Mr. Magoo
Ayatollah of rock and rolla
- Joined
- May 1, 2008
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Hello again, everyone. I'm back this week for another edition of my keys to the game. The reaction to the one I did last week was pretty good and it sparked some good discussion so doing another one seemed a worthwhile odyssey, only longer than the one Homer wrote about. Let's get right to it.
When the Dolphins are on offense:
1. Get ahead early.
I sort of close my eyes and type that because it's such a blatantly obvious thing to have as a "key to the game." Generally speaking -- and I don't want to presume but I did hear John Madden say this once so it must be true -- the team that scores more points than the other is usually the winner. But getting ahead of the Texans is even more important than it is with most teams, in my view, because the thing that makes their offense so dangerous is it's balance. I'll go over this in more depth when I get to the defensive keys but the two staple plays of the Texans' offense is the zone stretch running play and the bootleg that they run off of it. It's a deadly combination that is nearly impossible to stop when it's clicking. But one good way to stop it is to jump out to an early lead to make their play calling more one dimensional.
2. Stop JJ Watt.
The big headlines from the Colts/Texans game last week (besides all the talk about Peyton Manning's neck bolt fusion surgery) was that Mario Williams had two sacks and something like 147 quarterback pressures in his debut as the biggest 3-4 linebacker since Levon "Supertanker" Kirkland. Watching the tape, though, Williams was not the most impressive player on the Texans' defense, in my view. Nor was former ROY Brian Cushing, nor All-Pro DeMeco Ryans, nor prized free agent pickup CB Jonathan Joseph. The guy who kept flashing, over and over again until I actually started to laugh like Inspector Deyfuss in the Pink Panther series of movies, was defensive tackle JJ Watt, the 11th pick in the draft this year out of Wisconsin. The guy was simply unstoppable. He made play after play, flashing incredible quickness, thunderously strong hands (at one point, he pancaked the Colts' RG on a pass rush and charged Collins like a runaway rhinoceros). On another play, a draw to Joseph Addai away from him, he actually pushed the guard blocking him into the backfield so far and so fast he was able to disengage and chase Addai into the hole, grabbing him by the leg and stopping him for only a two yard gain.
The guy is frightening, and he scared the Colts plenty, too. On every instance I saw of the Colts blocking the Texans four man rush with a five man protection, the guy getting doubled teamed wasn't Williams (they left him singled blocked by RT Jeffery Linkenbach), or former second rounder Conor Barwin, or the Texans' other impressive pass rushing DT, Antonio Smith. They double teamed Watt. Given our troubles on the interior of the offensive line, Watt's presence presents (boy do those words sound similar) a huge problem. If Carey and Incognito can't find some way to get this guy blocked, he absolutely has the potential to wreck the game for us on offense. Which leads me to my next key...
3. If we pass protect, their secondary can be exploited.
As I recall, one statistical analysis outfit ran the numbers and labeled the 2010 Texans secondary as perhaps the worst to ever play football. These are the sorts of things that get defensive coordinators fired (unless they're Tom Olivadotti and are in the possession of XXX pictures of Don Shula and his pet iguanas), so the arrival of Wade Phillips in Houston was met with much fanfare.
Now, Phillips is a heck of a defensive coach. I've got a lot of respect for him. But the fact of the matter is that most of the players in the Texans' secondary are the same as they were last year (though some are playing in different spots). Our very own Jason Allen still gets about 50% percent of the snaps at one cornerback spot, which seems like a lot until you realize that former 1st round pick and severe underachiever Kareem Jackson gets the other half. Brice McCain is still out there still lacks anything approaching good instincts for zone coverage. Glover Quin can do some things but I don't think he's all that talented. To top it all off, Jonathan Joseph, the former Bengal corner who they backed up the Brinks truck for, actually did not look very good against the Colts. Pierre Garcon beat him a few times, including on a deep route that Kerry Collins overthrew. Perhaps it was the runaway nature of the game caused him to coast, I don't know. But I know that really good players rarely coast.
If Henne can get time, these guys can be beaten in the back end. The problem is protecting him. As some of you might recall (or perhaps you don't), despite our tremendous problems blocking people in the preseason (especially against Tampa Bay), I didn't include protection as one my offensive keys last week. That's because, despite the fact that I thought we would struggle somewhat, the Patriots' pass rushers are the big, strong, slower kinds of pass rushers that our linemen -- specifically Incognito, Carey and Colombo -- are going to be able to at least make a show of blocking.
The Texans' front four is much more like Tampa's (despite being a 3-4 defense in superficial appearance, Wade Phillips' system is a one gap penetrating system much more akin to a 4-3), and it wouldn't shock me to see an utter breakdown of pass protection to go with an utter breakdown in the running game much like the one we saw in our third preseason game.
One thing we're going to need to do to these guys is find ways of using their aggressiveness against them. The inside trap game might prove effective against them. A Texans poster here on the boards has suggested that their nose tackle is weak which (in my opinion) might provide an avenue for us to use the fullback dive play with Hilliard five or six times in the game. I like the now popular "windback" run against these guys. We ran it at least once against the Patriots (it was responsible for Bush's lone long run of the night). And, of course, I hope we run more than one screen to Bush. Anything to negate the up the field pressure these guys bring.
4. Don't bother with play action.
A short note here, but one thing I noticed watching the Colts/Texans game was DeMeco Ryans and Brian Cushing's utter lack of "bite" on any play action that the Colts ran. After the second or third time it happened, it suddenly occurred to me why: these guys face one of the best play action fakers in the NFL in Matt Schaub every day in practice and play the very best one in Peyton Manning twice a year. They've mastered the art of sniffing it out.
Chad Henne, as we all know, has not mastered it. Nor have our backs or our offensive line. So running play action fakes against these guys is going to be an utter waste of our time at best, a setup for disaster at worst. Let's hope we stay away from it.
5. Short yardage. Short yardage. My kingdom for short yardage.
Shakespeare never knew the pain of seeing his favorite football team repeatedly be unable to punch the ball into the end zone from the one yard line. And that's too bad, because a play about that probably would have been better than Two Gentlemen of Verona.
So... I honestly don't know what to do about this problem. I only know that it needs to be fixed. But I'm honestly at the point of wondering whether we're like somebody who really needs to go 150mph only he's driving a Ford Taurus. Trying to get to that speed changing the oil and working on your driving isn't going to cut it. At some point you're going to need a faster car and everything you do other than acquiring that is a waste of time. With the Dolphins, if we want to convert on short yardage, we're going to need an effective pulling guard and a big running back with good pad level who can run through arm tackles. We don't have either right now, so I don't know if anything else is going to help.
Would an overloaded line with Jake Long outside Colombo at right tackle work? Perhaps. It's the only thing I can think of. At this point, we'll probably start seeing them try all kinds of crackpot things (they already tried one the other night with Soliai at fullback). For now, I think that inside play to Hilliard should be the way we go. It worked the only time we tried it against the Patriots yet for some reason we abandoned it. There might be some reason schematically we don't use it on the goal line very often but if there is I don't know what it is.
When the Dolphins are on defense:
1. Discipline.
The number one, overriding, absolutely completely and totally most and bestest important way to stop the Texans' offense is discipline. Discipline, discipline, discipline. The Texans run a zone blocking running scheme, which is one of those things everyone's heard of but not a lot of people understand. Most videos on YouTube that deal with zone blocking are like nine minutes long so nobody would watch them but here's a video of it in action:
[video=youtube;YlmZzoy9uNU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlmZzoy9uNU[/video]
The concept of zone blocking is actually pretty simple, but in it's simplicity lies it's brilliance. Rather than in a man on man blocking scheme, where the goal is to create a specific hole in a specific gap in the front, in zone blocking the location of the hole is entirely determined by the way the defense reacts to the blocking scheme (this makes it very hard for defenders to read their "keys", since there really aren't any).
As you see in the video, the offensive linemen all step in the same direction at the same time. Every man on the line of scrimmage is double teamed at the beginning but overall the goal is to get a man on a man flowing down the line of scrimmage. The running back reads outside-in. If the defensive lineman or linebacker at the end of the line is maintaining outside leverage on the tackle or tight end, the running back looks inside to the next man. If that defensive player is also on the outside, he looks to the next man, and on and on. If any of the defensive linemen shoot against the grain of the blocking, the lineman blocking him turns him and seals him, creating a cutback lane for the back to run through. The last defensive player (an end or an outside linebacker, usually), is generally cut blocked early in the play (often by someone running in the opposite direction of the run action), so that if the running back has to cut all the way back against the grain there's a lane for him to run through.
This zone stretch play is the bedrock of the Texans' offense (just as it is now for the Redskins under Mike Shanahan, who taught the zone blocking system to Gary Kubiak). Like all teams who run it, the Texans also include a play action bootleg based off the same action by the offensive line, running back and quarterback. This action takes advantage of backside defenders who are eager to run down the line and stop the "cutbacks" this scheme has made famous.
Here's the play I'm talking about. In this video, the Cowboys are running this play against the Texans.
[video=youtube;qIzftXAiLiI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzftXAiLiI[/video]
In this play, the offensive player who would normally be coming across the formation to cut block the end instead runs into the flat. The player on the most right of the formation (in this case, Jason Witten) runs deep, and a wide receiver comes from the opposite side of the field at a depth of 12 or so yards (this is usually the route Andre Johnson runs and Schaub looks for him often on this play). This bootleg action and the route combination creates a very easy half field read with players at three levels.
The key to the play is getting that defensive end or linebacker to bite on the play action fake and flow down the line of scrimmage. If he doesn't bite, then the throw usually goes into the flat for a minimal gain and the quarterback ends up on his back. The problem for the defensive end is that if he doesn't flow down the line the cutback in the run game can gash his defense.
(Note: yes, there are other zone blocking running plays, especially in the "inside" zone. And there are other kinds of looks and plays based on the same basic zone blocking action, but these are the two plays the Texans run most often)
Anyway, all of this is by way of saying that to stop these two plays from getting you beat, you have to play disciplined, team defense. Everyone must be where they're supposed to be. Everyone has to flow down the line. The linebackers have to read inside out. Defensive linemen must be able to shed their blockers once the running back has made his cut. You must tackle.
One reason the Texans scare me is because we had such a bad day defensively on Monday, though not in the way you'd expect. I'm personally expecting a really energized defense, ravenous with something to prove, but that kind of thing can lead to guys trying too hard to make a play and, thus, losing their lanes of pursuit. You can't try to be a hero against this scheme. The Texans have been running it for years. Their offensive linemen are athletic. They work as a team. They have good running backs (Ben Tate looked great in preseason and has very legitimate talent is Foster can't play or is limited). Just do your job. Freelancing will get us killed.
2. Paging Cameron Wake.
By now Wake's struggles against rookie Nate Solder have been chewed up and spit out, so I don't feel the need to rehash them. But he really must play better against Winston, a smart player who can be defeated by speed. Schaub likes to go deep to Andre Johnson, and those routes take time. The entire defensive line, but especially our premier pass rusher, must do a better job of getting to Schaub before he can get the ball downfield to Johnson.
As I discussed earlier when talking about the zone blocking scheme, the play of our outside linebackers will be very important in this game. I would expect Alama-Francis to be active for this game and he, Wake, Misi and Taylor must all be on their very best behavior out there. Expect Taylor to play more than usual and to the wide side of the field in expected run situations. He's our smartest and most experienced outside linebacker and will do the best job recognizing run/pass among that group.
3. Can we cover Owen Daniels, Joel Dreesen and James Casey?
At this point it's almost a rhetorical question, but the simple fact is if we want to win we're going to have to. Daniels is especially dynamic but Dreesen ripped us up two years ago and Casey has some ability in space also (he mostly plays fullback for them now with Vontae Leach in Baltimore). Dansby and Burnett will have to pick up their games from Monday or we as fans will end up throw crap against the wall like we did on Monday (or was that just me?).
4. Get your hands up on three step drops.
The first "key" here on the defensive side was particularly long so I'm only doing four defensive keys this week.
This particular key was something I noticed watching the Texans/Giants game from last year, which featured the Texans' lowest rushing total and one their lowest passing totals last year. One thing the Giants did very well was key Schaub's three step drop. One particular play the Texans like to run is a three step drop where Johnson lines up to Schaub's left and runs a simple curl at about 8 yards. Schaub plants and throws and Johnson is such a deep threat the corner backs up and it's simple pitch and catch. The Giants had it figured out and made sure to have someone with their hands up in that throwing lane every time, causing a few batted balls on that play alone. They also managed to bat some balls away on other plays, almost always on three step drops. If Tony McDaniel really can't play in this game that will be a shame because he's historically been the best pass-batter on the team. But either way the Dolphins should be keying Schaub's drop and know that he's a rhythm passer who likes to get the ball out of his hands when his back foot hits his third step.
When the Dolphins are on offense:
1. Get ahead early.
I sort of close my eyes and type that because it's such a blatantly obvious thing to have as a "key to the game." Generally speaking -- and I don't want to presume but I did hear John Madden say this once so it must be true -- the team that scores more points than the other is usually the winner. But getting ahead of the Texans is even more important than it is with most teams, in my view, because the thing that makes their offense so dangerous is it's balance. I'll go over this in more depth when I get to the defensive keys but the two staple plays of the Texans' offense is the zone stretch running play and the bootleg that they run off of it. It's a deadly combination that is nearly impossible to stop when it's clicking. But one good way to stop it is to jump out to an early lead to make their play calling more one dimensional.
2. Stop JJ Watt.
The big headlines from the Colts/Texans game last week (besides all the talk about Peyton Manning's neck bolt fusion surgery) was that Mario Williams had two sacks and something like 147 quarterback pressures in his debut as the biggest 3-4 linebacker since Levon "Supertanker" Kirkland. Watching the tape, though, Williams was not the most impressive player on the Texans' defense, in my view. Nor was former ROY Brian Cushing, nor All-Pro DeMeco Ryans, nor prized free agent pickup CB Jonathan Joseph. The guy who kept flashing, over and over again until I actually started to laugh like Inspector Deyfuss in the Pink Panther series of movies, was defensive tackle JJ Watt, the 11th pick in the draft this year out of Wisconsin. The guy was simply unstoppable. He made play after play, flashing incredible quickness, thunderously strong hands (at one point, he pancaked the Colts' RG on a pass rush and charged Collins like a runaway rhinoceros). On another play, a draw to Joseph Addai away from him, he actually pushed the guard blocking him into the backfield so far and so fast he was able to disengage and chase Addai into the hole, grabbing him by the leg and stopping him for only a two yard gain.
The guy is frightening, and he scared the Colts plenty, too. On every instance I saw of the Colts blocking the Texans four man rush with a five man protection, the guy getting doubled teamed wasn't Williams (they left him singled blocked by RT Jeffery Linkenbach), or former second rounder Conor Barwin, or the Texans' other impressive pass rushing DT, Antonio Smith. They double teamed Watt. Given our troubles on the interior of the offensive line, Watt's presence presents (boy do those words sound similar) a huge problem. If Carey and Incognito can't find some way to get this guy blocked, he absolutely has the potential to wreck the game for us on offense. Which leads me to my next key...
3. If we pass protect, their secondary can be exploited.
As I recall, one statistical analysis outfit ran the numbers and labeled the 2010 Texans secondary as perhaps the worst to ever play football. These are the sorts of things that get defensive coordinators fired (unless they're Tom Olivadotti and are in the possession of XXX pictures of Don Shula and his pet iguanas), so the arrival of Wade Phillips in Houston was met with much fanfare.
Now, Phillips is a heck of a defensive coach. I've got a lot of respect for him. But the fact of the matter is that most of the players in the Texans' secondary are the same as they were last year (though some are playing in different spots). Our very own Jason Allen still gets about 50% percent of the snaps at one cornerback spot, which seems like a lot until you realize that former 1st round pick and severe underachiever Kareem Jackson gets the other half. Brice McCain is still out there still lacks anything approaching good instincts for zone coverage. Glover Quin can do some things but I don't think he's all that talented. To top it all off, Jonathan Joseph, the former Bengal corner who they backed up the Brinks truck for, actually did not look very good against the Colts. Pierre Garcon beat him a few times, including on a deep route that Kerry Collins overthrew. Perhaps it was the runaway nature of the game caused him to coast, I don't know. But I know that really good players rarely coast.
If Henne can get time, these guys can be beaten in the back end. The problem is protecting him. As some of you might recall (or perhaps you don't), despite our tremendous problems blocking people in the preseason (especially against Tampa Bay), I didn't include protection as one my offensive keys last week. That's because, despite the fact that I thought we would struggle somewhat, the Patriots' pass rushers are the big, strong, slower kinds of pass rushers that our linemen -- specifically Incognito, Carey and Colombo -- are going to be able to at least make a show of blocking.
The Texans' front four is much more like Tampa's (despite being a 3-4 defense in superficial appearance, Wade Phillips' system is a one gap penetrating system much more akin to a 4-3), and it wouldn't shock me to see an utter breakdown of pass protection to go with an utter breakdown in the running game much like the one we saw in our third preseason game.
One thing we're going to need to do to these guys is find ways of using their aggressiveness against them. The inside trap game might prove effective against them. A Texans poster here on the boards has suggested that their nose tackle is weak which (in my opinion) might provide an avenue for us to use the fullback dive play with Hilliard five or six times in the game. I like the now popular "windback" run against these guys. We ran it at least once against the Patriots (it was responsible for Bush's lone long run of the night). And, of course, I hope we run more than one screen to Bush. Anything to negate the up the field pressure these guys bring.
4. Don't bother with play action.
A short note here, but one thing I noticed watching the Colts/Texans game was DeMeco Ryans and Brian Cushing's utter lack of "bite" on any play action that the Colts ran. After the second or third time it happened, it suddenly occurred to me why: these guys face one of the best play action fakers in the NFL in Matt Schaub every day in practice and play the very best one in Peyton Manning twice a year. They've mastered the art of sniffing it out.
Chad Henne, as we all know, has not mastered it. Nor have our backs or our offensive line. So running play action fakes against these guys is going to be an utter waste of our time at best, a setup for disaster at worst. Let's hope we stay away from it.
5. Short yardage. Short yardage. My kingdom for short yardage.
Shakespeare never knew the pain of seeing his favorite football team repeatedly be unable to punch the ball into the end zone from the one yard line. And that's too bad, because a play about that probably would have been better than Two Gentlemen of Verona.
So... I honestly don't know what to do about this problem. I only know that it needs to be fixed. But I'm honestly at the point of wondering whether we're like somebody who really needs to go 150mph only he's driving a Ford Taurus. Trying to get to that speed changing the oil and working on your driving isn't going to cut it. At some point you're going to need a faster car and everything you do other than acquiring that is a waste of time. With the Dolphins, if we want to convert on short yardage, we're going to need an effective pulling guard and a big running back with good pad level who can run through arm tackles. We don't have either right now, so I don't know if anything else is going to help.
Would an overloaded line with Jake Long outside Colombo at right tackle work? Perhaps. It's the only thing I can think of. At this point, we'll probably start seeing them try all kinds of crackpot things (they already tried one the other night with Soliai at fullback). For now, I think that inside play to Hilliard should be the way we go. It worked the only time we tried it against the Patriots yet for some reason we abandoned it. There might be some reason schematically we don't use it on the goal line very often but if there is I don't know what it is.
When the Dolphins are on defense:
1. Discipline.
The number one, overriding, absolutely completely and totally most and bestest important way to stop the Texans' offense is discipline. Discipline, discipline, discipline. The Texans run a zone blocking running scheme, which is one of those things everyone's heard of but not a lot of people understand. Most videos on YouTube that deal with zone blocking are like nine minutes long so nobody would watch them but here's a video of it in action:
[video=youtube;YlmZzoy9uNU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlmZzoy9uNU[/video]
The concept of zone blocking is actually pretty simple, but in it's simplicity lies it's brilliance. Rather than in a man on man blocking scheme, where the goal is to create a specific hole in a specific gap in the front, in zone blocking the location of the hole is entirely determined by the way the defense reacts to the blocking scheme (this makes it very hard for defenders to read their "keys", since there really aren't any).
As you see in the video, the offensive linemen all step in the same direction at the same time. Every man on the line of scrimmage is double teamed at the beginning but overall the goal is to get a man on a man flowing down the line of scrimmage. The running back reads outside-in. If the defensive lineman or linebacker at the end of the line is maintaining outside leverage on the tackle or tight end, the running back looks inside to the next man. If that defensive player is also on the outside, he looks to the next man, and on and on. If any of the defensive linemen shoot against the grain of the blocking, the lineman blocking him turns him and seals him, creating a cutback lane for the back to run through. The last defensive player (an end or an outside linebacker, usually), is generally cut blocked early in the play (often by someone running in the opposite direction of the run action), so that if the running back has to cut all the way back against the grain there's a lane for him to run through.
This zone stretch play is the bedrock of the Texans' offense (just as it is now for the Redskins under Mike Shanahan, who taught the zone blocking system to Gary Kubiak). Like all teams who run it, the Texans also include a play action bootleg based off the same action by the offensive line, running back and quarterback. This action takes advantage of backside defenders who are eager to run down the line and stop the "cutbacks" this scheme has made famous.
Here's the play I'm talking about. In this video, the Cowboys are running this play against the Texans.
[video=youtube;qIzftXAiLiI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzftXAiLiI[/video]
In this play, the offensive player who would normally be coming across the formation to cut block the end instead runs into the flat. The player on the most right of the formation (in this case, Jason Witten) runs deep, and a wide receiver comes from the opposite side of the field at a depth of 12 or so yards (this is usually the route Andre Johnson runs and Schaub looks for him often on this play). This bootleg action and the route combination creates a very easy half field read with players at three levels.
The key to the play is getting that defensive end or linebacker to bite on the play action fake and flow down the line of scrimmage. If he doesn't bite, then the throw usually goes into the flat for a minimal gain and the quarterback ends up on his back. The problem for the defensive end is that if he doesn't flow down the line the cutback in the run game can gash his defense.
(Note: yes, there are other zone blocking running plays, especially in the "inside" zone. And there are other kinds of looks and plays based on the same basic zone blocking action, but these are the two plays the Texans run most often)
Anyway, all of this is by way of saying that to stop these two plays from getting you beat, you have to play disciplined, team defense. Everyone must be where they're supposed to be. Everyone has to flow down the line. The linebackers have to read inside out. Defensive linemen must be able to shed their blockers once the running back has made his cut. You must tackle.
One reason the Texans scare me is because we had such a bad day defensively on Monday, though not in the way you'd expect. I'm personally expecting a really energized defense, ravenous with something to prove, but that kind of thing can lead to guys trying too hard to make a play and, thus, losing their lanes of pursuit. You can't try to be a hero against this scheme. The Texans have been running it for years. Their offensive linemen are athletic. They work as a team. They have good running backs (Ben Tate looked great in preseason and has very legitimate talent is Foster can't play or is limited). Just do your job. Freelancing will get us killed.
2. Paging Cameron Wake.
By now Wake's struggles against rookie Nate Solder have been chewed up and spit out, so I don't feel the need to rehash them. But he really must play better against Winston, a smart player who can be defeated by speed. Schaub likes to go deep to Andre Johnson, and those routes take time. The entire defensive line, but especially our premier pass rusher, must do a better job of getting to Schaub before he can get the ball downfield to Johnson.
As I discussed earlier when talking about the zone blocking scheme, the play of our outside linebackers will be very important in this game. I would expect Alama-Francis to be active for this game and he, Wake, Misi and Taylor must all be on their very best behavior out there. Expect Taylor to play more than usual and to the wide side of the field in expected run situations. He's our smartest and most experienced outside linebacker and will do the best job recognizing run/pass among that group.
3. Can we cover Owen Daniels, Joel Dreesen and James Casey?
At this point it's almost a rhetorical question, but the simple fact is if we want to win we're going to have to. Daniels is especially dynamic but Dreesen ripped us up two years ago and Casey has some ability in space also (he mostly plays fullback for them now with Vontae Leach in Baltimore). Dansby and Burnett will have to pick up their games from Monday or we as fans will end up throw crap against the wall like we did on Monday (or was that just me?).
4. Get your hands up on three step drops.
The first "key" here on the defensive side was particularly long so I'm only doing four defensive keys this week.
This particular key was something I noticed watching the Texans/Giants game from last year, which featured the Texans' lowest rushing total and one their lowest passing totals last year. One thing the Giants did very well was key Schaub's three step drop. One particular play the Texans like to run is a three step drop where Johnson lines up to Schaub's left and runs a simple curl at about 8 yards. Schaub plants and throws and Johnson is such a deep threat the corner backs up and it's simple pitch and catch. The Giants had it figured out and made sure to have someone with their hands up in that throwing lane every time, causing a few batted balls on that play alone. They also managed to bat some balls away on other plays, almost always on three step drops. If Tony McDaniel really can't play in this game that will be a shame because he's historically been the best pass-batter on the team. But either way the Dolphins should be keying Schaub's drop and know that he's a rhythm passer who likes to get the ball out of his hands when his back foot hits his third step.
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