i think these corners will figure it out over time, also what happens with will allen next year. yeremiah is the man but it might be time to look outside of gibril. we clearly do need a young lb as taylor and porter arent getting younger. we need a playmaking lb like any good defense has. also, one thing this post forgot NT. NT next year. i dont think soliai is the answer and ferguson is gonna be 36. so wut next? i think we need to spend $$ on a wr and spend a draft pick on lb and nt in 1st and 2nd round

The Dolphins Defense has been eaten up all season by tight ends and running backs releasing over the middle, so the corners have to cheat up and then they get burned. The corners will get better, but we need a young Zack Thomas back.

We have a good run game, so they are definitely not tired. Is it the coaching, personnel, or both?

Guys who can blitz, cover, and defend the run. Because our ILBs lack in all of those categories, it’s forcing us to bring up our safeties to cover TEs, RBs, defend against the run, and even blitz. In turn, we are leaving our rookie corners man-to-man, and they’re paying for it. Another thing I’ve noticed as well, we don’t play alot of zone defense and I think it’s due to the fact we’re starting two rookie CBs. This could also be attributing to our pourous defense. As for the TO touchdown catch against Davis, I don’t blame Davis for that one. I blame Pasqualoni for leaving him one-on-one without safety help.

Or rookie CB’s are just fine, just going through growing pains. I’m cool with our rookie S’s in Culver and Clemons. Bell is fine at the SS we just need a dominant cover ILB to cover TE’s to take pressure off Bell who’s more of an enforcer and not a cover guy. Also, I don’t know about you guys but our second half play calling is way to conservative especially in the 4th quarter. I don’t think it’s fatigue, this coaching staff is framed in the Parcells model in which every player is at peak physical shape to last all four quarters and overtime. I’m not in favor of canning the OC or DC due to I don’t feel they have the pulse of this team to call the right plays to keep momentum. I think the lost of CP10 and the Second coming of Marino in Howitzer Henne threw Henning off more then any of us could imagine. This team was built to run and dink and donk. If that’s your offensive philosophy you can get away with not having a #1 and having a bunch of #2’s and 3’s. But now he has a QB who arguably has the strongest arm in the league and can make any pass in total contrast from CP10 who couldn’t throw a pass ten yards efficiently but could dink and donk with the best of them. With Pasqualini same thing, I felt he thought GWilson was worth as much as we signed him to play FS. The loss of WAllen messed him up due to WAllen knew exactly the defensive philosophy PP was trying to execute with the secondary WAllen organized or zone coverages and the SSmith and VDavis progression was faster then he thought would be. With the progression of our rookie CB’s I feel Pasqualani is trying to figure out how much they can handle. Also, the progression of Culver and Clemons is confusing him, too. And that’s going hand in hand with his confusion with our rookie CB’s since our FS spot is being played primarly with rookies in passing plays. With that said I feel Culver has a nose for the ball but doesn’t fully no the playbook and the role the FS will play in our version of 3-4 and nickel packages. Clemons obviously knows our play book and defensive philosophy since he’s playing both SS and FS and starting. With Clemons he’s just not in sync with the corners and what Crowder is doing yet but I feel he’s our future FS due to he knows his X’s and O’s now he’s just got to get consistency with the secondary and what our ILB is doing before and after the snap. So I attribute our struggles in the fourth quarter to our Coordinators not fully knowing what they have and not knowing what you have will hinder you in making adjustments where you need to make adjustments. We’re playing with a rookie laden secondary a captain in that secondary who’s taken the leadership role for the first time in his career in Bell and our front seven though great is off, too. I feel our coaching staff still doesn’t know how to maximize Wake yet. I like Soliai as NT I just think he’s not in sync with what Starks, Langford, and Merling are doing, he’s obviously still worrying about his technique and about his ankle. Just a couple more starts and finishes he’ll know his ankle is just fine his technique is sound and then he’ll gel with Starks, Merling, and Langford and it’ll be smooth sailing after that. So I guess what I’m trying to say is we have to many rookies starting primarily on our defense and they (the coordinators and players) haven’t gelled as a well oiled machine yet.

if the Dolphins lose 1 more game they should start playing some of the young guys as starters let them get some game experience and see what they can do I would really like to see lemon play more and how bad can turner be compared to the rest of the receivers I mean ginn drops alot more passes than he catches who cares how fast he is if he can’t catch even though Sporrano defends him all the time you know he is just trying to keep his confidence up to get through the season if they lose 1 more game they are pretty much out of the playoff race even if they make it to the playoffs they don’t have the talent to go deep especially if rickey will only carry the ball 24 times a game and they seem to be afraid to let hilliard get any carries so the passing game has to step up and they don’t have the players to give henne any real help so if they lose 1 more game I think they should start mixing things up a bit they might be surprised

The Dolphins don’t have the players to run the 3-4 defense the nose tackles a wearing down in the fourth quarter and the opposing o-linemen are getting to the LBs and opening hole for the running backs Taylor is slower than he used to be and if he’s not rushing the QB he is useless porter is better against the run than pass rushing with ferguson gone for the year they should go to a 4-3 with lankford starks soliai and merling let taylor play right end on passing downs make wake the ROLB porter the LOLB crowder in the middle the secondary isn’t as bad as people think though bell and wilson are not cover safeties the corners are young but improving every week the Dolphins need a LB that can cover a tight end and play a zone covereage when needed allowing the safeties to help out the corners someone in another post said we need a young Zach Thomas but I would rather get a Young Lawerance taylor but both would be even better

We seem to be quite poor at tackling this year. So many plays stand out — Joey Porter unable to catch the Jets on the fake punt despite being right there, half of Gibril Wilson’s plays, Torbor to the sideline, Crowder unable to stop Ryan Fitzpatrick from getting first downs, over and over. It seems we are the kind of defense that lets the opponent get extra from the play. Against the Saints, against the Panthers, Bills, Patriots, it’s always a 10-20 yard pass and then dozens of yards RAC. Moss and Owens and Smith and Colston and Vincent are all great receivers — they WILL catch the ball. No corner can completely prevent that. But they don’t have to run through a bunch of arm tackles for additional yardage. That part is really disheartening. Last year it was a swarming defense that bottled people up — this year we just whiff as receivers, runners and now backup quarterbacks go running on by.

I was going to post on this yesterday, but never got around to it. But it is bad whenwe are beating teams 172-131 through three quarters and then are outscored a pathetic 74-134 in the fourth qtr alone. We have been shut out three times in the fourth and scored a TD in only six fouth quarter games all season. Add to that, we have won the time of possesion battle 8 times and lost only three , so what are we doing with the ball???I’ll tell you, we have lost the interception battle 9-11, won the fum recovery battle 9-6, but lose the sack battle 17-34. So we take sacks and fumble away the ball (poor ball Protection) and can’t stop them once they have it. I’m going to follow this team even if we have a one win season……….or an undefeated one, but we must get better on the o-line in pass protection just the opposite of the Marino years , and slow down the backs and TE in the middle of the field, and finally get better pressure on first and second downs so our weak secondary do not have too much time to get beat.

The Patriots have been exposed now it’s your turn to kick their ass!

Who Dat !!

If there were a problem with the cornerbacks, we’d be losing games by huge margins long before the fourth quarter and getting far less pressure.

A lot of problems have been mentioned here, but one that I haven’t seen is the backside containment problem, which has almost always been Joey Porter, though in the Bills game, it was Anderson that failed to contain their QB on his first big TD run. Whether this was a one-time mental lapse (always possible), part of the defensive scheme (difficult to believe), or in imitation of Porter (my guess—after all, it’s gotten Porter the sack #‘s, the fame, and the starting position), it cost us the Buffalo game as much as Ricky’s interception, which I don’t blame on Ricky. Going all out after the sack leaves the outside wide open.

By contrast, several times in the Bills game, the QB would try a bootleg to Jason Taylor’s side, and JT had him covered.

All defenses are made or broken by players up the middle, NT, ILB’s and FS/SS

Look at the steelers without polamalu, missing a force in the middle will get you beat

Bottom line is we have 2 non playmaking ILB’s, a 35 year old NT (injured) and a good SS but our FS is a true SS, hes got no ball skills giving these corners no help in the middle of the field

Get a FS that can make plays on the ball and a ILB, along with stop playing both JT and Peezy together, get wake in there more and our defense would be alot different

I have been wondering why Pasqualoni doesn’t rotate our CB’s to blanket the players they are supposed to cover! I mean why in the world would he have Davis on Moss when Smith, who is 6’3, was drafted to combat Moss and Owens! but yet he has Davis on Moss and Smith on Welker! I don’t get it! He has done that all year and it drives me nuts!

With the Saints destroying the Pats. Miami would of had a chance to tie for the Division title by SIMPLY BEATING THE BILLS.

so has the offense, but here is something that is really intriguing

despite my and other peoples’ negativity after the loss Sunday, the Dolphins are still very much in the hunt due to losses by Jacksonville, Houston, New England and Pittsburgh.

the #6 seed right now is 6-5, we are 5-6. Someone said 9-7 wont make it to the playoffs, now I am not so sure, but look at our remaining schedule; we play most everyone we are battling with for a wild card.

New England is up first, and is very important with the Pats getting beat up by the Saints last night, a win gets us to within a game with 4 to play, still possible.

Also our last 4 games are all against teams we are battling with in the wildcard

Jacksonville (6-5), Tennessee (5-6), Houston (5-6), Pittsburgh (6-5)

First two of those 4 games are on the road, final to at home. We still have a shot at the playoffs if we take care of our business, easier said then done of course, but we still have a shot

I wonder if our issues is the schemes we have used as we have played a bunch of rookies and had injuries. I don’t mind vontae and smith getting beat, especially when they are asked to have man to man on stud WRs. I like that they will learn that way but we get torched by every TE too. where are all our playmakers?

I totally disagree with the notion to bring in a veteran corner to replace either Davis or Smith. Makes no sense to me. Have they struggled? No doubt about it. But, I can assure you that premier corners like Champ Bailey struggled as well in their rookie seasons. Even the solid tandem that we had, Surtain and Madison, went through growing pains before becoming the best cornerback duo in the league for a while. I personally think that these two young guys have more than held their own, and will be get better from game to game and season to season.

I am more disappointed with the play of a guy like Channing Crowder. To be honest, I wasn’t all that thrilled when he was resigned in the off-season. To me, he is good for 4-5 solid plays a game and that’s it. I think he one of the worst coverage linebackers in the league. He just in not getting it done from my vantage point.

Now, as far as this week against New England, it is absolutely a must win if any talk of the playoffs is to persist. Can the Fins rise up and stun the Patriots? I really don’t know. We are going to either get a Patriots team that is still stunned from their drubbing in New Orleans and having to play on a short week, or we are going to get a New England team that is just plain mad and looking to hang 50 on us. I sure hope it is the latter.

NT, ILB, WR and a new defensive coordinator..just my 5 cents

A few thoughts about both our offense and Defense:

1) Offense – we have no skill players. We need better WR’s and a better TE. Without them, teams just line up to stop the run. When we have a lead, we can’t pound the rock and run out the clock because other teams are ready for it and it’s easy to stop.

2) Defense – we need LB’s. We can’t cover big athletic TE’s (maybe we because our “O” doesn’t have one for the “D” to practice against?) and our LB’s are our weak link. I posted before the season that of JT, JP, Roth and Wake, we couldn’t be sure that any of them would be back in 2010. I wish Wake would start and I wish JT and JP would get cut like Roth. We need to draft at least one starting inside LB.

Even though our record is worse, I still that this year’s team is better than last year’s. And 2010 will be even better than 2009.

Let me start off by saying I love the way Jason Taylor plays and I’ve always been a big fan. I’ve also thought the re-signing of JT this year was a great considering the deal we got on him. But I don’t think he should start next year and here’s why.

Jason Taylor lacks the pass coverage ability. He’s a former DE and he’ll only improve so much at his age. For this reason alone he should be used for situational downs. Pretty much like we planned to use him but then Roth got “hurt”.

I have no idea what Cameron Wakes pass coverage skills are but he’s probably not the answer if he can only pass rush and here’s why.

Players like JT and possibly Cameron limit our flexibility on defense. We need more creativity with the pass rushing and right now we have zero. It’s always JT, Porter, or Wake. Usually two are starting, I don’t think all three have ever started at once. The ILB’s never rush.. or never get there at least.

If I’m the defensive coordinator I can’t think of doing anything creative such as rushing the CB and moving JT into a zone pass coverage defense. Why? Because he’ll get burned.

ILB and OLB are both toss ups, or we need both.

CB blitz and dropping JT into zone..