Preseason priority | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Preseason priority

I'd have to say that that article says...well...nothing. Every one of those things has been said 10,000 times by most of the people on this board so there are really no new insights. It's yet another bit of proof that the offseason is too long and people are reaching for anything to report on.
 
One thing that gets me is that there's no mention of JR Tolver in any anaylsis of our WR's, we spent a draft pick on this guy, he's been lightning up mini camp, the local news papers have been reporting on it, but there's no national exposure..The kid only caught 128 balls for over 1700 yards last year in college, it seems they would at least acknowlegde him.
 
As of now, I'm only starting my second cup of coffee, but it looks good to me.

I would make some more bones about the failure in offensive free agency though. It was a total failure. Made a play for Gandy and missed by a couple of million. Never really was in the running for Turley. Attempted to Sign a guy who couldn't pass the physical.

Wide receiver is still a big question mark no matter the spin we would like to put on it. Sure Derrius Thompson put up some big yardage in November and December but that was in a pass happy offense with nothing to lose. Not to mention the fact that our coaches still have not committed to one guy. Is their a question about Coles starting in Washington ? Price in Atlanta ? Boston in San Diego ? Conway in NY ? The only thing we really know for sure is that Chambers is our number 1 and what did he do last year to deserve a guarantee for that ? Excuses aside, not too much. As far as we know our offense still has one sure thing. Ricky Williams. Injury to Williams in September and we are toast.

Can you name another championship contender that you would feel the same way about a single injury ?

Jets had an injured Curtis Martin the entire year. Tampa Bay=no running game. Tennessee=George a "shell" of what he used to be. Raiders=pass happy. Philly= Is Deuce that important to their game (that's a real question from me, no sarcasm)?

I don't think Eddie Moore could take the position at the beginning of the year. I think come preseason he will find himself out of position too much to take the starting job. Greenwood knows the Defense. There is still a learning curve for Moore and I don't want to experience it in September. Sure he's got the talent, but now it's all mental. Let's ease him in there.
 
Quote from article:
"Wannstedt will give coordinator Norv Turner more freedom to get the ball downfield."

Wonderful... but can Fiedler get it there? I am not confortable with his "ducks" down field.
 
I agree. However, if injury God forbid, should befall Chambers again we are really in trouble. NEED TO STAY HEALTHY in every position.
 
Our Pre-Season Priority is to make sure everyone gets out healthy.
 
Originally posted by MDFINFAN
One thing that gets me is that there's no mention of JR Tolver in any anaylsis of our WR's, we spent a draft pick on this guy, he's been lightning up mini camp, the local news papers have been reporting on it, but there's no national exposure..The kid only caught 128 balls for over 1700 yards last year in college, it seems they would at least acknowlegde him.
Click to expand...

National exposure??? :confused:

Lets be realistic. Were all excited that this guy may have been a steal in the draft. However, The guy hasn't proven squat. He's performed well in minicamps without pads on.....

Whooptie. that may excite us.... fans of the Fins ..... excitement based on pure hopeful speculation that his talent will grow .... but why would it excite anybody else??? How many teams have guys just like Tolver who MIGHT be great given time??? You don't get national exposure as a 5th round pick that hasn't even competed in the NFL yet.

Come on guys!
 
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Well right now JR Tolver is in a battle to even make this team man. I mean he was drafted at the tail end of the 5th round, and he's 5th on the depth chart, with a lot of talk about the possibility of us only keeping 4 WRs because of the nature of Norv's offense and the presence of Charlie Rogers. So naturally I guess, guys on the cusp of making the team or not making the team, don't get a whole lot of mention cuz even if he does make the team...he's not going to contribute much unless there are significant injuries.

You got a point 1972D with Thompson having that kind of production in a pass-happy offense with nothing to lose. But we just have to hope that the nature of our offense with all our personnel healthy is what we saw in the first 6 games of 2002 when we were averaging like 30 points a game. Fiedler went down and nobody questions that the offense went down the tubes with Ray Lucas at the helm. Heck even Ricky couldn't find room to run.

Just consider all this. We averaged 30 points a game in the first 6 games of 2002 with Fiedler at the helm.

We then averaged 18 points a game over the next 6 game stretch without Jay Fiedler and with Ray Lucas at the helm.

Fiedler comes back and immediately our average pops back up to 23 points a game.

Overall with Fiedler in the game we averaged 27 points a game. Here's the real kicker. Average that out to a 16 game season and we have 432 points for, which would be tied with New Orleans for 3rd in the entire NFL.

Now you see why we signed Griese? Cover up that hole at backup quarterback, give us some pretty good quality offensive line depth (I consider Wade Smith, Taylor Whitley, 2nd year Seth McKinney, 2nd year Greg Jerman to be better backups than we had in 2002) and add a few new bodies at the WR position that could prove to be talents...

Well I mean overall it just looks like this was an offense that needed a big cover-up (backup QB) and a few tweaks, not an overhaul. Signing a big guy like David Boston or Peerless Price would have been an overhaul cuz it would change the way we play offense.

McMichael should be improved, Chambers should be improved, we have improved depth at OL, a capable backup QB now, a solid new talent in Derrius Thompson, and Ricky not relaxing an inch. I think we should be ok.

Don't you?
 
Originally posted by ckparrothead
Well right now JR Tolver is in a battle to even make this team man. I mean he was drafted at the tail end of the 5th round, and he's 5th on the depth chart, with a lot of talk about the possibility of us only keeping 4 WRs because of the nature of Norv's offense and the presence of Charlie Rogers. So naturally I guess, guys on the cusp of making the team or not making the team, don't get a whole lot of mention cuz even if he does make the team...he's not going to contribute much unless there are significant injuries.

You got a point 1972D with Thompson having that kind of production in a pass-happy offense with nothing to lose. But we just have to hope that the nature of our offense with all our personnel healthy is what we saw in the first 6 games of 2002 when we were averaging like 30 points a game. Fiedler went down and nobody questions that the offense went down the tubes with Ray Lucas at the helm. Heck even Ricky couldn't find room to run.

Just consider all this. We averaged 30 points a game in the first 6 games of 2002 with Fiedler at the helm.

We then averaged 18 points a game over the next 6 game stretch without Jay Fiedler and with Ray Lucas at the helm.

Fiedler comes back and immediately our average pops back up to 23 points a game.

Overall with Fiedler in the game we averaged 27 points a game. Here's the real kicker. Average that out to a 16 game season and we have 432 points for, which would be tied with New Orleans for 3rd in the entire NFL.

Now you see why we signed Griese? Cover up that hole at backup quarterback, give us some pretty good quality offensive line depth (I consider Wade Smith, Taylor Whitley, 2nd year Seth McKinney, 2nd year Greg Jerman to be better backups than we had in 2002) and add a few new bodies at the WR position that could prove to be talents...

Well I mean overall it just looks like this was an offense that needed a big cover-up (backup QB) and a few tweaks, not an overhaul. Signing a big guy like David Boston or Peerless Price would have been an overhaul cuz it would change the way we play offense.

McMichael should be improved, Chambers should be improved, we have improved depth at OL, a capable backup QB now, a solid new talent in Derrius Thompson, and Ricky not relaxing an inch. I think we should be ok.

Don't you?
Click to expand...
amen bro. i agree
 
Also another thing that people might not think of that will prevent another Ray Lucas type gaffe...

Sage Rosenfels! He's looking good and now he's got a good amount of experience in Norv's offense and he says himself that more often than not he understands the offense so well now that if Norv just calls out the formation, he knows what play its gonna be. He has (honestly) looked like the best of the three QBs out there in mini-camp.

And what this means is, lets say Jay Fiedler goes down. Brian Griese goes out there for him and extremely unexpectedly SUCKS BALLZ.

Well guess what. We don't have to put up with him for 5 mores games this time around. We can toss Sage Rosenfels in and see which one we like better to give us the better chance of winning.

Thats one of the mistakes the coaching staff made last year. They never thought about the possibility of our backup quarterback going out there and SUCKING BALLZ. They should think about that, cuz backup QBs are very rarely a known quantity and Ray Lucas' excitability made him an unknown quantity even though we saw him start for half a season with the Jets. They couldn't fathom the idea of Lucas sucking, so they've been reserving that 3rd QB spot strictly for developmental purposes...Cade McNown and then Sage Rosenfels. I'm not blaming Sage...he was acquired from Washington so late in the preseason there was no way in heck he could have known the offense by the time Ray Lucas tossed his 4th pick (in the same game that he tossed his 1st, 2nd, and 3rd). If the coaches coveted Sage so much as a developmental prospect they should have reserved him a 4th QB spot, not a 3rd spot.
 
I cannot dispute that the offense should be improved. I mean we have all starters from last year resigned and added a couple of talents too.

One comment that keeps ringing in my head though was the one made about Warren Moon and the injury he had similar to Jay Fiedler. I forget who said it but they said that it effects the way he will hold the ball forever and when Moon came back from it his turnovers dramaticly increased for the rest of his career.

You've seen my comments about the O-line. To me they have proved nothing in terms of pass protection. So combine that with the big question mark (in my mind) about Fiedlers injury and all the question marks at wide receiver and I still don't have the confidence in the passing game that most seem to have.

Yes I remember how this team shined in September but September always seems to show nothing in the total capability of an NFL team. You also have to take into account who we played in September of last year.

Detroit-I don't think I need to say anything there.

Indianapolis-The season would prove that Edgerinn James never made it back from injury. Their defense was in the first year of a total rebuild.

Jets- Vinny would be shelved shortly thereafter and the team would commit to the future with Chad Pennington. Curtis Martin two weeks away from an injured ankle that would create the worst season that he's had in a long time.

KC-loss to what would prove to be the worst Defense in the entire NFL.

New England-First actual test but they began the year slow against everybody.

Denver-The game that gave me alot of confidence in the team but Denver felt so poorly about their team that they released their starting QB. Combine that with the finish Denver had and you can see that Denver was an average team last year.

Then came the Ray Lucas debacle.

If you look at it with a pessimist view such as I just did, the first half of the season was a wash and proved nothing.

We did nothing in terms of the "wholesale changes" that Dave W. predicted at season's end. Addressing the holes in the offensive line and receiver position was a big disappointment at least for me. Again we enter a season with a Big D and a suspect passing game. Excuse me for being pessimistic, but I've seen this formula for awhile now and it hasn't worked.
 
72', I have to say that I like your assessment on this team. Pessimistic? No, I say it's realistic. Nuff' said!
 
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