Please, tell me 1 single thing you saw in last Sunday's game that makes you think we do NOT need the Wildcat?
The fact that Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown combined for 78 yards on 16 attempts (4.9 yards per carry) out of non-Wildcat formations.
Here's an honest assessment of the offense's problems last week:
1. Turnovers. No excused. Anthony Fasano's two fumbles were the worst and more unacceptable.
2. Pressure. Jake Long had trouble with both John Abraham and Kroy Biermann. IMO, Abraham knew from all his experience with Pennington that he couldn't go speed on him because Chad would expect that and step up. Instead, he used the wide spacing and his reputation for speed, to bull rush Jake Long. He got in Jake's head a little bit, and that leaked over to Kroy Biermann's success as well. But the rest of the line were allowing pressure as well.
3. Pennington. He played like the panicky, conservative player he was in New York. Sometimes when there's pressure, you've got to step up and make a play.
4. Receivers. They weren't getting open quickly enough for Pennington to get the ball out.
5. Play calling. When you see a four man rush getting the better of your guys in pass pro, there are some things you can do to make them think more and soften their pass rush...I didn't notice many of those types of plays being called. Also, when you're facing a short secondary, you want to get bigger players matched against them in a number of roles, either receivers or running backs or tight ends. We didn't seem to do that.
I don't think the Wildcat solves any of these issues. The Wildcat doesn't get receivers open sooner. The Wildcat doesn't get Chad Pennington into a better rhythm, if anything it's the opposite. The Wildcat doesn't take the edge off a four man rush in a normal looking formation. The Wildcat is a more turnover-prone formation, not a lesser one.
Miami had issues, and now they will work to resolve them. That's the beginning, middle and end of the story on a 12 point road loss against a team that will probably win its division and compete for a Super Bowl bid.
If I trust any coaching staff to scare the bajesus out of a team that is turning the ball over too much, it's the coaching staff that damn near got them to a record low number of turnovers a year ago. Tony Sparano is already working on the spacing and technical issues that created problems in pass protection. IMO, he's got to overstep his former student Dave DeGuglielmo a little bit more in this area and my impression from watching Tony speak is he's about to do just that. Pennington knows how to bounce back from a tough performance. He certainly did exactly that in Week 3 after such an abysmal performance on the road against the Cardinals in Week 2. They can learn from their play calling mistakes. The only problem I see that might not be so easy to correct is getting the WRs open quicker and more consistently, but then if you have better pass protection and better QB play and more opportunistic game plans, that won't matter quite as much.
