Biggest Surprise of the Season? | Page 3 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Biggest Surprise of the Season?

Danny said:
it's starting to get old that every single time a play doesn’t work people think it was just a bad call......I never see anybody say it was bad execution on the players part......it's always "McDaniel called a bad play"..........it seems to me if Mike would call only "good" plays then we'd score a TD on every single possession .....lol

for real tho, mike has stuff that he needs to work on but at some point you need to hold the players accountable too
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McD is doing fine for a young HC. It's like did we want a young and hungry HC with potential or a retread?

Give him time. He'll get there. He's going to take his lumps here and there, but he's progressing.
 
Yes the Oline did better than we thought it would. We knew AJ played better as a rookie so I wasn't all that surprised with him. Lamm, Jones, even Eich and Cotton all contributed a lot.

With the Vic Fangio signing I expected the defense to be better. We even added a few guys. If I was asked I'd have to say the new Oline coach paid greater dividends than the new DC. At the beginning of the season I didn't expect that to be the case given the pedigree of each.
 
Collectively it was the play of the entire offensive line. They played tremendous football. Helping keep Tua upright and opening holes in the run game. The 2nd and 3rd string players were absolutely incredible at times. They helped propel the offense into a top shelve unit.

Individually the surprise came in the form of Coach Barry. He did an incredible job getting all his players ready to play. A great addition to the staff, after coming over with some questions from his previous coaching job.

Smythe, Mostert, Achane, Sieler, Chubb and Long. All showed up and killed it in 2023. They all played above expectations. Great job by them.

On the negative side of things It was terribly disappointing seeing Kohou, regress as badly as he did.

Lastly, the injury situation surprisingly was an absolute nightmare. It might have cost them a game or two.
 
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SF Dolphin Fan said:
For me, this is an easy choice. Clearly the play of the offensive line. At one point, Miami had four backups playing and the line was still competing. These guys have really kept the season alive for the Dolphins, although an argument could be made that all those injuries there was a big reason the team struggled against better teams. Tua was certainly getting the ball out quickly.

Anyway, it begs the question. Are any of these "backups" potential starters? Smith and Jones would be the two that I think have the best shot. With all the needs in the offseason, it would be nice to have actually found a starter among this group on the line.

Honorable mention for me would be the rookie season of Achane. I expected him to be good, but he's been an absolute big-play machine averaging almost 8 yards a carry! You almost expect him to gash the defense for 20 yards on virtually every carry. Now start getting him the ball via the pass more in the open field.
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This was 100% on McDaniel. An average sack takes almost three seconds to happen. Fast ones take 2.4 seconds. Tia was getting rid of the ball at a record fast pace. You can’t touch him with that design. When he needed time he was demolished. The run game depended on miss directions, play actions and outside runs that require good blocking by TEs, FB and WRs. Our coach is a genius and Achane is a beast.
 
Being an optimistic, most of the positive offensive stuff wasn't surprising.

So, unfortunately, the regression of Kohou was a huge surprise for me
 
Oline play
Achane
and Van Ginkel being a solid stud when forced to play full time. We knew he did well when filling in here and there, but dude kept bringing it all season.
 
We won 1 game vs a team above .500 going into the playoffs , and Tua led the game winning drive. What's that like 1 for 12 now?

also. We lost to the Tennessee Titans, and the way that L came to fruition.
 
Oline by a country mile.

Chubb was great but hard to say he was the biggest surprise when injuries were the main concern. That ACL was such a punch in the nuts.
 
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