MEGA summary: Panthers at Dolphins

[mega-fin-love]

Another day, another heart breaker. Lets break it down.

Tannehill: As usual he played a decent game. Not awful and not great. He made some nice throws most notably the floater to Miller in the first half on the left side. He also went deep to Wallace four times. Good decision by him/coaching staff. All four of those throws (minus the game ending one) were pretty poor though. Yes Wallace caught 2 of them but none of those throws were very good. Two were short and one was overthrown. You can argue the one where Tannehill was running if you want. Tannehill did show better pocket awareness and finally ran more today. So that's a plus. It's easy to see why there is such a Tannehill debate on this site. So many positives and so many negatives.

Coaching: Well we came out pretty strong in the first half. It seemed the coaches had us ready to go. Second half was awful though. We got out coached in the second half. As usual.

Defense: The defense played a pretty good game. Yes they allowed the late TD but they still only allowed 20 points while playing a very good team. Especially in the first half we were all over Newton. Sacks, hits, and hurries were a plenty. In the second half Newton made some nice throws and had a couple of good runs that hurt us. Nolan Carroll had a fantastic interception. This game is not on the defense. I didn't even notice Wheeler ****ing that up much.

Running game: As expected with a poor o-line and debatable RB's we struggled. I don't think we will have another good running game for the rest of the year. Can't really blame Sherman for not running when we just can't run very well at all. We tried some runs and none of them worked well. Lamar Miller runs backwards to often. With how bad our o-line is it's hard to fully blame the RB's. I will reserve judgment for now. My thoughts go out to Thomas. Hope he recovers quickly.

Offense. This game falls mostly on the offense. O-line played okay considering missing players and injuries. Tannehill played okay. The running game was awful. As usual the D bailed us out many times but the offense just could not score enough points. Short passes on third and long continue. Lack of scoring in the 4th quarter continue.

The personal foul we took for hitting Newton out of bounds I thought was garbage. He was barley touched.
With about 2:20 left in the game when Carolina went for it on 4th and 10 and got it was a major let down. That hurt bad.
Also in the 4th when wake and Vernon could not take down Newton was pretty brutal.
To many field goals. We have to score TD's to beat good teams.
Third downs on offense were poor again.
The no call on Luke in the end zone when he hit Mathews in the head sucked. Crap call
Sturgis missed another field goal...although he did go 3 for 4.

Summary: This was a very tough loss to a very tough team. We did a lot better than I thought we would. We are still in playoff contention. The jets losing is always a plus and beating them next week is a must . 4th quarter points must increase. We have not scored a 4th quarter TD in 7 straight games. Not gonna cut it. Tannehill has to do a better job in the 4th. We are a pretty decent team right now but have things to work on. I will continue to support Tannehill for now but he has to improve. RB's have to make plays with the limited opportunities that they have. I did not expect to win this game but I do expect to beat the jets next week. I still have some faith that we can squeak out a playoff spot and I still have faith that Tannehill can/will improve. Tough loss today. Keep your heads up guys.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

The two that Wallace caught were not poor throws. You find a quarterback who can overthrow Mike Wallace 55 yards downfield while running a bootleg and I'll show you Jamarcus Russell. Who incidentally, isn't good.

Ben Roethlisberger underthrew Antonio Brown on a 40 yard TD pass today. Brown adjusted and caught the football. Cam Newton botched at least two deep balls to Ted Ginn today. They are both good deep ball throwers, yet they don't throw perfect, in-stride balls 50 yards downfield every time they drop back and their man has a step. Nobody does.

There is a huge difference between saying "the ball could have been thrown better" (and on the first one, I don't see how given the man's actual physical limitations) and saying that the ball was poorly thrown. If you think that the three catchable bombs to Wallace were poorly thrown, I'm sorry, but I gotta wonder how much football you watch. The last pass with ten seconds left was an unbelievable throw given that he had to get the ball 65 yards downfield while being blasted and he couldn't step into the throw. Not many QBs can make that throw.

What we need to see is improvement. I saw improvement today. If you didn't see improvement today, then I don't know what to tell you. Does he have to connect 6/6 for 300 yards and 6 TDs for you to consider that improvement?

 

[mega-fin-love]

The two that Wallace caught were not poor throws. You find a quarterback who can overthrow Mike Wallace 55 yards downfield while running a bootleg and I'll show you Jamarcus Russell. Who incidentally, isn't good.

Ben Roethlisberger underthrew Antonio Brown on a 40 yard TD pass today. Brown adjusted and caught the football. Cam Newton botched at least two deep balls to Ted Ginn today. They are both good deep ball throwers, yet they don't throw perfect, in-stride balls 50 yards downfield every time they drop back and their man has a step. Nobody does.

There is a huge difference between saying "the ball could have been thrown better" (and on the first one, I don't see how given the man's actual physical limitations) and saying that the ball was poorly thrown. If you think that the three catchable bombs to Wallace were poorly thrown, I'm sorry, but I gotta wonder how much football you watch. The last pass with ten seconds left was an unbelievable throw given that he had to get the ball 65 yards downfield while being blasted and he couldn't step into the throw. Not many QBs can make that throw.

What we need to see is improvement. I saw improvement today. If you didn't see improvement today, then I don't know what to tell you. Does he have to connect 6/6 for 300 yards and 6 TDs for you to consider that improvement?

I realize you are fighting off a hoard of Tanee bashers right now and feel the need to defend him and I get that but I disagree brother. Wallace was wide open on those plays. It would be different if Tannehill ever made those throws perfectly. He doesn't however. So he does not get the benefit of the doubt to me. He played well in some areas of the game and I glad he went deep more often....but you have to make those throws on target at least here or there. I am not a Tanne basher but I will talk about improvements he needs to make.

 

[hammersmithlad]

right, well I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by our Phins performance.

I thought we would get killed by Newton (who didn't seem himself 1st half) and overall it was a fine 1st half performance. I'll start off with the positives (seems like I have to since last week I was bashed for only highlighting the negatives - somehow I think these lovely people have gone to bed early today)

either the pressure is getting to him, but I saw much more fire from Philbin today..stick with it. He also seems to be money on challenges. T-Hill & Hartline connection was back on form this week after an uncharacteristic poor performance from Hartline last week. Getting Wallace more involved were game & field changers for the Dolphins. D-line performed admirably & limited Newton, unfortunately, couldn't hold on right till the end. For once I can say i was slightly impressed by Carroll, had one of his better games.

The negatives. I don't know if its solely down to the playcalling, but we just couldn't seem to replicate our 1st half performance into the second half. T-Hill still playing like he has been doing all season. Some great throws & some poor ones (Wallace definitely helped him out on a once again under thrown ball for the TD) I fear this relationship needs much more offseason work & we'll have to wait till next season for the two to get on the same wavelength. Ineffective running game, but this is more to do with our long standing oline problem than our RBs.I'll end on the point I've been stating for most of the season, we had a perfect opportunity to finish off the Panthers after a good 1st half performance. Unfortunately, from a mixture of conservative playcalling & poor execution we let the Panthers hang in there & win it, rather than taking the game by the scruff of the neck and making sure the Panthers simply had no way back. As I think I read in another thread, we lack a killer instinct to finish off teams, which is needed if this franchise wants to consistently make a playoff run year in year out.

 

[mtlfinfan]

Whatever it is. It's Sunday night and I'm hurting again. I loooove my dolphins. But I'm so miserable right now.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

I realize you are fighting off a hoard of Tanee bashers right now and feel the need to defend him and I get that but I disagree brother. Wallace was wide open on those plays. It would be different if Tannehill ever made those throws perfectly. He doesn't however. So he does not get the benefit of the doubt to me. He played well in some areas of the game and I glad he went deep more often....but you have to make those throws on target at least here or there. I am not a Tanne basher but I will talk about improvements he needs to make.

It's physically impossible for him to throw the ball farther than he did. If you think those were bad throws, you simply have no clue what you are talking about. I'm sorry. If you don't believe me, ask a 'guru' like CK. He will tell you the same thing.

The interception was a terrible throw. That is the one he should be taking heat for.