Do you guys remember Tom Brady's rookie year?

[hwc]

Your memory is correct. The Pats were very conservative on offense in 2001. Their goal was to not turn the ball over, not make mistakes, and try to keep the game close into the fourth quarter. They capitalized with a lot of points either scored by the defense or set up by the defense forcing turnovers in the red zone, giving Brady and Vinatieri a short field.

The one area where they did shine on offense was in the 2-minute drill against prevent defenses. Brady showed an uncanny knack for game-winning drives after 50 minutes of not doing much of anything on offense. It was a very opportunistic offense, capitalizing on a couple of situations per game. They did not have the ability to consistently drive the football down the field.

IMO, this has to be the Dolphins approach this year. It just comes from a realistic assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. Outside of two impressive young receivers, they just don't have much on offense. They do have a very good defense. Just look at the first two games. Take away the turnovers that put points on the board for the opponents and the Dolphins had a chance to win both of those games. Would they have been ugly wins? Yes. But a win is a win is a win.

The Pats won ugly all the way to the SuperBowl trophy in 2001. They were prohibitive underdogs throughout the playoffs. They beat the Dolphins by 3 to clinch the AFC East and then won playoff games against "better" teams -- the Raiders (by 3), the Steelers (by 7), and the Rams (by 3), with points set up by the defense and special teams in all of these games.

Realistically, the Dolphins were never going to compete for the AFC East title this year without Ricky Williams and a winning QB. Their goal should have been to get to 9-7 or 10-6 and compete for a wildcard birth. That's a realistic goal for a defense-oriented conservative team. SuperBow? Probably not. But, at least put yourself in the tournament and you never know. Instead, they come out with game plans that put two questionable QBs under extreme pressure -- a surefire recipe for throwing picks and giving away free points.

 

[inFINSible]

They HAVE NOT come out with game plans like that. Why do you keep saying that??

 

[inFINSible]

I respect your knowledge. You really have a great understanding of what needs to be done but, I haven't seen ONE deep ball from this team YET this year.

As a matter of fact, Our offense is trying to run EXACTLY as you described....quick passes, short drops....3 and out is fine....win it in the final minutes with the two minute offense.

The problem is TOs....plain and simple.....without those turnovers we're 2-0 running the offense you described.

Did you miss this post?

 

[lereux]

HWC

One could argue that it worked only because they had Brady. But like I said before didn't we do the same with Fiedler on 2000 with a pretty good level of success? I mean the division and the second round of the playoffs does not look that bad now does it? And we didn't have much talent at WR either.

What was it OG, OJ was on IR, Tony Martin had that Hairline fracture on his foot so he didn't play a lot. Bert Emmanuel, Lamar Thomas was on IR too. There was another I can't remember. I'll take what we have now over that anyday.

I guess against some teams we might as well paly it safe. I mean we don't really need to even try to torch it agains the Steelers. That rookie QB will probably make a mistake from which we will capitalize. The game plan this week should be to play it safe and learn what we can do efficiently on offense. If we would be playing the colts then I would say what the hell but many games can be won by miami by keeping it simple and let the other team make the mistakes. Didn't Jimmy once said "If neither tem scores is not a lost". Granted Jimmy's tenure here wasn't the best but he did take us to the playoffs 3 out of 4 times. We should start that thread entitled WE SHOULD BE MORE CONSERVATIVE. I wonder what kind of reply's we would get.

 

[lereux]

Did you miss this post?

I actually did miss it. Sorry but sometimes there are so many posts saying "good post" and irrelevant stuff that sometimes I skiped ithe ones that interest me.
Well I only was only reflecting on the fact that I like may others were calling for a more aggresive offense a year ago and maybe I would be wrong about it. I only watched the cincy game and you're right. we still tried to run it and we didn;t go downfield. I'll review the tape but I remember thinking that the offense was more mixed than last year. Last year we ran a lot of plays from the I formation two WR. Three wide reciver sets were not that common and I do remember seing two tight en sets, with no FB and some wing stuff also. At least it seemed to me that we were running plays out of more formations than in previous games. While at the time I liked that maybe that makes it more complicated for AJ to make his reads and Lamar who has just learned the playbook. Were there not some people saying that INT for a TD againt the titans had something to do with lamar running a wrong route.

 

[inFINSible]

I actually did miss it. Sorry but sometimes there are so many posts saying "good post" and irrelevant stuff that sometimes I skiped ithe ones that interest me.
Well I only was only reflecting on the fact that I like may others were calling for a more aggresive offense a year ago and maybe I would be wrong about it. I only watched the cincy game and you're right. we still tried to run it and we didn;t go downfield. I'll review the tape but I remember thinking that the offense was more mixed than last year. Last year we ran a lot of plays from the I formation two WR. Three wide reciver sets were not that common and I do remember seing two tight en sets, with no FB and some wing stuff also. At least it seemed to me that we were running plays out of more formations than in previous games. While at the time I liked that maybe that makes it more complicated for AJ to make his reads and Lamar who has just learned the playbook. Were there not some people saying that INT for a TD againt the titans had something to do with lamar running a wrong route.

We need more max-protect sets instead. I liked the new stuff they're trying to put in but, it doesn't do any good sending 4 or 5 receivers into even a short pattern when there is no successful blocking being done by the o-line.

I was calling for a more aggressive offense too but, I was kinda hoping that there would be some blocking to go along with that.

BOTH of AJ's INTs that were returned for tDs were due in part to the receiver and QB miscommunication, and specifically the receiver running the wrong route. Lamar said he ran a Rams hot read while Chambers didn't say what went wrong but he did take "full responsibility" for the play. Whatever that
means.

 

[lereux]

We need more max-protect sets instead. I liked the new stuff they're trying to put in but, it doesn't do any good sending 4 or 5 receivers into even a short pattern when there is no successful blocking being done by the o-line.

I was calling for a more aggressive offense too but, I was kinda hoping that there would be some blocking to go along with that.

BOTH of AJ's INTs that were returned for tDs were due in part to the receiver and QB miscommunication, and specifically the receiver running the wrong route. Lamar said he ran a Rams hot read while Chambers didn't say what went wrong but he did take "full responsibility" for the play. Whatever that
means.

I agree. Of course in the end is all about execution. But they can beat al lot of temas without really try to dominate on offense.

 

[hwc]

Wanny said on Monday that the Dolphins called MORE deep downfield pass plays against Cincy than in ANY GAME since Wanny had coached the team.

The reason you didn't see the downfield stuff is because they couldn't even manage to get the plays run due to the all-out blitzes. Wanny admitted that they hadn't planned for Cincy to blitz like that (duh! everyone else in the NFL knows that you always blitz a "rookie" QB!)

The reason the Dolphins offense looked so bad is that the game plan had no prayer of working. The fact that Wanny saw "mismatches" downfield with the Bengals' safeties is irrelevant if the o-line and the "rookie" QB can't execute the plays that are called. Wanny's game plan put Feeley in position where failure was inevitable.

BTW, nobody forced Wanny to announce to the world a week before the game that Feeley would be the starter. He could have made it a "game time" decision and forced Cincy to guess. I doubt they would have blitzed a veteran QB quite as much.

 

[finjim]

Wanny said on Monday that the Dolphins called MORE deep downfield pass plays against Cincy than in ANY GAME since Wanny had coached the team.

The reason you didn't see the downfield stuff is because they couldn't even manage to get the plays run due to the all-out blitzes. Wanny admitted that they hadn't planned for Cincy to blitz like that (duh! everyone else in the NFL knows that you always blitz a "rookie" QB!)

The reason the Dolphins offense looked so bad is that the game plan had no prayer of working. The fact that Wanny saw "mismatches" downfield with the Bengals' safeties is irrelevant if the o-line and the "rookie" QB can't execute the plays that are called. Wanny's game plan put Feeley in position where failure was inevitable.

BTW, nobody forced Wanny to announce to the world a week before the game that Feeley would be the starter. He could have made it a "game time" decision and forced Cincy to guess. I doubt they would have blitzed a veteran QB quite as much.

It's called ADJUSTING.

Wanny admitted he wasn't prepared for the blitzing, how about a halftime adjustment then !! :shakeno:

 

[lereux]

HWC:

Well if you are correct. Then Wanny put the game in Feely's hands which is exactly the kind of this I wouldn't do to a First Year Starter QB. I would have play it safe. Make Palmer Beat us. He would have made a mistake. In fact he did make one. It would have ended something like 6-3 but who cares. We've had many of those.

 

[lereux]

It's called ADJUSTING.

Wanny admitted he wasn't prepared for the blitzing, how about a halftime adjustment then !! :shakeno:

No we don't do that it's not our style. We go down with diginity rather than admit we came up with a bad plan to begin with.

 

[inFINSible]

Wanny said on Monday that the Dolphins called MORE deep downfield pass plays against Cincy than in ANY GAME since Wanny had coached the team.

The reason you didn't see the downfield stuff is because they couldn't even manage to get the plays run due to the all-out blitzes. Wanny admitted that they hadn't planned for Cincy to blitz like that (duh! everyone else in the NFL knows that you always blitz a "rookie" QB!)

The reason the Dolphins offense looked so bad is that the game plan had no prayer of working. The fact that Wanny saw "mismatches" downfield with the Bengals' safeties is irrelevant if the o-line and the "rookie" QB can't execute the plays that are called. Wanny's game plan put Feeley in position where failure was inevitable.

BTW, nobody forced Wanny to announce to the world a week before the game that Feeley would be the starter. He could have made it a "game time" decision and forced Cincy to guess. I doubt they would have blitzed a veteran QB quite as much.

All offseason we have heard nothing but how we are going to be implimenting the short passing game into the offense to avoid exposure to heavy rushes and blitzes...MOST of AJ's passes were within 10 yards of the LOS....If there were deep passes called they was an exception to the normal plan and not THE plan and they were put in to specifically take advantage of what Feeley can do with his arm.

I won't dispute that everyone and their mother knew that cincy was going to be blitzing but, I doubt ANYONE knew how pitifully inadequate we would be at picking up those blitzes.

As far as not blitzing Jay as much if he was the starter....I don't think Cincy would have done anything differently because, we had a rookie FB and a RB who were making their first starts....I sure would have brought the house as much as possible knowing that 2/3 of the backfield would be ill prepared to deal with the pressure but, that's just my opinion.

 

[lereux]

INFINS most passes completed were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. That does not necessarily mean that there was not a receiver downfield who may have been covered. Remember also that Feely had a lot of pressure to get right of the ball.

 

[inFINSible]

INFINS most passes completed were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. That does not necessarily mean that there was not a receiver downfield who may have been covered. Remember also that Feely had a lot of pressure to get right of the ball.

I'm not saying that there were no deep passes called I'm just saying that they were put in to take advantage of feeley's strengths and if the blocking wouldn't have let everyone down they might have been successful. I still don't think the game plan was to wing it downfield as much as possible.