spots?
COACH LYNN: Any time you lose the guys that were Pro Bowl special teams players like Derek Watt and Adrian Phillips and Nick Dzubnar, all those guys, they were key special teams guys. But we expect the other young guys to step up into those positions. Right now that's been a struggle, to be honest with you. That's just not happened.
Q. You view this as a personnel issue, not necessarily a coaching issue on special teams?
COACH LYNN: No, it's all of us. When I say personnel, that's everybody.
Q. And just as far as the run-heavy approach, you talked about how you wanted to sort of combat the pressure. How do you avoid, though, getting a little too predictable on early downs? You guys are rushing on first down quite frequently. Is that a worry at all?
COACH LYNN: It was looks. I mean those calls at the line of scrimmage, that's two or three calls that that young man can make. And Justin is going to take the one that gives him the best look. Some of those are his calls at the line of scrimmage. Could be a pass call but they give a run look, he gets into it.
Q. Seems like in a game like this when the other team is pressuring as much as they are, you have to hit on a couple of shot plays if you're gonna have a chance to win. Seemed like when Justin was looking down the field those plays were covered. Obviously you have to watch the tape, but did those plays not materialize how you expected?
COACH LYNN: Some of those plays didn't materialize because they were getting to him before we could get down the field. But, yes, we definitely had our shot plays in there and tried to get our shots off. That's why it was so important while we were still in the game we didn't just get one dimensional.
I don't think you can win in this league when you get one dimensional against a high-pressure team like that for sure. We didn't want them to dictate what we could do and couldn't do. When we had those opportunities to run the ball set up the run action pass we tried to do that. I give them credit their pressure it was getting to us.
Q. You have a fan base that's obviously pretty frustrated at this point. What's your message to them?
COACH LYNN: My message to my team and to my coaches, we want to win for our fans. No doubt about that. And we're not getting it done. We're as frustrated as anybody. So don't think that we're not trying to turn this around and get this going in the right direction.
Q. After the Justin Herbert interception in the fourth quarter, it felt like the team kind of lost some effort there. How do you describe the final quarter effort-wise?
COACH LYNN: I'll watch the tape and see that, but I don't see this team playing with any less effort. I have not seen that. But since you brought it up, I'll watch the fourth quarter in particular.
Q. And just being 2-7, you tend to keep these guys motivated and competitive how do you kind of keep that going throughout the whole year, and the season kind of feels like playoffs are out of the picture?
COACH LYNN: We'll find out. We have seven games left. And we'll find out what we're made out of. And character is always revealed in these situations. So I guess we'll find out next seven weeks.
Q. Seemed like Trai Turner was on a snap count. Was that the case or was he struggling with the groin injury? Was he on a snap count or struggling with groin injury?
COACH LYNN: He hasn't played in six weeks. It wasn't like he was going to play an entire game. Yes, I had him on a snap count.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports