I've had time to stew on the game yesterday. I had to stop posting here midway through the 1st quarter because the hate for the Dolphins players, by Dolphins fans, was basically pure stupidity. I haven't seen a fan base hate on it's own players in effort to say "I told you so" more than this one.
Anyway, lets get to it.
1. Ryan Tannehill to Mike Wallace deep is never going to happen with any consistency. Wallace is never going to come back to the ball, never going to high point a ball, never going to make an acrobatic catch over a defender. He's no Calvin Johnson, Jordy Nelson, A.J. Green, Brandon Marshall, DeSean Jackson, Julio Jones or any other elite receiver...he has elite speed but he's no elite receiver. Conversely Tannehill is no Aaron Rodgers. He's never going to have great ball placement down field, he's never going to lead a receiver to the perfect spot down field...just not going to happen.
2. As much as we talked about this receiving corp being the deepest we've had it's still missing that killer element. It's still missing that elite receiver that can take over a game. Wallace is not that guy. There's a reason Mike Wallace was allowed to walk in Pittsburgh and Antonio Brown got the new, big contract.
3. For the last two weeks Lazor has come out and tried to make Wallace the focal point of the passing offense. The results have been extremely poor. Wallace can’t carry the passing offense and you can’t build a passing offense on Wallace. The second half of games we’ve spread it around better and the results have been better but we need to stop trying to get Wallace involved early to the point of ignoring all other receivers. If Wallace can’t remain engaged in the game when he doesn’t get the ball early then that was a complete waste of $60 million dollars. We also didn’t run the ball enough in the first half yesterday. I know Moreno went down on the first run but we abandoned the run in the first half and I think that was a mistake.
4. Lamar Miller is not a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] down back. Stop throwing him the football. His receiving skills have not improved since college.
5. I mentioned last week that the lack of depth at linebackers was going to hurt us on special teams and that I hoped Sturgis could kick it out of the end zone to prevent any returns. Special teams was a huge bust yesterday…a blocked punt, punt muff and return TD…plus two shanked punts by Fields. Worst special teams performance in one game I’ve ever seen and it wasn’t just on the missing linebackers. Coverage has been an issue since preseason. Special teams needs to get fixed in a hurry.
6. The lack of experienced in our secondary is going to hurt us. Will Davis was no match for Sammy Watkins and the Bills did a great job of matching him up inside on Davis a lot. Davis trailed Watkins over the middle on those shallow crossing routes all day. Made for an easy pitch and catch and Trusnik was nowhere to be found on those shallow crossers. Made the game pretty easy for Manuel…not sure how Watkins seemed wide open on every pass that was thrown to him. I thought this might be an issue with that 5-2 defense they were showing but I don’t think we have much choice right now given our lack of depth at linebacker. Outside of the one run by Spiller the defense did really well against the run but it’s extremely susceptible to the pass. We gambled that Manuel couldn’t beat us but the short passing game with Watkins was effective on their end and the lack of pass rush didn’t help. They gave Seantrel Henderson help against Wake and Vernon couldn’t generate enough pass rush. Interior of the line got almost no penetration.
7. RG remains a big issue on the line. Shelley Smith got abused badly…but we all knew RG was the weakest part of the line anyway. I think I saw Dallas Thomas in there too…got a false start penalty. Until Turner is back I’m going to be uneasy about RG.
8. Through two games Tannehill looks worse in this offense than last year. He doesn’t look comfortable, he’s not attacking the middle of the field (like we all read in the practice tweets), he seems to be pressing and his ball placement has been bad especially in the first half of games. He hasn’t made any big plays but he hasn’t been helped by his receivers either. Last week he threw a perfect deep ball to Sims who dropped it and this week he had a perfect deep ball to Hartline who dropped it. There’s plenty of failure going on through the air but it starts with Tannehill. He’s absolutely got to pick it up.
Anyway, lets get to it.
1. Ryan Tannehill to Mike Wallace deep is never going to happen with any consistency. Wallace is never going to come back to the ball, never going to high point a ball, never going to make an acrobatic catch over a defender. He's no Calvin Johnson, Jordy Nelson, A.J. Green, Brandon Marshall, DeSean Jackson, Julio Jones or any other elite receiver...he has elite speed but he's no elite receiver. Conversely Tannehill is no Aaron Rodgers. He's never going to have great ball placement down field, he's never going to lead a receiver to the perfect spot down field...just not going to happen.
2. As much as we talked about this receiving corp being the deepest we've had it's still missing that killer element. It's still missing that elite receiver that can take over a game. Wallace is not that guy. There's a reason Mike Wallace was allowed to walk in Pittsburgh and Antonio Brown got the new, big contract.
3. For the last two weeks Lazor has come out and tried to make Wallace the focal point of the passing offense. The results have been extremely poor. Wallace can’t carry the passing offense and you can’t build a passing offense on Wallace. The second half of games we’ve spread it around better and the results have been better but we need to stop trying to get Wallace involved early to the point of ignoring all other receivers. If Wallace can’t remain engaged in the game when he doesn’t get the ball early then that was a complete waste of $60 million dollars. We also didn’t run the ball enough in the first half yesterday. I know Moreno went down on the first run but we abandoned the run in the first half and I think that was a mistake.
4. Lamar Miller is not a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] down back. Stop throwing him the football. His receiving skills have not improved since college.
5. I mentioned last week that the lack of depth at linebackers was going to hurt us on special teams and that I hoped Sturgis could kick it out of the end zone to prevent any returns. Special teams was a huge bust yesterday…a blocked punt, punt muff and return TD…plus two shanked punts by Fields. Worst special teams performance in one game I’ve ever seen and it wasn’t just on the missing linebackers. Coverage has been an issue since preseason. Special teams needs to get fixed in a hurry.
6. The lack of experienced in our secondary is going to hurt us. Will Davis was no match for Sammy Watkins and the Bills did a great job of matching him up inside on Davis a lot. Davis trailed Watkins over the middle on those shallow crossing routes all day. Made for an easy pitch and catch and Trusnik was nowhere to be found on those shallow crossers. Made the game pretty easy for Manuel…not sure how Watkins seemed wide open on every pass that was thrown to him. I thought this might be an issue with that 5-2 defense they were showing but I don’t think we have much choice right now given our lack of depth at linebacker. Outside of the one run by Spiller the defense did really well against the run but it’s extremely susceptible to the pass. We gambled that Manuel couldn’t beat us but the short passing game with Watkins was effective on their end and the lack of pass rush didn’t help. They gave Seantrel Henderson help against Wake and Vernon couldn’t generate enough pass rush. Interior of the line got almost no penetration.
7. RG remains a big issue on the line. Shelley Smith got abused badly…but we all knew RG was the weakest part of the line anyway. I think I saw Dallas Thomas in there too…got a false start penalty. Until Turner is back I’m going to be uneasy about RG.
8. Through two games Tannehill looks worse in this offense than last year. He doesn’t look comfortable, he’s not attacking the middle of the field (like we all read in the practice tweets), he seems to be pressing and his ball placement has been bad especially in the first half of games. He hasn’t made any big plays but he hasn’t been helped by his receivers either. Last week he threw a perfect deep ball to Sims who dropped it and this week he had a perfect deep ball to Hartline who dropped it. There’s plenty of failure going on through the air but it starts with Tannehill. He’s absolutely got to pick it up.
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