ckparrothead
Premium Member
Hey guys I haven't posted in here in a while but I just wanted to say there's plenty of reason for optimism here, and that on the whole we're not in bad shape at all.
For starters, if the playoffs were to start today, we would not get a bye week....merely because the Steelers have a 4-0 record in their division compared to our 2-1 record. What I'm trying to say is, despite our two game swoon, our record is still tied for 2nd best in the AFC, and the Steelers only just barely have us edged for that bye week were it to be handed out today.
Secondly, we have a tie-break against the Denver Broncos, and have a chance to gain one against the San Diego Chargers. If we gain the tiebreak on the Chargers, then you have to like our chances of getting that bye even more.
Did I mention we're still leading the AFC East?
Aside from any talks about the state of the AFC there are definitely some big positives I took from this game...a game which I basically chalked up before we played it.
One, our defense. I heard Melissa Stark ask Ahman Green after the game how the Packers managed to "pick apart" the Dolphins defense as they did. Honey, this is why they pay you to sit in front of the camera and look pretty with that blonde hair and those pretty blue eyes, rather than paying a smarter and more knowledgable person to analyze football. OUR DEFENSE, MAN. Yeah thats right, our D had the killer style on Monday Night. The field goal, that started from the Green Bay 33 yard line, and that kind of thing WILL happen, especially when facing Brett Favre, Ahman Green, and Bubba Franks. But the two touchdowns they got started at the Green Bay 48 yard line, and the Miami 44 yard line. In a game where field position had to be key, our offense turned the ball over 4 times and let them start their drives at the Green Bay 40 yard line or better a total of 5 times. The reality of the matter is that our defense contained Ahman Green a little bit while managing to put a stymie on Brett Favre. A quarterback with a 102 season rating who leads his team to ON AVERAGE more than 28 points of offense, got a 83 rating and led his team to 17 points of offense. Not bad. We had 3 sacks against him as well, with Jason Taylor adding one more to his total. Patrick Surtain had a great interception just when it counted most.
The second positive to take from all this is from our offense. Specifically, Cris Carter. No, he did not have a good game. He dropped an easy pass, he popped up another pass that was intercepted, and he FUMBLED the ball in a play where he basically looked like he was absolutely not ready to come across the middle of the field and be hit hard. But, he caught three passes for 30+ yards. And, if he were perhaps a little more in sync with his quarterback, and not merely about 10 days removed from his first practice in nearly a year, then perhaps that figure would have been more like 5 passes for 60 yards. Chris Chambers had a decent game too, with 5 catches for 55 yards. I was pleasantly surprised at how much Ray Lucas could keep going back to Cris Carter (despite being burned by him a bunch of times) and Cris would still usually be open. I mean guys think about this, his first game back from retirement where he was extremely rusty, and in all likelihood in a game where we should NOT have expected him to start, he caught 3 passes for 31 yards. Oronde Gadsden wasn't even averaging 3 catches a game with us through 6 games. What we had with Cris Carter there was the opposite of what we'd get with Oronde. Cris was getting open frequently and was being thrown at frequently, but instead of making the positive play he tended to make the negative play. Oronde would hardly ever get open, but usually make the bigtime positive when he finally did. When Cris gets back into the groove I would imagine we won't be seeing him fumble the ball or drop a bunch of passes anymore. What we'll have then is a guy who will, as I heard one analyst put it when asked what Cris Carter's value to the passing attack will be, catch on average 5 passes for 50+ yards a game and a few TDs. I'll take that over Oronde's 2.66 catches and 38 yards per game, and no TDs. You never like to lose a guy, especially one that can make plays like OG, but what I think happened through 6 games this season is we saw that we probably made a mistake not going more heavily after Cris Carter back in the offseason...instead trusting the starting job to a man who is not a starting quality WR in the NFL...Oronde Gadsden. You would think that this game would show me that all the OG haters were wrong, that Cris Carter is no significant improvement. To that I say that its the opposite for me, the fact that Cris continually got open impressed me enough to say that when our QB situation is straightened out, our passing attack will be more potent than when OG was here.
One more note....Mark Dixon please get healthy, we need you here for us. Marcus Spriggs should have been visiting Green Bay Wisconsin to unload a dairy truck rather than start an NFL game at Left Tackle against the Packers.
Ok, yet another note. To all the Todd Wade haters (you know who you are)...who is the most impressive lineman on the Dolphins according to John Madden? Thats right, Todd Wade. He said he was lookin at this year's game tapes and the guy that jumped out the most and looked the most impressive, was Wade.
For starters, if the playoffs were to start today, we would not get a bye week....merely because the Steelers have a 4-0 record in their division compared to our 2-1 record. What I'm trying to say is, despite our two game swoon, our record is still tied for 2nd best in the AFC, and the Steelers only just barely have us edged for that bye week were it to be handed out today.
Secondly, we have a tie-break against the Denver Broncos, and have a chance to gain one against the San Diego Chargers. If we gain the tiebreak on the Chargers, then you have to like our chances of getting that bye even more.
Did I mention we're still leading the AFC East?
Aside from any talks about the state of the AFC there are definitely some big positives I took from this game...a game which I basically chalked up before we played it.
One, our defense. I heard Melissa Stark ask Ahman Green after the game how the Packers managed to "pick apart" the Dolphins defense as they did. Honey, this is why they pay you to sit in front of the camera and look pretty with that blonde hair and those pretty blue eyes, rather than paying a smarter and more knowledgable person to analyze football. OUR DEFENSE, MAN. Yeah thats right, our D had the killer style on Monday Night. The field goal, that started from the Green Bay 33 yard line, and that kind of thing WILL happen, especially when facing Brett Favre, Ahman Green, and Bubba Franks. But the two touchdowns they got started at the Green Bay 48 yard line, and the Miami 44 yard line. In a game where field position had to be key, our offense turned the ball over 4 times and let them start their drives at the Green Bay 40 yard line or better a total of 5 times. The reality of the matter is that our defense contained Ahman Green a little bit while managing to put a stymie on Brett Favre. A quarterback with a 102 season rating who leads his team to ON AVERAGE more than 28 points of offense, got a 83 rating and led his team to 17 points of offense. Not bad. We had 3 sacks against him as well, with Jason Taylor adding one more to his total. Patrick Surtain had a great interception just when it counted most.
The second positive to take from all this is from our offense. Specifically, Cris Carter. No, he did not have a good game. He dropped an easy pass, he popped up another pass that was intercepted, and he FUMBLED the ball in a play where he basically looked like he was absolutely not ready to come across the middle of the field and be hit hard. But, he caught three passes for 30+ yards. And, if he were perhaps a little more in sync with his quarterback, and not merely about 10 days removed from his first practice in nearly a year, then perhaps that figure would have been more like 5 passes for 60 yards. Chris Chambers had a decent game too, with 5 catches for 55 yards. I was pleasantly surprised at how much Ray Lucas could keep going back to Cris Carter (despite being burned by him a bunch of times) and Cris would still usually be open. I mean guys think about this, his first game back from retirement where he was extremely rusty, and in all likelihood in a game where we should NOT have expected him to start, he caught 3 passes for 31 yards. Oronde Gadsden wasn't even averaging 3 catches a game with us through 6 games. What we had with Cris Carter there was the opposite of what we'd get with Oronde. Cris was getting open frequently and was being thrown at frequently, but instead of making the positive play he tended to make the negative play. Oronde would hardly ever get open, but usually make the bigtime positive when he finally did. When Cris gets back into the groove I would imagine we won't be seeing him fumble the ball or drop a bunch of passes anymore. What we'll have then is a guy who will, as I heard one analyst put it when asked what Cris Carter's value to the passing attack will be, catch on average 5 passes for 50+ yards a game and a few TDs. I'll take that over Oronde's 2.66 catches and 38 yards per game, and no TDs. You never like to lose a guy, especially one that can make plays like OG, but what I think happened through 6 games this season is we saw that we probably made a mistake not going more heavily after Cris Carter back in the offseason...instead trusting the starting job to a man who is not a starting quality WR in the NFL...Oronde Gadsden. You would think that this game would show me that all the OG haters were wrong, that Cris Carter is no significant improvement. To that I say that its the opposite for me, the fact that Cris continually got open impressed me enough to say that when our QB situation is straightened out, our passing attack will be more potent than when OG was here.
One more note....Mark Dixon please get healthy, we need you here for us. Marcus Spriggs should have been visiting Green Bay Wisconsin to unload a dairy truck rather than start an NFL game at Left Tackle against the Packers.
Ok, yet another note. To all the Todd Wade haters (you know who you are)...who is the most impressive lineman on the Dolphins according to John Madden? Thats right, Todd Wade. He said he was lookin at this year's game tapes and the guy that jumped out the most and looked the most impressive, was Wade.