2018 Preseason Week 2 - Game Thoughts | Page 3 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

2018 Preseason Week 2 - Game Thoughts

A few thoughts -

Carolina was 11-5 last year in a very good division and has been an above average team in the recent years. Considering that, I think most of our starters on both sides of the ball actually played well tonight. We kept settling for FGs or the score while our starters were in could have been a lot different.

Cleveland Browns are something like 7-1 in their last 8 preseason games, yet finished 1-31 in games that actually matter. These games truly do not show a teams true colors. The one exception should be the first half of next weeks game where its rumored most NFL teams play as they would a regular game.

Bryce Petty deserves to see at least some extended playing time in the 4th preseason game. He is still young and could end up being an actual player for us.

Gesecki needs a year of NFL weight training. He looked silly at times blocking, but the effort WAS there. With improved strength I think he can definitely be better.

That spin move from Drake.

The penalties are getting a bit ridiculous. Most penalized offense in the NFL last year???
 
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A few additional random points.

Nice to see Isaac Asiata blowing open run lanes for the 2 point conversion.

McMillan was out all last season with a knee injury, so it's not uncommon for a person to not recover his quickness or speed right away.

On that crossing route by Ian Thomas … a few things to consider: 1) Thomas is a lot better athlete than he tested … the kid never played like a 4.74 forty guy, he's much faster, 2) McMillan was late in recognizing that crossing route, and definitely looked slow accelerating and chasing … which needs to improve, 3) McMillan didn't get reps before his injury last season, so you can see he is still thinking rather than reacting, and it makes him look even slower.

I can't believe I'm even saying this … but Bryce Petty looked like our best backup … anyone have an extra bar of soap so I can wash my mouth out now?

Kicking game … didn't suck.

Durham Smythe flashed, and looks rather smooth as a receiving TE, but I'm going to need him to get downfield with more urgency when chasing a play where our WR's catch the ball and are swarmed by defenders.

Jakeem Grant didn't put a foot wrong all day, looked good and secured the ball. I particularly like that he is also a willing blocker, even chasing down a play just to block for his teammate.

Jerome Baker on the other hand … dude is FAST, but he just runs around not making any impact. When Xavien Howard made that INT, Baker sped past the play only to get a better view of X. Howard going 1v2, eventually getting dragged out of bounds by the opposing QB. If a defender gets an INT, and has one player to beat, his teammates need to be doing anything possible to help him get into the end zone. And when a LB gets a clear and clean shot at a QB, which can spring his teammate for a TD … he needs to take it … not just run around being irrelevant. If I were his coach … Baker would be in the doghouse for that rubbernecking behavior. Make an impact kid … use those tools of yours for something other than spectating.

Tannehill looked good, but he's not fully there yet either.

Was hoping for more consistent run lanes.

Clearly our shortcomings at DT haven't been solved. Ditto for LB. Defending the run … it needs to improve.

Penalties. Sloppy. That shiz needs to be tightened up. Gase's teams haven't been tight. Shula's teams were always the tightest in the league. It makes a difference.

Chase Allen flashed again at Sam … and that's where he should be played, IMHO.

Robert Quinn … soooooooooooooooo glad we added him. If you give a DC a new top pass rusher, a new elite FS, a new (hopefully more competent) Mike, and his only notable loss is an elite DT … his defense should improve. Add in the progress of guys like Xavien Howard … Burke needs to start getting better results from all this talent.

I'm eager to see our offense with Gesicki, Stills, and Parker healthy and in the lineup. I think our offense can be much better this year.
 
I don’t even know where to start. This is a terrible, terrible football team all around.
- Stupid penalties putting us behind the sticks. Do we even have one offensive drive without a penalty this pre season?
- 3rd downs seem to be our kryptonite, on both sides of the ball
- It seems we haven’t practiced run blocking or run defense in years
- As Wanny mentioned, the play calling on offense was most probably to get Tannehill into a rhythm but I believe there’s one more thing to it: our offensive line can’t pass protect. If the QB doesn’t get the ball out quickly, there’s at least one blocker ****ing it up on every play.?
- And there is another problem that's been existing for years and that ties in into the previous point: the receivers can’t get separation. I don’t know what it is. Every week you see the other team’s offense having wide open receivers every other play. Our receivers have to catch the ball with a defender on them and right after the catch they’re crowded by 3 more defenders. There was one play where two defenders had a free rushing lane to Osweiler, he got the ball out quickly on a short pass but the receiver was immediately met by two more defenders. I mean, is it 11 on 11 or does their defense have 3 more on the field

All in all, I have to say I can’t remember a pre season where we looked worse than this year.
 
J. David Wannyheimer said:
I believe #68 Isaac Asiata had two holding penalties called on him tonight.

I don't think he is going to make the team, to be honest.
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Those penalties were especially disappointing because he has generally been kicking ass this preaseason. Night and day from last year. At times he looks like the best run blocker on the team.
 
phins_4_ever said:
40-yard dash 4.74 sec
https://www.nfl.com/prospects/ian-thomas?id=32462018-0002-5598-49c6-a898fedcd981

McMillan on the 40-yard dash 4.61 sec
http://www.nfl.com/draft/2017/profiles/raekwon-mcmillan?id=2558070

I have to speculate a little that the injury might still play a role mentally or physically.
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Thomas was already in full stride before Raekwon started chasing him down. You just don't win footraces off of slow starts. He needs to sniff that stuff out sooner.
 
I don't understand why we don't go back to 3-4. Our D as a 3-4 was pretty good back in the Parcells days.
 
Tannenbaum should tape one interview and have the station play it every season. Nobody would ever know the difference. Maybe figure out a way to splice in the new names.

Splice...is that even a word anymore? It was when I took editing class 40 years ago.

The new helmet rule is idiocy. If I had been on safari somewhere and was told about it in the middle of some jungle I'd swear the person was making it up.

Calls will be so random, often changing outcomes. imagine some guy tackled at midfield to apparently save the game, then some ref flags 15 yards out of nowhere.

Instant field goal range, and different result.

That will happen...more than once.

I agree the rule will almost certainly be tinkered with after one season of glaring nonsense.
 
Hated the draw play on 3rd and goal from around the 10. I mean what was the point. Preseason is the optimal place to practice those types of downs. Have this team thinking touchdown instead of conditioning them to accept field goals. If we throw an int we throw an int
 
I only watched til half time since I had to get up at 3 for work but from first half, I know the run blocking wasn't good, but you would hope if it was gore back there instead of Perry that gore might be able to see a sliver of something and get a few more yards then perry. if he was our #2 going into the season I would want drake to be in on ever play with an HB til it killed him.

I think the team can win if we luck up and have no injuries and knock off some of the stupid penalties. I think we have talent, I just don't think we can afford for any starter to get hurt, you would have to hope that having hayes and Phillips back would immediately help the run D, and it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't try to have hayes inside as much as his body could handle it. Also despite his love for the slots, Stills and RT have always had great chemistry and RT is one of the few players who's always seemed to trust DVP. you want Mike G open over the middle, you have to have safeties worried about stills or DVP on the outside.

Also great game by Quinn, outside of the pressure rushing, it almost came around quick enough to catch McCaf in the backfield on his TD. granted everyone in the area knows that Kalil is garbage. I'm not knocking RQ, I loved his game last night, but M Kalil is not his brother by far. it looks like they brought the TE down to help on him a couple times, cant do that all the time or wake will feast

I thought Kwons north-south speed looked pretty good on a few plays, horizontal and then catch up showed on the TD. one thing I HATE about the LB's I don't know if this is dumbass coaching, dumbass scheme, or dumbass players or what the hell it is. our LB's seemed obsessed with just running in and hitting the pile at the LOS. it makes no sense and is why they are suspect I feel to the run game. I could see if it was a blitz and the DL didn't clear, but almost every single run it seems they are just slamming into the line as hard as possible and getting sealed in. maybe teach our LB's to block shed and take on a block a couple yards down field and shedding it instead maybe, or read the play and try to hit the gap. if their is a gap in the line its one of 3 things, a lineman is going to hit you in the earhole on a trap, the RB is coming through it, or they want you to come thru it and take yourself out of the play. that's what we need in a middle LB is someone who can diagnose that lightening fast and then hit gap if necessary.

I know we are supposed to be vanilla but even in first game they allowed RT to throw deep down the middle one play to DA, who not take a shot with Grant or Wilson just for the heck of it. maybe gase is trying to get RT's confidence up for the season, or keep him clean as some have said. but all things aside if we don't have any penalties, not likely, I see no reason for us not to get at least 3 points on almost every possession. RT had no problem moving the ball until we got in the redzone then it was like everyone slowed down and turned stupid.

I said it in the Landry-DA post, but as much as I hate seeing the bubble screen all the time, it is still nice to see it caught and then turned up field instead of all the dancing that JL did with it. if it guarantees about 5 yards a play then I have no issue with it on earlier downs.

All in all I just think it looks like our offense is built behind the idea of don't make mistakes, don't beat yourself, wait for the other team to make the mistake. which I guess if we didn't beat ourselves with stupid penalities then it probably would've worked. the D got the pick, a couple good sacks, forced a couple punts in the first half. the panthers have a Great D and we were short 3 players on Offense
 
Defense:

1.) Minkah is the man. He blanketed all of his assignments and played the zone perfectly. I don't think Cam Newton threw one pass his way, despite looking at the covered receivers multiple times making his progressions.
That play that McCaffery scored the TD should highlight why Minkah needs to be the starting free safety. TJ McDonald is slow as dirt with no recovery speed. He's literally a big nickel package player at this point. Otherwise completely useless. I would have said to try him at WOLB, but Jerome Baker is already faster and will be better.

2.) Kiko has completely metamorphasized into a meatheadbacker. There's literally no finesse left. The player from Buffalo is dead, buried in whey protein. I've never seen another player wrap up less often. He literally tackles people by smashing into them with his back or chest. There were a few plays where Raekwon was left holding the bag because Kiko punched through the wrong hole or shot the wrong gap, etc.

3.) Raekwon didn't have a bad game. The D made a mistake by not jamming that crossing route that led to a TD. Most of the plays where McMillan looked bad weren't really his fault. The OSU boys are an upgrade from anything we've had in the last 5 years.

4.) That 3rd and long look with all DEs on the line is going to be sweet. Quinn and Wake on the edge with Harris next to a DT/pocket-pusher-- that's something that can be productive against the long pass. Produced an easy sack on Cam tonight.

Offense:

1.) Kenyan Drake is a beast. Guy turns chicken **** into chicken salad on almost every play. If our TEs could sustain a block better, his big runs probably would have been touchdowns.

2.) Cut Brock Osweiler. QB room should be Tannehill, Fales, Petty.

3.) Wide receiver is going to be a hidden weakness this season. Leonte Carroo is a verified bust. He has no natural instincts and still plays WR like it's NCAA rules. Time to move on. If I'm the FO I'm really pounding the waiver wire hard

J. David Wannyheimer said:
- 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.
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Are you serious? The new rule is really good. Did you watch the NFL communications webinar? It's pretty easy to see when it's a penalty and when it isn't. I mean, look at what happened in the 1st. The moron that tried to earhole Drake with an illegal posture wound up knocking himself out on the sideline. He didn't get up. Those kinds of hits are what is being taken out of the game. That's how you paralyze yourself and/or injure your brain. The Trae Elston hit was a picture-perfect hit. He led with the shoulder, drove the shoulder through the receiver's torso, and his helmet wound up knocking the ball loose. It's plain as day obvious that there was no penalty for that one. The Webinar does a really good job explaining exactly what is a penalty and the criteria for calling it a penalty make it pretty consistent and non-ambiguous.
 
I think the defense looked competent minus 2 plays. The pass rush was there all night especially from Wake and Quinn. Howard did a tremendous job reading the QB on his pick.

The biggest issue was McDonald at free. In base there is absolutely no reason Fitzpatrick shouldn't be on the field at FS

I second Chase Allen in base, he gives the run D more thump and better fill. Baker should be nickel instead of kiko
 
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Any time we are in a 2nd a long situation, whether it be because we had a penalty on first down or a play which went for negative yards..... it is a guarantee we run the ball on and make it a, well for this team, impossible 3rd and long situation. If we have another season with every throw being within 10 yards I'll throw up. THROW THE DAMN BALL PAST 10 YARDS!
 
superphin said:
The offense is fine...dink and dunk all day long just have to attempt passes over 10 yards if you want to convert those 3rd and longs.

Maybe this is much ado about nothing and none of this matters one single bit because it's preseason, or maybe it matters some.
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Check how our 3rd down offense has done and you will be more worried, I promise. The playcalling on offense has been garbage and I think it will change drastically, if those 3 yards passes on 3rd and long are for real, then we are going to be a bottom offense.... AGAIN.
 
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