DAVIE Laremy Tunsil Jersey , Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins defensive coordinator Matt Burke has spent the week patching up things, and not just because his unit is on pace to allow more yards than any team in franchise history.Two-time Pro Bowl safety Reshad Jones mysteriously took himself out of last week's win over the New York Jets and watched the second half from the sideline. In the aftermath, coach Adam Gase said communication problems between Burke and players needed to be addressed."Obviously there was some sort of disconnect," Burke said Thursday. "We've had a lot of conversations — the whole defense and myself, Reshad and myself, Adam and myself. I think we're all on the same page." Jones declined to say why he became a spectator, but he apparently was unhappy with Burke's plan to rotate safeties against the Jets. Burke said he's confident that if the decision is for Jones to share playing time Sunday at Green Bay, the veteran will accept that.Gase, who seemed to side with Jones in the aftermath of last week's standoff, agreed the issue has been resolved."We did everything we need to get straightened out and moved on Cordrea Tankersley Jersey ," Gase said. "Sometimes you have to go through all of this kind of stuff during a season. Sometimes it gets aired out publicly. That's the hardest thing about the NFL sometimes. You have to bounce back. We got what we needed fixed, and we're moving on to the next game."Jones has been a starter for Miami since 2011 and a defensive leader. Burke said he doesn't believe Jones' standing within the team has been harmed."I know he has had conversations with his teammates on how he's going to move forward," Burke said. "I don't see an issue with that."Even if the matter is now in the rearview mirror, Burke has plenty of other problems. The Dolphins held the woeful Jets without a touchdown , but before that their defense had been awful for several weeks in a row.They rank 26th in league overall, 28th in run defense and 22nd in pass defense. They're allowing 394 yards per game, more than the team's record-high average of 383 in 2016, the year before Burke became coordinator.The Dolphins have allowed 107 points in their past three road games, and now they visit Aaron Rodgers and the Packers , who are ranked sixth in offense.Rodgers Raekwon McMillan Jersey , ever the pro, managed to find nice things to say about Miami's defensive, specifically Jones' secondary."They've made a lot of plays on the ball," Rodgers said. "They do a nice disguise package. They play some different coverages behind some of their pressures."The saving grace for the Dolphins' defense is that they have 15 interceptions, including four last week. They're on pace to the lead the league for the first time in franchise history.Burke believes that for his defense, the best is yet to come."I hope so," he said. "Hope is not a strategy, but you hope the trend from last week is where we're heading more than weeks prior. If we execute and perform the way we performed last week, we'll have a chance to put a decent showing together." While the NFL office continues to receive high grades for its racial hiring practices, a diversity report shows there are still major strides needed at the team level.The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport released its annual racial and gender report card Wednesday Charles Harris Jersey , giving the NFL as a whole an A- for its racial hiring — the ninth straight year it has received a grade or A- or better. The league received a C for gender hiring, giving it an overall grade of a B in racial and gender hiring practices.While the study’s author Richard Lapchick said the league’s grade for racial hiring was “impressive,” he cautioned that the league’s 32 teams simply need to do a better job of hiring people of color.“It shows that across the league, particularly from the commissioner’s office, that there’s an attempt to have a strong base for diversity,” Lapchick said. “But the league is way ahead of the teams, particularly in (hiring at) senior level positions for women and people of color.”The study found that of the 32 general managers, only four — or 12.5 percent — are people of color. Lapchick said that doesn’t adequately reflect a league whose players are made up predominantly (72.6 percent) of people of color.The TIDES report was based on the 2018 season, so it was completed before five coaches of color were fired in the days after the season. That leaves only three coaches of color in the NFL currently — Los Angeles Chargers‘ Anthony Lynn, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin and Carolina’s Ron Rivera — although the Miami Dolphins are expected to hire Patriots assistant coach Brian Flores Jason Sanders Jersey , who is black, after New England is finished playing in the Super Bowl.In 2017, the NFL matched its all-time high of eight head coaches of color first reached in 2011 with the addition of Vance Joseph in Denver and Lynn.The NFL has worked this past year to strengthen the Rooney Rule, a mandate that coaches of color must be interviewed for any vacant head coaching position. The new rules state that teams are now required to go outside of their own organizations to interview a candidate of color or interview a candidate who is on the league’s career development advisory panel.Lapchick said based on the history of the NFL racial and gender hiring report, the coaching changes are a cyclical thing and he’s confident it will swing back up with more coaches of color being hired in the future.Still, he said, four coaches of color are far too few.TIDES announced Wednesday it was not releasing the number of people of color in NFL coordinator positions because of a discrepancy they found in the report.The coordinator position was a point of concern two years ago when Lapchick said he was bothered by the lack of progress at that position, considering most head coaches first serve as coordinators. The percentage of assistant coaches of color dipped slightly from 31.9 percent a year ago to 31.4 percent in 2017.In terms of gender hiring, Lapchick said generally speaking none of the professional teams aren’t doing well with the exception of the NBA, where anticipates it won’t be long before there is a female coach.“That is something we have to pay more attention to Kalen Ballage Jersey ,” Lapchick said of the low gender hiring numbers.The issue, of course, is the NFL is a league made up of — and played — historically by men, which leaves women at a distinct disadvantage of getting hired.But Lapchick still sees a niche in NFL teams where women can flourish on the business side.“A woman can be trained equally as well as a man can,” Lapchick said.
