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- Sep 25, 2011
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Something a little closer to real football this week. I hope I'm not too long-winded, but a few things I wanted to get off my chest:
- I feel really bad for everyone in that front office who actually has to listen to Mike Tannenbaum talk and pretend to be interested, engaged, or otherwise appreciative of his thoughts. That might have been the worst five minutes in the history of television.
- No first team injuries. That we know of. GREAT game. Success.
- I dislike this new rule about lowering the helmet. Making the game safer is good, and I approve of it. On plays like the one in the 4th quarter (Durham Smythe getting hit in a helmet shot), I understand it, because it's obvious and indeed it is poor tackling form. But when Maurice Smith got his third quarter interception... you realize that a penalty could easily have been called there on Trae Elston? It's a rule that will be inconsistently applied until the fan complaints become so loud and frequent that they quietly revise it in the off-season.
- Rest in Peace, Tony Sparano. I think you would have loved watching this game; I fist pumped every field goal tonight.
Offense
- PENALTIES. More offensive holding and what should have been two delays of game in a row. The team needs to get the plays in faster, communicate them faster, get lined up faster, and maybe execute them properly, too.
- Miscommunications. Receiver stops and comes back, quarterback throws it to the end zone. Completely missed blocks? Uh... guys? Honestly, it doesn't matter how good of a play-caller Adam Gase is, or how well equipped his offense is to pick apart opposing defenses. If the players are not being taught to execute it properly, it will fail. Illegal formation COMING OUT OF A TIMEOUT SITUATION! That's bad.
- Receivers: Parker, Stills, Amendola, Wilson, Grant, Ford. I can't see any other way that works out.
- Durham Smythe looks pretty good to me. I mean, he looks good running routes. He had a real nice catch, but I also saw him get sneaky wide open a couple of times and just not even get looked at. I think we got something there.
- Bryce Petty: Thank you. That was the best play of the night. I'm going to be honest, I'm with Kdawg on this: I think I'd seriously consider keeping Petty as the backup. Maybe he can pick up the offense enough to actually run it competently, and at that point he's easily the best option of these three. He's got a great arm and he plays with passion. Maybe we could QB whisper ourselves a quality second quarterback. Eh, yeah, who am I kidding? The same reason he's available is the same reason they had to dumb down the playbook at Baylor is the same reason he's going to be cut in two weeks.
Defense
- I missed the first drive for the defense, and I'm glad I did. It's my understanding that both TJ McDonald and Bobby McCain took horrible angles and allowed a run to go for a long touchdown. I'd like to see the play in question so that I can be suitably disappointed by even more Dolphins starters.
- Robert Quinn looked more dangerous this week. Honestly, he looked pretty good. We need to see more of this.
- Charles Harris, Raekwon McMillan and Cordrea Tankersley are all second year players drafted near the top of last year's draft. All three of them were disappointing again tonight. As much as I feel good about the 2018 Dolphins draft class right now, that 2017 class is not looking so hot. Gotta get out there and make some plays. Yeah, everything's vanilla, but I can still see that Harris isn't getting enough pressure, McMillan looks slow and indecisive, and Tankersley is going to want to burn the film of this game.
- This team needs Minkah to be the free safety. If that means rolling the dice on McTyer at CB, trading for a cornerback, or seeing who is out there as a free agent, then so be it.
- The backups got abused. Badly. I'm really concerned about the defense after two weeks of the preseason. I don't care how well these guys are doing in camp, right now the offense at least looks like it can move the football, whereas the defense looks like it's in serious trouble as long as teams figure out not to throw at that Howard guy.
Special Teams
- I was nervous about Jason Sanders, but so far, so good.
- Drew Morgan probably won't get the punt return job. In fact, he probably won't get any kind of job on this team.
- I'm glad Rizzi didn't try for the onside kick at the end of the game. Good way to get someone hurt in a meaningless game, and you'd like to think they will have some new wrinkle to show off when it really matters.
And that's all I got for tonight. Dress rehearsal next week. I sincerely hope we get a better showing for that game.
- I feel really bad for everyone in that front office who actually has to listen to Mike Tannenbaum talk and pretend to be interested, engaged, or otherwise appreciative of his thoughts. That might have been the worst five minutes in the history of television.
- No first team injuries. That we know of. GREAT game. Success.
- I dislike this new rule about lowering the helmet. Making the game safer is good, and I approve of it. On plays like the one in the 4th quarter (Durham Smythe getting hit in a helmet shot), I understand it, because it's obvious and indeed it is poor tackling form. But when Maurice Smith got his third quarter interception... you realize that a penalty could easily have been called there on Trae Elston? It's a rule that will be inconsistently applied until the fan complaints become so loud and frequent that they quietly revise it in the off-season.
- Rest in Peace, Tony Sparano. I think you would have loved watching this game; I fist pumped every field goal tonight.
Offense
- PENALTIES. More offensive holding and what should have been two delays of game in a row. The team needs to get the plays in faster, communicate them faster, get lined up faster, and maybe execute them properly, too.
- Miscommunications. Receiver stops and comes back, quarterback throws it to the end zone. Completely missed blocks? Uh... guys? Honestly, it doesn't matter how good of a play-caller Adam Gase is, or how well equipped his offense is to pick apart opposing defenses. If the players are not being taught to execute it properly, it will fail. Illegal formation COMING OUT OF A TIMEOUT SITUATION! That's bad.
- Receivers: Parker, Stills, Amendola, Wilson, Grant, Ford. I can't see any other way that works out.
- Durham Smythe looks pretty good to me. I mean, he looks good running routes. He had a real nice catch, but I also saw him get sneaky wide open a couple of times and just not even get looked at. I think we got something there.
- Bryce Petty: Thank you. That was the best play of the night. I'm going to be honest, I'm with Kdawg on this: I think I'd seriously consider keeping Petty as the backup. Maybe he can pick up the offense enough to actually run it competently, and at that point he's easily the best option of these three. He's got a great arm and he plays with passion. Maybe we could QB whisper ourselves a quality second quarterback. Eh, yeah, who am I kidding? The same reason he's available is the same reason they had to dumb down the playbook at Baylor is the same reason he's going to be cut in two weeks.
Defense
- I missed the first drive for the defense, and I'm glad I did. It's my understanding that both TJ McDonald and Bobby McCain took horrible angles and allowed a run to go for a long touchdown. I'd like to see the play in question so that I can be suitably disappointed by even more Dolphins starters.
- Robert Quinn looked more dangerous this week. Honestly, he looked pretty good. We need to see more of this.
- Charles Harris, Raekwon McMillan and Cordrea Tankersley are all second year players drafted near the top of last year's draft. All three of them were disappointing again tonight. As much as I feel good about the 2018 Dolphins draft class right now, that 2017 class is not looking so hot. Gotta get out there and make some plays. Yeah, everything's vanilla, but I can still see that Harris isn't getting enough pressure, McMillan looks slow and indecisive, and Tankersley is going to want to burn the film of this game.
- This team needs Minkah to be the free safety. If that means rolling the dice on McTyer at CB, trading for a cornerback, or seeing who is out there as a free agent, then so be it.
- The backups got abused. Badly. I'm really concerned about the defense after two weeks of the preseason. I don't care how well these guys are doing in camp, right now the offense at least looks like it can move the football, whereas the defense looks like it's in serious trouble as long as teams figure out not to throw at that Howard guy.
Special Teams
- I was nervous about Jason Sanders, but so far, so good.
- Drew Morgan probably won't get the punt return job. In fact, he probably won't get any kind of job on this team.
- I'm glad Rizzi didn't try for the onside kick at the end of the game. Good way to get someone hurt in a meaningless game, and you'd like to think they will have some new wrinkle to show off when it really matters.
And that's all I got for tonight. Dress rehearsal next week. I sincerely hope we get a better showing for that game.
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