Just watched the first half on the Sunshine Network, Comments on Key Issues | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Just watched the first half on the Sunshine Network, Comments on Key Issues

ckparrothead

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1. Jay Fiedler was definitely off but showed flashes of the QB that we know who can move the chains. Not all was his fault, he was under a lot of pressure. He made one bad decision not to throw to Konrad instead locking on a covered OG on 3rd down. The other two throws, one he just barely didn't get enough on it, the other was blaring inaccuracy. To me, not a whole lot to be worried about, but enough to get the home crowd p!ssed about the fact that we've scored no points and the Saints are up 17-0 largely because of 4 turnovers, 3 of which came directly from Jay Fiedler mistakes...not mistakes by any other teammate...Jay's mistakes.

2. The infamous BOOING. I don't see the big deal but thats just me. They started to Boo Jay after the 2nd interception but only slightly and a lot of it had to do with him not getting us any points, and overall offensive inefficiency. After ANY 3rd interception in one half of play, any QB is going to get Booed, and so Jay got a lot of loud boos from the audience. But KEY things to note. When Jay came back on the field after the 2nd INT, he did not get booed. And REALLY key, when Jay came back on the field after the THIRD interception, HE DID NOT GET BOOED AT ALL. The fans were even cheering a little. Know why? THEY WANTED TO SEE US SCORE THATS ALL. Jay moved us down the field a little, had to come out and the drive stalled for reasons that weren't necessarily his fault, and when coming off the field once again the fans did not boo.

3. Ray Lucas' cheers...put together with the 3rd INT booing people wanna make a QB controversy out of this. YEAH RIGHT. The cheers that Lucas got as he came into the game were no louder than the cheers Shawn Wooden was getting when he made his interception and very nice run back for like 30 yards or so. The crowd was genuinely EXCITED that we were gettin the ball around the 50 yard line, with a little over a minute to go, trying to score a TD in the two minute offense....and this was probably because a ton of those same fans were planning on leaving at the halftime gun and wanted to leave on a good note. They did.

4. Randy McMichael. Unbelievable. Can't say enough about this guy after this game. One thing I've been wantin to point out to people, is if you go back and look at the draft grades comin out on this kid, you notice TWO MAJOR knocks on him that dropped him into the 4th round into our laps. ONE was he's not big enough to block effectively but even the analyses admitted that won't stop him from trying the best he can which is better than a lot of TEs. TWO and the biggest criticism was, his CONCENTRATION. Kudos to the coaches for noticing this was a bogus claim, mainly from the game he played against Tennessee. Concentration? I'd call it a strength! As a rookie, he came onto the field, juiced up because the fans were juiced up, and he had the presence of mind to know exactly how much time was on the clock. He said it later, after the catch he was going to go toward the sidelines to run out but remembered that the clock was at 9 seconds when they snapped the ball...Lucas had a good 4 seconds in the pocket making his checkdowns before he tossed out the ball and by the time Randy could get toward the sideline it would have been questionable to whether the clock would have clicked to triple 0's, so Randy decided to go for the endzone as best he could...and oh how he did MAN what athleticism! He cleared 6 feet, no joke. So ALL THIS went through this kids head in one play, he made the right decision, made the incredible athletic play, and coaches questioned his CONCENTRATION??? There's a lot of coaches out there regretting the drafting of a bunch of Jeremey Stevens', Daniel Grahams', Schobels, etc...IMO

5. But certainly not least...and I say this BEFORE I've seen what the coaches are announcing for their starting OL and TE. I saw that someone put up a thread announcing that the coaches have announced the line and TE, but I have not read it yet so these are "virgin" thoughts so-to-speak. When hearing the game and reading about it I saw that Fiedler was pummeled a lot. I only heard one example of who was doing the pummeling, and that was Charles Grant on the fumble that was recovered by us. Some of you might note that I've been a huge proponent of moving Dixon to LT because I'm DEFINITELY not convinced Smith can do the job, and after hearing Fiedler was pummeled I was somewhat convinced Spriggs couldn't do it either. But I'm a man and will admit when I'm wrong and I definitely gave Spriggs less credit than was due. On one play, Charles Grant (a rookie, still not a good sign) severely abused Spriggs and made a move to get inside on Fiedler's blindside and cause a fumble. But after that and before that, I did not notice any glaring errors on Spriggs' part. He did well in fact. So lets place the blame squarely where it belongs. JAMIE NAILS. Thats right, I was as excited about Nails' prospects as any of you but I say if he's won a starting job over Dixon after THIS performance (unless Dixon is moving to LT) then Dixon must really be a mere shadow of his former self. JAMIE NAILS got severely abused in the first half of this game. One minute he looked real good, I saw him tying up a DL and LB and pushing them into each other completely taking them out of the play, on Ricky's 8 yard run. However any other time, either Norman Hand or Grady Jackson were just abusing this kid badly. Hand got in to tackle RW on one play. Then it was the Grady Jackson show. I was looking for outside pressure, but it was all comin from inside...from Nails' spot. I was lookin at a few of these plays and on some of them it just looked like Jackson or Hand could simply punch at Nails and knock him flat on his butt, or tip him over like a poorly stood christmas tree. Jay Fiedler was gettin HURT out there...and the primary culprit was Jamie Nails. Maybe he'll get better. Who knows. But if the battle between Nails and Dixon is as close as I thought it was, with this game determining if Nails was ready to assume a starting role, I'd say he failed. Would grade him as a B in run blocking, and a D- in pass blocking. Spriggs on the other hand I'd grade at about a B- for pass blocking which is fair enough...cuz he did allow a blindside rush to cause a fumble that could hurt in a real game, but any other time he did well.

So now...I'm going to read what the coaches have announced for our OL and watch...I'll be completely off base. They'll say something like Brent Smith starting at LT and Jamie Nails at LG. LOL. Sad that I could be so off-base but probably true. Drum-roll please....
 
WOOOHOOO WOOHOOO WOOOHOOOOO!!!!

I wasn't TOTALLY off-base!!!!

So the coaches are going to move Dixon to LT, and of course that gives us no choice but to start Jamie Nails. But MAN does this kid have a lot to learn about pass protection (Nails). I look forward to seeing just what Mark Dixon can do at LT. I've been a longtime proponent of this move....longtime.

I hope that with a solid pass-protector like Mark Dixon being right next to Jamie Nails, that it might start to rub off on him a little bit. The good news is that if this experiment fails on the eve of the season we can probably shift it back to a Smith-Dixon-Ruddy-Perry-Wade line without any pains.

Man I'm so happy now that I know Dixon is moving over...ahhh..
 
The fumble came from his blindside when Charles Grant a rookie embarrassed Marcus Spriggs. And I'd imagine that, that play had a lot to do with why the coaches decided not to pull the trigger on Spriggs and let him start. Hardly any QB in this league can control that kind of thing. If the player beats your LT and you've got your back completely to him, if he gets his hands in the right place that ball is comin OUT. Not Jay Fiedler's fault in the least and this is largely why most QBs lose 3 or 4 fumbles every year. Totally Spriggs' fault on that one (good recovery by none other than Ricky Williams though...)

Other than that, Jay was actually making some nice out throws. I usually get scared when Jay throws the outs. But he was completing them nicely to Chambers and Ward. Found McMichael some too. Made some good throws under pressure out to the flats and that is how Norv's offense is supposed to work with those outlets. He just needs bodies flying in his face in practice. He's only had a little over two full pads practices, and I don't think any of them involved blitz drills.
 
Fantastic Analysis Ck

Did you hear one of those comentators try to steal McMicheals thunder by saying the Saints were playing prevent defense when he got that TD. So What!!!

I would like one of those shirts they wear wearing.
 
CK where are you located? I am in NJ and have DirecTV and my sunshine network says it is not available in my area.... I was wondering where you are that you get it?
 
You're wrong...

Originally posted by dolphinators13
Jay showed no flashes of a good Qb. 3 picks and a fumble, No TD passes.

... he looked great on his last drive out there, it was a significant improvement. He made 5-6 GREAT throws on that last drive.

We'll be just fine with Jay, even better than just fine.

Oliver...
 
Well they were...

Originally posted by Den54
Did you hear one of those comentators try to steal McMicheals thunder by saying the Saints were playing prevent defense when he got that TD. So What!!!

I would like one of those shirts they wear wearing.

... and not only that the outside DB double covered the inside receiver and that's why McMichael was so wide open.

It was a GREAT play though, no doubt! :)

Oliver...
 
Well as it has

been shown imo the prevent D does'nt work. I did'nt question that they used it only that it was'nt necessary to mention it.

I mean they are Dolphin comentators for Christ sakes!!lol.
 
Originally posted by gottahavefootba
CK where are you located? I am in NJ and have DirecTV and my sunshine network says it is not available in my area.... I was wondering where you are that you get it?

OooK Oh...does that mean no tape for me? :confused:
 
I think it might have been a prevent-like defense. They were definitely more worried about the endzone than any underneath stuff and the let McMichael have that catch. The thing is, they were supposed to make the tackle on him inbounds at about the 5, and would have, had McMichael not leaped 6 feet into the air and completely cleared both of the defenders. Two defenders got in front of him and would have made a veritable stone wall to try and get in the endzone. McMichael just...beat them.

You tell me it was a prevent D, and I tell you why its all the more impressive that McMichael did that to a prevent D. You can criticize the Prevent Defense all you want but the only criticism comes from the fact that a good QB can pick you apart to where he gets close enough to the endzone to take a shot and a good WR can get enough of a crease to snatch a TD pass. Thats the usual criticism with the prevent D. Criticism of the Prevent D does not include what McMichael did, because Prevent D's usually don't allow that to happen at all.

He just....he just....BEAT them. It was amazing.
 
I only got to watch 1 quarter but the thing that stuck out the most was the push the middle 3 in the o-line got. They didn't blow the Saints off the ball but for the most part in the first quarter Nails, Ruddy, and Perry had their man a yard or 2 up the feild. Big imrovement from last year where those 3 had there man a yard or two in the back feild. It appeared we could have had some sucsess on the ground, but we threw the ball 90% of the downs in the first.

On defense in the first quarter our d line seemed to hold their ground, but the LBs were invisable. I don't think i saw 1 lb make contact with the ball within 3 yards of the LOS. Granted Zach wasn't there but Rodgers and Greenwood need to start playing.
 
The only thing that worries me with McMichael is that he is going to get hurt taking to the air as much as he has. I love to see that kinda determination, but it is on those kinda plays you leave yourself open to be injured. And now it looks like we have found ourselves a TE, I'd just hate to see him get a bad injury in some stupid pre-season game.
 
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