Ok, I am sitting here watching the replay of the Dolphins-Texans game from yesterday and will give some of my thoughts on what I have seen so far through the 3rd quarter...
1) I LOVE the Ricky Williams aqcuisition, and I think he is a perfect fit for what the Dolphins want to do. But, I keep hearing the criticism from Saints fans about Ricky getting tackled too easily in the open field, and seemingly never being able to break the long ones. Well, from what I have seen it has nothing to do with his speed, but might have something to do with his SMALL HANDS, oddly enough. Here is what I saw: On two runs he hit a big seam, and had to take on ONE man to break the long one. Now, most great backs in the league will stiff-arm the man in this situation or use one hand to deflect the defenders hands away from him to slip the tackle. Ricky, holds the ball with both hands and takes the blocker head on, trying to run through him. Don't get me wrong... I will take a consistent forward movement all the time with 10-15 yarders coming every now and then, I just think he has more in him. Just something interesting I noticed, Keep your eyes out fot it, you will see what I mean.
2) I was REALLY happy with what I saw from Fiedler last night. I think he will do good for the team this year. BUT, for the first time since Fiedler has been here, I felt like he was holding our offense back. It seemed to me like Norv Turner was getting lots of production, but it was through matchup problems because of all the playmakers we now have. Most of the nice gains were very short passes with lots of YAC by the receiver. There was not enough downfield passing to stretch the defense out. And, I don't know if that's because Turner is trying to mask a weakness of Fiedler or if they are still trying to bring him along slowly, since he is still short on practive time. I like the way they were producing, but I feel if that is what our offense is going to look like all season that we are doing a HUGE disservice to Chambers by wasting his ability.
3) Our offensive line looked impressive to me. Dixon seemed to do a very good job. He did give up the sack at the end of the first half... but he wasn't contantly being beat or giving up on plays early to let his man make a downfield like what I was seeing from Brennt Smith. But, this is the Texans and they are a young team, so the jury is still out on this one to me. But, I definitely saw progress and that is all you can ask for at this time of year.
4) A. Ogunleye... OMG. This guy looks to be a force... in all aspects of the game. He has a motor that doesn't stop, and he is doing it against starters now, so there is no doubt in my mind he should be our starter, and quite possibly a 4 down starter. Kind of makes me said we gave up a fourth rounder for Jay Williams, when we had this guy on our roster all along. But, Jay Williams looks good too... he will be a good pass rusher from the inside for us on 3rd and long situations. I just think if we would have know what we had in A.O. we could have waited a while and picked up Jay Williams for either a lower draft pick... or for nothing, because it looked likely the Panthers would release him. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and at the time w didn't really know what we had in Bowens and A.O.
What was promising about this game though was... progress, progress, progress... everyone looked liek they were getting on the same page and starting to get it together for the regular season.
I will be watching the 4th quarter later, and might have a few more comments afterwards, but thats it for now.
1) I LOVE the Ricky Williams aqcuisition, and I think he is a perfect fit for what the Dolphins want to do. But, I keep hearing the criticism from Saints fans about Ricky getting tackled too easily in the open field, and seemingly never being able to break the long ones. Well, from what I have seen it has nothing to do with his speed, but might have something to do with his SMALL HANDS, oddly enough. Here is what I saw: On two runs he hit a big seam, and had to take on ONE man to break the long one. Now, most great backs in the league will stiff-arm the man in this situation or use one hand to deflect the defenders hands away from him to slip the tackle. Ricky, holds the ball with both hands and takes the blocker head on, trying to run through him. Don't get me wrong... I will take a consistent forward movement all the time with 10-15 yarders coming every now and then, I just think he has more in him. Just something interesting I noticed, Keep your eyes out fot it, you will see what I mean.
2) I was REALLY happy with what I saw from Fiedler last night. I think he will do good for the team this year. BUT, for the first time since Fiedler has been here, I felt like he was holding our offense back. It seemed to me like Norv Turner was getting lots of production, but it was through matchup problems because of all the playmakers we now have. Most of the nice gains were very short passes with lots of YAC by the receiver. There was not enough downfield passing to stretch the defense out. And, I don't know if that's because Turner is trying to mask a weakness of Fiedler or if they are still trying to bring him along slowly, since he is still short on practive time. I like the way they were producing, but I feel if that is what our offense is going to look like all season that we are doing a HUGE disservice to Chambers by wasting his ability.
3) Our offensive line looked impressive to me. Dixon seemed to do a very good job. He did give up the sack at the end of the first half... but he wasn't contantly being beat or giving up on plays early to let his man make a downfield like what I was seeing from Brennt Smith. But, this is the Texans and they are a young team, so the jury is still out on this one to me. But, I definitely saw progress and that is all you can ask for at this time of year.
4) A. Ogunleye... OMG. This guy looks to be a force... in all aspects of the game. He has a motor that doesn't stop, and he is doing it against starters now, so there is no doubt in my mind he should be our starter, and quite possibly a 4 down starter. Kind of makes me said we gave up a fourth rounder for Jay Williams, when we had this guy on our roster all along. But, Jay Williams looks good too... he will be a good pass rusher from the inside for us on 3rd and long situations. I just think if we would have know what we had in A.O. we could have waited a while and picked up Jay Williams for either a lower draft pick... or for nothing, because it looked likely the Panthers would release him. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and at the time w didn't really know what we had in Bowens and A.O.
What was promising about this game though was... progress, progress, progress... everyone looked liek they were getting on the same page and starting to get it together for the regular season.
I will be watching the 4th quarter later, and might have a few more comments afterwards, but thats it for now.
