A calm evaluation of improvements to be made

[FinHopeful]

Instead of complaining about individual plays, we should recognize that we were beat in some key areas of the game. Hopefully, Sparano and the coaching staff work on improving these issues.

1. The offensive line needs to block better versus the 4-3. Both the Cardinals and the Texans won too many line battles.
2. Football Outsiders ranks our special teams as the 31st in the league. They hurts us bad today. We really, really need to do better.
3. We need a second pass rusher besides Joey P. He was an animal, but they can shift the line. We need someone to step up.
4. Offense desperately needs to improve on third downs. We are not make even half of the 3rd and 4 or less downs. That is bad.

The good news is that Baltimore runs a 3-4, and I believe that we will shine versus a 3-4 team.

 

[Rhody Phins Fan]

Instead of complaining about individual plays, we should recognize that we were beat in some key areas of the game. Hopefully, Sparano and the coaching staff work on improving these issues.

1. The offensive line needs to block better versus the 4-3. Both the Cardinals and the Texans won too many line battles.
2. Football Outsiders ranks our special teams as the 31st in the league. They hurts us bad today. We really, really need to do better.
3. We need a second pass rusher besides Joey P. He was an animal, but they can shift the line. We need someone to step up.
4. Offense desperately needs to improve on third downs. We are not make even half of the 3rd and 4 or less downs. That is bad.

The good news is that Baltimore runs a 3-4, and I believe that we will shine versus a 3-4 team.

1. Good point. I wonder how much practice we get against each defense.
2. Our special teams is just plain awful.
3. Joey has really stepped it up this year.
4. Chad's lack of arm strength gives us limited options and we don't have a dominant WR that we can force the ball to.

 

[Bofin]

i think we were beaten in all three phases today. defensively we did not stop the run or the pass. anytime you give up a game winning scoring drive in under 2 minutes its tough to swallow, but despite the turnovers the d was handled today and gave up lots of yardage. offensively we did not control the line of scimmage here either, and did not make plays in the passing game to make them pay for 8 men up in the box. special teams was roundly hammered today and gave up a punt return td. i agree with your points on improvement an do think this team will improve week to week. we certainly gave ourselves a chance to win today, a play here or there and we win. tough loss.

 

[Finfang]

Instead of complaining about individual plays, we should recognize that we were beat in some key areas of the game. Hopefully, Sparano and the coaching staff work on improving these issues.

1. The offensive line needs to block better versus the 4-3. Both the Cardinals and the Texans won too many line battles.
2. Football Outsiders ranks our special teams as the 31st in the league. They hurts us bad today. We really, really need to do better.
3. We need a second pass rusher besides Joey P. He was an animal, but they can shift the line. We need someone to step up.
4. Offense desperately needs to improve on third downs. We are not make even half of the 3rd and 4 or less downs. That is bad.

The good news is that Baltimore runs a 3-4, and I believe that we will shine versus a 3-4 team.

We stunk on third down today folks. Not a situation we want to be in obviously. At one point we were 0 for 6. Ended up 2 for 10. That is the bottom line in this football game IMO. You have to convert.

Good post BTW. Totally agree with all four of your points.

 

[Mannyjr23]

I totally agreed with you bro.

 

[Dolpfan_72]

Our special teams where awful. If only they had stopped that touchdown or even stopped them at all, we win the game. As for the defense, I'm still unsure if we did better with the turnovers or if they where errors on Schuab's part. He is a INT machine after all.

 

[FinHopeful]

We stunk on third down today folks. Not a situation we want to be in obviously. At one point we were 0 for 6. Ended up 2 for 10. That is the bottom line in this football game IMO. You have to convert.

Good post BTW. Totally agree with all four of your points.

Yes, we did stink on 3rd downs! Thanks for atta boy!

 

[FinHopeful]

1. Good point. I wonder how much practice we get against each defense.
2. Our special teams is just plain awful.
3. Joey has really stepped it up this year.
4. Chad's lack of arm strength gives us limited options and we don't have a dominant WR that we can force the ball to.

Most teams practice against mostly the base defense used by their team. Running versus the 3rd string during game planing is when they see the different alignments. I believe we are having problems because we have a very young line. Young players probably do not have the experience to switch their thinking. That leads to playing slow because of confusion. I just hope that we play well versus the 4-3 by week 9.

 

[Bofin]

we also had a shot at 2 more legitimate interceptions today which imo would have, so certainly could have changed the outcome of the game. i'm talking the hill drop which was right in his hands, and the reviewed play on the last drive which would have won the game. not even talking about the bell play on 4th down. on that i just want him to keep the reciever from catching the dang thing.

 

[Avigatorx]

Instead of complaining about individual plays, we should recognize that we were beat in some key areas of the game. Hopefully, Sparano and the coaching staff work on improving these issues.

1. The offensive line needs to block better versus the 4-3. Both the Cardinals and the Texans won too many line battles.
2. Football Outsiders ranks our special teams as the 31st in the league. They hurts us bad today. We really, really need to do better.
3. We need a second pass rusher besides Joey P. He was an animal, but they can shift the line. We need someone to step up.
4. Offense desperately needs to improve on third downs. We are not make even half of the 3rd and 4 or less downs. That is bad.

The good news is that Baltimore runs a 3-4, and I believe that we will shine versus a 3-4 team.

Excellent points, I'd like to add a few more.

5. Our Defense is heavily reliant upon guessing. This explains why we have some fantastic stops for losses, followed by getting gouged for 12 yards on a counter. We need to stop this.

6. Our secondary needs to learn how to cover receiver MUCH tighter. We seem to allow guys to run through our secondary without a defender within 10 yards of him. Again, we need to stop this and cover tighter. (This could also be a symptom of our guessing on D)

7. By the same token, our receivers rarely get that wide open (except Cobbs on that wildcat reverse to penny.) Why can't they get open? Why cant they find the seams?

8. Special teams cant block on returns and can't tackle on coverage, its either a skill or a discipline question. Judging from the fact that our D guesses so much, I'm leaning towards discipline.

9. 3rd down. Both sides of the ball, we need alot of work here. We should really have a few 5 yard plays and 10 yard plays that we KNOW will convert. (On O) On D, we really gotta play tighter coverage on 3rd down, and stop the guessing!!!!

10. O-line - our pocket collapsed way too fast yesterday on passing downs. We either need to keep penny in the shotgun, bring in extra blocking with TE or Backs, or find a way to get open receivers (If the guys we have arent getting open, we need to work on getting new ones)

 

[Dolphindrew]

Great post FinHopeful. I agree on all points. One thing I can tell you about this team is that yesterday was the first Sunday I have gotten emotional and had butterflies during the game, especially down the stretch, in at least 2-3 years. There are holes on this team, but at least they are fun to watch and appear to be headed in the right direction (for the first time in many years - even when they had 9 win seasons).

I was going to start a separate post about this, but will just say it here. I like the concept of gritting out the rest of this season with existing personnel, in lieu of sacrificing draft picks. The main reason is we are extremely weak in too many important decisions to be able to fix it all right now. We honestly need 2, if not 3 new receivers. Camarillo is the only bright spot, and could be one of the better slots in the league if he had a guy like Andre Johnson (or even Chambers for god sake) beside him. We also need 2-3 new bodies in the secondary. You just can't fix that by picking up Roy Williams or Pat Surtain.

 

[FinHopeful]

One thing I can tell you about this team is that yesterday was the first Sunday I have gotten emotional and had butterflies during the game, especially down the stretch, in at least 2-3 years. There are holes on this team, but at least they are fun to watch and appear to be headed in the right direction (for the first time in many years - even when they had 9 win seasons).

I was going to start a separate post about this, but will just say it here. I like the concept of gritting out the rest of this season with existing personnel, in lieu of sacrificing draft picks.

Very good reply! I trimmed down the quote, but I liked the entire replay. It is thrilling to watch games, and I cannot overstate how nice that is after last season. I completely agree that we should not sacrifice draft picks. It is important that we have sustained infusion of talent.