Reality Check

[Ekinger]

I'm as excited as anyone about our current success against two very good teams. We've done it on defense and frankly it's the secondary that's made the most improvement. But as I've said all season that's where we should have been strongest to begin with and we weren't.

We all hoped that Daunte was going to be his old self but it was clear after the first series against Pitt, he was barely 50% of his old physical. Hence we knew our offense was going to struggle some. It's better now with an O-line performing as a team, but we still have a very hard time scoring points and that will continue until we can get a qb that is accurate beyond 10-15 yards. But if Joey doesn't make mistakes we're good enough to win most games without much offense.

I'm still not sold on Saban and I think if anything, the fact that we've beaten a couple very good teams points out Saban's horrible preparation for this season. There is no reason it should've taken us nearly half the season to get the secondary squared away. Were it not for the secondary, we would have won our first two games handily.

With that said, I still like Saban and do think he can do it in the long run. Hopefully he learned more than anyone this season. And hopefully he'll change his offseason and preseason mindset to avoid the stagnancy and ill-preparedness we suffered this year.

 

[rob19]

Agreed for the most part, especially on joey only being accurate for 10-15 yards. What do you propose Saban do differently though?

 

[DauntesInferno]

Last year was when he was supposed to get the bugs out. In Sabans defense Linehan and Ferotte leaving did hurt us. Once the coaching staff and players get comfortable with each other I think were gonna be OK. Too bad we had to spend half the season to figure that out.

 

[Roman529]

I think the reason we are playing better is due to two main things:

1. Not turning the ball over as much;
2. Cutting back on a lot of penalties.

 

[Ekinger]

I wish I had a good answer for that. He obviously didn't have the proper personnel setups and that's something that seems could have been rectified easily. We had horrible/stupid penalties one after the other when we went 1-6. Most coaches will tell you that's entirely about preparation and not spending enough time or devoting enough time to consistency with the basics.

I really don't know if he bought into some of his own hype and thought because of his success at the end of last year, this year was going to be easy? It would be hard for anyone in his position, huge contract, everyone saying he was the second best coach in all of football not just college football. Then taking a bad team and getting them to a winning season for the first time in a long time. Hell, I'd be thinking that I had it figured out and it wasn't as tough as everyone said it was going to be.

The thing that has baffled me the most is how poorly the secondary played. Saban himself played db, supposedly he knows db/safety talent the best and where he always excelled coaching in college. That area of the defense failed miserably up until the Chicago game. His pc's which most people think are simply for the fans and media seemd to suggest that he may have really thought that he had done everything he could to prepare the team and they failed him. However, I think he may have had extra time to contemplate during the bye week and maybe he changed whatever it was that was allowing him to take some satisfaction in what he was doing. He kept talking about progress each week and there wasn't any. If anything we regressed.

I don't have an answer for what he needs to do differently. I think possibly being a little more humble, forcing himself to believe that he hasn't prepared the team well when they fail at all aspects of the game may be enough of a change to make it all work.

 

[Ekinger]

I 100% concur with Linehan being a huge loss. But here's a question and another problem that can be laid entirely in Saban's lap. Why Mularkey? The guy hasn't proven himself anywhere. In fact, he's been mediocre to bad. Mularkey seems the antithesis of Linehan and what Linehan did worked and is working still. Huge mistake there and one that seems to make no sense. If anything, with the talent we had on offense top to bottom Linehan got the team significantly overachieving. Mularkey has done the exact opposite. Another baffling coaching decision that Saban had to have a lot of input on.

 

[Finole]

...frankly it's the secondary that's made the most improvement. But as I've said all season that's where we should have been strongest to begin with and we weren't.

I must have read the word "gel" a thousand times this pre-season. Well, the secondary is finally gelling.

We all hoped that Daunte was going to be his old self but it was clear after the first series against Pitt, he was barely 50% of his old physical.

It was clear he threw 2 bad INTs at the end of the game.

...if Joey doesn't make mistakes we're good enough to win most games without much offense.

I agree with you there.

I'm still not sold on Saban and I think if anything, the fact that we've beaten a couple very good teams points out Saban's horrible preparation for this season. There is no reason it should've taken us nearly half the season to get the secondary squared away. Were it not for the secondary, we would have won our first two games handily.

You can't put those losses, or any of our losses, solely on the secondary. The team, as a whole, was making a lot of mistakes. Dropped passes, poor run blocking and pass protection, too many sacks, too many turn-overs, too many overthrown and underthrown passes, too many missed kicks, too many missed opportunities, and too many costly penalties on defense, offense, and special teams.

With that said, I still like Saban and do think he can do it in the long run. Hopefully he learned more than anyone this season. And hopefully he'll change his offseason and preseason mindset to avoid the stagnancy and ill-preparedness we suffered this year.

The only change this offseason will be the fact that we have less to rebuild.

 

[Finole]

...I really don't know if he bought into some of his own hype and thought because of his success at the end of last year, this year was going to be easy?...

Are you serious?

I don't have an answer for what he needs to do differently. I think possibly being a little more humble, forcing himself to believe that he hasn't prepared the team well when they fail at all aspects of the game may be enough of a change to make it all work.

Because if you're humble, and prepare your team well, you will always win?

 

[Finole]

I 100% concur with Linehan being a huge loss. But here's a question and another problem that can be laid entirely in Saban's lap. Why Mularkey? The guy hasn't proven himself anywhere. In fact, he's been mediocre to bad. Mularkey seems the antithesis of Linehan and what Linehan did worked and is working still. Huge mistake there and one that seems to make no sense. If anything, with the talent we had on offense top to bottom Linehan got the team significantly overachieving. Mularkey has done the exact opposite. Another baffling coaching decision that Saban had to have a lot of input on.

I'm not a big Mularkey fan, either. But he did prove himself his first two years at Pittsburgh.

 

[Ekinger]

I completely disagree with the Pitt game comments.

Daunte was forced to make throws for us to get back in the game. Were they good? No. But he had no choice, we were behind at that point. Why were we behind? No less than 3 huge plays that were entirely in the secondary. Remember the record setting td by a TE? Our dbs were so far away they couldn't even chase him down. Remember 1 or was it 2 huge pass interference calls in the first half when we were completely dominating them?

Daunte absolutely didn't lose us that game. The secondary lost the game. How many 70 yard tds have teams scored on us in the games we've won? How many pass intfnc calls that resulted in over 50 yard gains have we had in the games we've won? And how many in the games we lost.

Joey isn't doing anything to win games he can't. Daunte was expected to do things in games to win them for us. He didn't have the physical ability to do that. Asking either one with the skills they had to win games for us isn't realistic and frankly, we were doing enough offensively in the Pitt game to win if the 2ndary hadn't completely fallen asleep.

 

[Finole]

I completely disagree with the Pitt game comments.

Daunte was forced to make throws for us to get back in the game. Were they good? No. But he had no choice, we were behind at that point.

Wrong. After the Heath Miller TD, we were only down by 4 points with over 6 minutes to go. We could have run on every single down, and still had time to score. Culpepper was not forced to make throws.

They were bad decisions. But every QB makes bad decisions from time to time. It doesn't mean Culpepper is a bad QB. It just means he made a couple of mistakes. And I would even go so far as to say that the first INT was just as much Chambers's fault as it was Culpepper's fault. They share the blame for that one. The second INT, Culpepper simply didn't see Porter drop back into coverage. That was all on Culpepper. It happens to the best of them.

And so did the secondary.

Ronnie Brown was held to 30 yards rushing.

Willie Parker ran for 115 yards.

We lost the turn-over battle, and the time of possession battle.

That's why we lost the Pittsburgh game.

Joey isn't doing anything to win games he can't. Daunte was expected to do things in games to win them for us. He didn't have the physical ability to do that. Asking either one with the skills they had to win games for us isn't realistic and frankly, we were doing enough offensively in the Pitt game to win if the 2ndary hadn't completely fallen asleep.

17 points should be enough to win. But in this case, it wasn't.

 

[PhinGeneral]

I'm still not sold on Saban and I think if anything, the fact that we've beaten a couple very good teams points out Saban's horrible preparation for this season. There is no reason it should've taken us nearly half the season to get the secondary squared away. Were it not for the secondary, we would have won our first two games handily.

I have to disagree a bit. Yeah, it took a little too long to get Bell in there, but we're also talking about an almost completely rebuilt secondary playing an intricate defensive system. In fact, I think most people thought the secondary would be the last unit on this team to jell.

 

[Kadiddlehopper]

I'm still not sold on Saban and I think if anything, the fact that we've beaten a couple very good teams points out Saban's horrible preparation for this season. ........

With that said, I still like Saban and do think he can do it in the long run.

Huh? :dolphins:

 

[PeachFins]

Just enjoy the season for what it is worth.
Dolphins are playing some good football.

 

[Ekinger]

Miami down 7-0 in Pitt game 53 yard passing in the drive and scored on a 27 yard td pass. We tied it on awesome punt return and short td run (7-7).

Pitt 14 to 7 one Willie Parker run for 32 yards pass interference for 23 yards puts them inside the 10. 7 yard td pass for td.

Miami fg and td to make it 17 to 14 Miami.

87 yard td pass to Heath Miller 21 to 17.

At this point we are down by more than a fg with 6 minutes left and an inability to run. Daunte is forced to pass. They weren't good decisions turned the ball over twice, but if the 2ndary hadn't given up 21 points we wouldn't have been in that position. No way anyone can blame the loss on
CPEP. If we hadn't been losing when he turned it over, then blame it on him. But we were losing and he was most obviously expected to score us the points to come back and win it. Not Ronnie Brown, as has been obvious every game since until Chicago.