The sky is falling: What concerns you most right now about Dolphins?

The new pandemic sweeping the Dolphin nation.

The first step is prevention:

1. Stay indoors

2. Do NOT watch the Dolphins either in person or on TV

The second step is treatment. Once you contract Chicken Little Syndrome or CLS the medical community has little options for proper treatment. Here is what is available.

1. Drink ALOT of alcohol. This is a short term solution. Once you sober up and find your way back home the symptoms may start again.

2. Find a new favorite team. Maybe the Saints or the Colts or someone more stable. I know its blasphemous but people will go to great measures to find relief.

3. Move to Figi. The native are topless and there is no electricity.

4. Frontal Labotomy. Seems many people especially Jets fans have already had this procedure. Proven to calm you down and make you less agitated and more vegitative.

5. Go to Wal-Mart and buy a clue. I hear they are onsale right now and yes you too can finally have a clue!! It is only preseason so calm down!!

3.

Special teams.
The O line & D line are gonna be fine. I dunno about the sophomore secondary, though.

That’s my #1 concern right now. I understand how this isn’t at all the same defense we’re going to be playing during the regular season, but still it seems Vontae and Sean haven’t really taken a step forward.

In no way shape or form am I concerned about our “D” getting to the QB / creating pressure, even with out a blitz….. Sorry, but we all know that really wont be an issue once the whistle blows in regular season….. Not even a thought to worry about. Going in to Pre Season, everyone was stoked about the “D”…. if they can get through our line they can get through any line. Few crappy preseason games are just good practices with a boner. We will be fine.

I remember when the Dolphins got Ricky Williams for the first, in preseason, he did absolutely horrible. Well he lead the lead in rushing that year…. so… nothing

What I’m really worried about is special teams. Not so much the return aspect of it but the defensive part of it. I dont know if its the players that are not staying in there tackling lanes or not knowing how to tackle. It could even be that we just need a new special teams coach. What ever the problem is, its the same problem we had last year and I feel it is the biggest problem we have on our team.

Its a lot harder to blitz when ur corners struggle in man coverage.

1. Nickel Corner. I like Carroll’s speed and kick return ability, and I love that he’s getting noticed in practice, but we need Will Allen in a big way. I know getting your knee cleaned is no big deal in and of itself, but it could be an indicator that his rehab is going as quickly as we all hope. And nickel seems to put particular stress on the knees, with its demand for quick cuts and lateral movement.

2. Vontae Davis. He’s one of my favorite players on the D, based on his attitude, love of contact, and tendency to make big plays. But jeezus he is maddeningly inconsistent, and got roasted by a freaking Buccaneer. Even in the preseason, that’s embarrassing.

3. Safety. Just because, until the bullets are live, who really knows if CC can do the job.

I am pretty sure the special teams will be below average – but that never scares me if we have a dynamic offense (we do) solid running game (we do) and above average defense…(probably)…
PASS RUSH – has looked terrible without any blitzing yet… I am sure NOLAN will be able to help this when the season starts, but against Manning, Brady, Rogers, Flacco, and Farve – just blitzing won’t work without pressure from the base DL package.
Wake, Misi, Odrick all HAVE LOOKED AVERAGE TO ME when it comes to pass rush.
So I am real worried there……..Personally I wouldnt have drafted either Misi or Odrick – so I am most worried abouot their ability to bring pressure – Wake gives me the most confidence – but he hasnt looked great in the preseason yet.
The secondary will be fine ! BELL is a real good player and Davis and Smith are young, talented players and they have all the “position skills” needed to be HUGE successes….. not sure Misi or Odrick have the same “position skill set” to bring the HEAT on 3rd down…. I wanted more speed off the edge (smaller quicker players) not 300 lb lineman who are slow…. No matter what this will be our best season in a long while – I still predict 10 wins at a minimum….GO FINS !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m still hoping Nolan is keeping his special plays a secret and that will help the young defense become a great unit. As for the Special teams, have we ever had a great Special Teams?? We might have to go back to OJ McDuffie for decent PR, but even he fair caught alot of balls. I dont mind having a mediocre return team as long as they also dont give up the big plays to the other team.

The defense will be fine. Mike Nolan knows how to utilize the talent he has and come regular season, he’s going to have things rollin’ full steam ahead. Sure we should be looking better in our basic defense, but it’s the damn preseason so there’s no reason to panic. The preseason is a time to evaluate depth and NOT your starters. Don’t get me wrong, you can get a decent feel for your starters in that first quarter or two, but it shouldn’t be overexaggerated. Also you won’t get a good feel for the offensive line until they stop rotating the starting unit, because the line as a whole has to build chemistry if they want to be effective. Now when looking at our deoth defensivley Paul Soliai is looking primed for a good year (and once again Nolan will know how to utilize him), Dobbins should be a solid backup for us, and our defensive backs have some nice competition as well. Now looking at our depth offensively all I gotta say is Marlon Moore… Enough said.

Most of those guys are seeing time on Special Teams right now. We’re not really going to get an idea of what 2010 holds for the ST until the Buffalo game.

Every other team in the NFL is in the exact same spot as we are.

Firing coaches in training camp is a sure sign of panic and an organization in disarry – see Buffalo Bills.

I’ll be worried if we lose our opening game against the Bills. I have no concerns about pre-season football. Time and time again it proves to mean nothing.

I’m not a punt expert…is he really taking too long to punt off the ball? Isn’t there a whole (body) movement that you should necessarily observe?

…on the other hand, although I’m not a punt blocking expert, it’s easy to tell that such unit is NOT doing okay. Must…improve…fast.

We have two young corners that are still learning. We now have a young safety learning on the fly. I think our youth and inexperience will show up from time to time this season. So far, we are still giving up big plays to guys that aren’t that special (although I think Williams for TB will be a good WR in the league). Friday’s game will be a big test for them. As will our linebackers covering TEs as well.

As for the dropped passes, I think everyone is overreacting. Even the best receivers drop passes occasionally. I think the issue here is we’ve become so accustomed to seeing Ginn drop easy passes that we cringe every time any receiver drops a pass. I doubt Marshall will go through the 2010 season with zero dropped passes. Hartline might be a concern, but we’ll see how he fares in Friday’s game.

given that we still have 2 more preseason games.

IMO, the secondary issues are not an isolated phenomenm and they reflect the difficulties we’ve with the pass rush. This is one issue that is going to be one to watch the entire regular season. With 2 young corners it is even more important to have a reliable pass rush. You don’t want to have to blitz in order to get the to QB as that opens you up to potentially giving up huge plays.

re: Marshall, I’ve no concerns about him. He’s a pro and come game time he’ll do the business and make plays. He’s never had big issues with drops and I don’t think a player of his caliber simply “forgets” how to catch passes. I see it as a temporary issue that will work itself out.

Many of you have touched on other issues, but I’d like to say that the special teams problems do worry me. Protecting the punter and having good tackling/coverage when other teams are returning punts/kicks, are fundamental issues. We’ve all seen this team have problems with ST in past years and invariably it costs you field position, momentum, and ultimately games.

There’s plenty of time to right the ship and in addition, a fair bit of it is simply guys getting their legs under them, becoming used to game time conditions, and to some extent our offensive/defensive units gelling.

Nothing. Its the preseason for a reason (hey, that rhymed).

I’ll be at my Girlfriends house this weekend and can’t watch the game until Sunday night. I hate Time Warner Cable. Especially now that they are about to lose ALL the ESPN channels on Sept 2 if they cannot get a new contract with Disney done

man I will miss that guy!!!!

teams concern me the most. As far as the pass rush goes I can think of numerous plays where had the coverage been good enough to just force the wide reciever to go to his #2 we would of had sacks. On the 45 yarder to Sims-Walker Misi should’ve had a sack. On the 35 yarder to Mike Thomas, Langford should’ve had a sack. This guys are creating a fairly good pass rush. The troubling thing is that we had still are giving up big plays with good pass rushes. The secondary HAS to be better than that.

http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/16921/dolphins-ship-camarillo-to-vikes-for-sapp