OK Fish fans...I said I'd be here win or lose...here I am. Congradulations on a great game. You're team played great. They came prepared to play and play hard. On our board right now an argument is raging about the heat being a factor in this. I think that's a very poor excuse. I know it's a factor but it wasn't the reason we lost this game. We got the crap kicked out of us from the first whistle, offense, defense, special teams, coaching...they all stunk. I posted on the Orange Mane that in spite what some are saying, the history of both the Dolphins and Bucs shows that when either of these teams is a .500 team or better, then have a great home record in September, and when they are below .500 then win about 30% or fewer of their home games in Septmember. Look it up and you'll see. Bottom line: Good teams do what's neccessary to win and bad teams don't. The heat did not lose this game. We stunk from the very beginning, long before the heat would have been a factor. Some observations:
1. When Mike Anderson went out right off the bat in the 1st quarter, which was a huge blow. Shannahan failed to adjust our running attack for Tatum Bell. TB is not a between the tackles power runner like MA and that was a horrible failure on his part. This was possibly the worst game I've seen from him. He had months to work on a game plan for Saban and got PUNKED by a rookie head coach. Shanny looked like Dan Reeves on a three day drunk in this game.
2. We failed to execute accross the board. Much of this was the Dolphins play as well, but there's no way this was anything less than a completely pathetic performance on Denver's part, and virtually every player on this team stunk it up. This is on the players as well as the coaches. They came in here expecting the Fins to lay down and they didn't. I think they were already planning on San Diego. Hopefully this is a huge wakeup call. Kudos to Saban for having his team ready. If he can prepare them this well each week you have a chance to suprise some people. It's very early, but I think you are better than last year for sure, though I still don't see more than maybe 8-8. That would still be a nice jump. We'll see what happens against San Diego next week but if we play like we did today we'll get beat by 50 next week. This team flat was not prepared to play this game and there is blame enough for everyone. Rod Smith may have been the only guy I saw who shouldn't be hangng his head right now.
3. Jake Plummer was ridiculous. I said Gus was a backup QB and I still believe that, but he flat out made Jake look like a rookie free agent today. Missed reads, missed passes, poor decisions...Jake has tons of work to do this week. We'll find out what he's made of this week.
4. Losing Champ was huge and losing Walls and Darrent Williams made it impossible to do anything. We had backup safety Sam Brandon starting at CB most of the 2nd half...LOL. I was amazed it took Gus so long to pick on him. Even at safety he's not a great coverage guy, but as a corner...he's completely lost. I don't want to use losing all these secondary guys as an excuse either, because even while they were in there the sucked.
I hope I was able to represent the Broncos fans well in here by keeping things on a football level instead of smack. I called it 35-10 Denver...the joke's on me. So whatever way you want to serve up my crow...I'm here to eat it. It's a long season. Maybe down the road we'll see you guys again. But if today was any indication, I doubt it. We have an extremely difficult schedule this year so if we don't pull our heads out we'll be going nowhere. I've watched this team for 36 years and in that time I've seen some sad stuff. There have been few any worse than this. I'm a diehard fan and will always support my team through good and bad...even though right now I'm just p*****. :fire:
Again...congradulations to Saban and the Fins players for a great and well deserved win. Now I'd like you to do us a favor and beat the dog outta our AFC rivals as well if you don't mind...:fire:
