If were going to run a 3-4 defense, lets get a defensive coordinator that knows how to RUN a 3-4 defense. Romeo where are you already?

I agree that until we get a good WR (or two, or three) the talents of our running backs is wasted. This good team has the potential to be great, and a contender for a long time, but until we improve our passing game teams will be able to stuff the box and nulify our offense completely.

I am frustrated for Henne because he is improving, and did most things right yesterday, but was let down by dropped balls (especially on that drive when we were down 7). Considering this guy is essentially a rookie, was on the road in a game of huge importance, against a great team who are a divisional rival, I thought he looked really confident. He didn’t look flustered, he didn’t make major mistakes, and when something went wrong it didn’t faze him.

Also on the plus side— was I the only one impressed with Jason Allen when he came in for the injured Davis for a while?? He made a great play in the end zone to break up a TD, and in general didn’t look anywhere near as clueless as I remember him being at corner.

Does anybody know if Cam Wake was getting snaps, I could barely work out the players & numbers from the TV angle so was relying on close ups and commentators most of the time. I remember he got to Brady twice at least.

P.S. I love that they were scared of Ted Ginn!

Sure it’s also O-line play but i think that not allowing ted ginn to start (that threat down field) has really crippled our running game. (3 weeks ago we used to be the #1 run offense in the nfl we had a decent running attack against the saints we just decided to abandon the run in the second half so i believe even if the stats don’t exactly show it that we had a good running day.) I mean a decoy or a guy who occasionally creates separation and rarely catches still gets the job done in terms of removing people from the box. (just my opinion on ginn).
 I like what you said about Pat White. Also i am really excited for the Wildpat or triple option or whatever you wanna call it. with pat white i think that having the possibility of ronnie or ricky getting the balls makes pat white a much better runner (if he could work on his passes he could get better) i think he should get like 1 (maybe more) drive a game where he gets snaps and we can run all our trick/option plays and on other drives we should allow henne to get a rhythm and really see what he can do with a full drive to himself. I know we want to keep defenses on their heels and it may be a bit predictable but the wildcat is losing a bit of it’s edge without pat… and henne seems to make 3 out of 4 throws and only letting him throw on 3rd down is a bit difficult for a young qb.

I also like the wildcat as a redzone offense primarily i think it’s more of a power running formation the threat of ronnie brown running straight at you or ricky running on the jetsweep and a pass? Now thats difficult to defend in the red zone.

i dont know if it was the absences oh crowder and ferguson, or the fact that jt wasnt our strong-side lb. maybe roth isnt as good now as he was last year. or maybe jt gets the rest of our front 7 pumped. but we cant allow the other team to run through us like that. maybe we should stick with what was working put jt back in there at solb. try out wake, he seams to create pressure.

1. Henne is really developing quickly and as much as I hated to see CP10 go down, Im loving the fact that Henne is getting all these games under his belt now rather then next season and I think he’ll definitely be much better with an extra 13 games and an off season to correct mistakes. He is making extremely good throws but if he had a moss or welker that could get open and NOT drop passes, his stat line would look much better.

2. Our run game, like said before, is a lot better when we have a deep threat in the game. Its clear that we have no1 to stretch the field except Ginn and in my opinion if we are going to run, atleast have Ginn in as the blocking WR so the defense has to atleast take in the possibility that we are going deep and if Henne sees single coverage he can audible and take a shot.

3. Porter is looking way too old, as previously said, and wake had a sack and a qb pressure on the 5 plays (dont’ know exact number but it wasn’t a lot) that he was in. Put wake in more, and get porter out or more rest. Not sure what it is, but he isn’t nearly having the same pressure he did last year.

4. Bess made some very tough catches and yea he dropped one but overall I think he had a good game and bounced backed nicely from last week. Camirillo did what he normally does and catches everything but Hartline dropped a very catchable ball as did Haynos. We need a no. 1 more than we realize, and i think we all realize. Just imagine how much our offense would open up if we had a guy like Moss or Fitz or Andre, which is why i’m so high on our team because we still had 30 plus the past 3 games and we are doing it with a run first offense.

5. We have a lot t be excited about, we have a very young o-line, rb, d-line, and defensive back…honestly, we are two drafts and one or two quality free agents from being an elite team. As Moss said, he’s on his way out and we are on our way in. Anyone remember Brady before Moss? I do and although he was very good, he didnt have anyone to turn 10 yard catches into 70 yard td’s. Stay optimistic, because the future is very bright!

To be honest I don’t think it is nearly as much about the players as it is the plain vanilla pass rush. If we bring 4 or 5 its fine .. but we have to overload one side … or stunt them once and a while. We should be making them guess which 5 we are bringing. I hate that we just bring 4 or 5 and the whole offensive line knows exactly who to block. It puts every single defensive lineman at a disadvantage. If the offense knows what they are doing and what the defense is doing, and the snap count, how is the defense going to compete? The truth is almost everytime we bring a safety blitz we are getting a sack or a hit on the QB, or a knockdown. The reason is not because the safeties are anything special as much as it is we are finally outwitting the offense.
   I love the rookies and how they are coming along. I think we need to have Clemmons out there at FS with Yeremiah Bell or Gibril Wilson at SS. I think if Vontae Davis runs a little bit more before diving at Moss he makes that tackle. I love the interception. I do think we would be much better off if we paired Sean Smith with Moss though and Vontae against Welker. There were times that Smith had to cover Welker and he was mismatched because he had to drop his hips and make a cut that he wasn’t able to do as well as Welker because of his height. I think Vontae is able to stay with Welker a bit better on those quick routes and then hit him as he is catching the ball … or maybe jump that route. On the other side with Sean Smith (just a few inches taller than Davis) maybe Moss doesn’t make a one-handed grab because Smith jumps and breaks it up. I think the Patriots dictated exactly what they wanted with the matchups and again outsmarted our defensive coordinator.
    You can’t play great defense with the mindset of stopping what the offense is going to throw at you. You have to make them worry about what you might throw at them. We have all the talent we need and we can not get it done with the pass rush. We let the other team dictate what they want to do. We let the QB sit back and find the one weakness in our defense and exploit it because we aren’t even trying to disguise what we are bringing.
Its like when the Patriots were taping the sidelines to figure out what the defense was going to do, only instead we are telling them exactly what we are going to do the second we line up. Awesome. I can’t believe we made the plays we did on defense.

It is extremely refreshing to read comments by people that actually GET IT and see what is happening. Matty? Great observations and article. It IS exciting to see the glimpses of greatness this young team have going for them and the future is exciting. But I also agree that there are glaring deficiencies that we can and should address now, ie. receivers defensive line. Having Ferguson out really killed is in the run game but what’s not to like about the our future at the corners? We are a classy, well run, well coached team with intelligent, non-hysterical fans. Trust me, when it all comes together, and it will, the Dolphins will once again be in the upper echelon of the NFL. Sparano said it best, "We’re a good football team. We’re really close to being a really good football team. But we’ve got to get it to turn.’’ ’nough said.

Something is wrong with the run game, and I think you might have nailed it. Ginn catches the ball often enough that he has to be in there to attract a safety’s attention.

However, we should count our blessings:

1) Our first real long-term starting first-rate QB since Marino. Apologies to Chad P and Jay F, but if Chad H had one top-notch receiver, we’d be 6-2 right now.

2) Two top young CB’s — considering the amount of time Brady had back there, it’s amazing how little the Pat’s scored.

3) A fully functional offensive line, including an excellent LT—maybe not all-pro, but close enough.

4) Top RB in Ronnie Brown.

5) Perhaps most of all, an excellent team attitude (For contrast, look up under: JETS, NEW YORK)

We’re one reciever, one LB, and one safety short of a serious SB contending team.

The offensive play calling, I just dont understand the Phins choices at times. They clearly dont play to win for at least 3 qtrs. They are happy getting into field goal range.

Soon as the offense gets into a rhythm, here comes a package that clearly isnt working. We run when we need a pass and pass when we should be running.

Bess and Fasano can both have a seat next to Ginn. The WR with consistant hands cant get open and the ones who can get open dont have consistant hands. I say Let Ginn play or dont fault him when he gets his first rep 2 min left in the 4th qtr.

As much that is missing on O and D, I think we could have a lot better record with better play calling.

Matty great post.

“With that said, I HATED the quick screen to Davone Bess on a 3rd & 19. At least take a shot deep. In fact, why didn’t we see at least one deep pass attempted during the game?”

I agree on the 3rd & 19 call, should have called a different play. I think they didn’t go deep b/c of to much pressure up front. But I agree they have to take shots down field more often. This would also help to get 8 out of the box.

Lack of pass rush would be because of more bad play calling we ran 3 and four guys at him most the game but at the end of the day the Pats whoo scored 100+ points in 2 games had 4 FGs and 2 TDs, if we had anything resembling an offense or didnt give them the ball at the 40yd line every kick we’d might have a diff outcome.

I still say we are always getting out coached. to many WTF’s watching the Phins

The clock gaming was not on the Moss completion; that was legitimate. However, while I was checking on that, I notices that it was actually on the previously play, with the clock stopped at :23, that the Pats were given about 2 extra seconds after the ball was snapped. Of course, this just meant that Brady would probably have spiked it and they would have kicked the FG anyway, but it’s annoying nonetheless.

in a 2 minute drill there has to be someone, ANYONE, who can catch the ball!!! the last two games ended with missed opportunities due to drpped, catchable passes!!!

For now, Ginn has to be in the game. Send him on a streak route and throw it deep. this will back the safeties up, and open up the running game. When the safeties start to creep closer to the LOS, do it again.

We’re done for the year. We may come in second within the division should the Jets continue to fall to teams as bad as we are.

-blah

Does anyone want to point out the horrible coaching?? We decide to run the double reverse pass out of the wildcat for a 10 yard loss when we were at mid-field while the drive had been succsessful up to that point , i mean are u kidding me???? i now we have seen this play work but down by seven to the patriots when we were driving thats what we come up . And the time has come to get wake in there porter has done nothing all year he was going up against a rookie for godsake

I’m reading more and more points of we should’ve done this or why didnt we do that…please remind yourselves that belicheck had 2 weeks to prepare for us, that is like giving Peyton 10 seconds to throw the ball…We have a legit team, please show me another team that was 1-15 two years ago, lost the mvp runner up this year and is still almost beating the top teams in the NFL (NO, IND)…we have so much talent that has yet to be developed. Yes, henning made some bad calls but some of these same plays also resulted in td’s at other points of the season. I’ve been a dolphin fan since the first time I watched an NFL game, and would you rather be the jets and be mediocre year after year by overpaying for past their prime FA, or build through a draft and develop young players and be atop of the league for multiple years like Pitt and Dallas and NE…all products or sub-prodcuts of Parcells (belliceck sub product)…

On Another note, i do feel its time for Porter and Wilson to go after the season, let taylor back at his old spot, have wake and Roth in their and hopefully draft or sign someone to replace Taylor when his time is up…Clemons in for Wilson, and we need a back up for Ferg and an ILB with of course a WR. I also think Fasano’s lack of production like TS said was due to him blocking a lot and possibly safety’s focusing on him more knowing our wr’s don’t demand any double coverage but I like him for the future. Remember last year what he did in KC and NY to win those games.

Just a thought, maybe our wr’s need time to get used to Henne’s cannon as opposed to Pennington’s soft throws. Not an excuse but just gets you thinking?

We all know what the dolphins are going to do. They will wait til their runningbacks are retired then pick up some WRs so we have a passing game and no running game. then when Henne rips an acl or achilles then we will get a RB and throw away the passing game. They been doing it for decade. Dolphin’s have been half a football team since the mid 80’s

close only counts in horseshoes and hand gernades. besides NE was missing half of their team to injuries

I think that everyone is getting carried away with this, every year or just about every year we tend to split the games with the Pats, we have a good remaining schedule and if we can win out or come close to winning out it could be like last year with us having the tie breaker over the Pats yet again due to our better conference record now wouldn’t that be something, the Pats get bucked out of the playoffs 2 years in a row!!! LETS GO PHINS!!!!

Completely agree about our pass rush. It’s non-existant. It’s time for Porter to take a seat and let Wake take over pass rush situations.

I’m not a fan at all of the option play Henning keeps trying to run. This isn’t college Dan Henning, so stop coaching like it is. You make the case of 8 plays for 60 yards. But considering two of those plays, of the first three they ran, went for about 50 of those yards. That means the next 5 went for only 10 yards. Another example of Henning continuing to run something into the ground based on it working one or two times. There’s a reason teams don’t run the option in the NFL.

Our receivers are a huge liability for us, and the reason is because hardly any of them have shown any skills this year at gaining yards after the catch. Hartline looks to be the only one.

Single coverage on Moss only means one thing. You’re going to get burned. Don’t get me wrong, I think Vontae Davis is one hell of a rookie, and will be very good with a little more experience. But matched up against Randy Moss, you have to give him over the top safety help. 4 and 5 WR sets are no excuse for not having a safety over the top. If you’re going to give up the man-to-man coverage giev it up to Welker, or a third or fourth stringer. Not the best WR in the game. Sure Vontae played that deep pass as best as he could, but with a safety over the top, that play doesn’t happen. As for the crossing pattern, it wouldn’t have helped for the catch itself, but at least we would have had someone else to try and make the tackle after Vontae missed.

I’d also like to add that our center and guards are doing an absolute horrible job opening holes up the middle for the run game. I can’t even remember the last game we were able to run the ball up the middle with any success? The Colts game???