Miami Dolphins at Dallas Cowboys: Welcome Back to Red Zone Yuckiness

Bess made a good grab, but Hartline and bess disappeared for too long during the dallas game. Moore is definately a keeper at QB. True, he’s not a franchise QB, but is good enough to teach a rookie and I think moore will improve after this loss. Pouncey will get better. Right now it looks as if Miami will have somewhere between the 5th and 7th pick in the draft, which should be good enough to get one of the top QBs. And Miami persists in trying to run Bush up the middle, and didn’t get him enough opportunities in space to use his speed to his advantage. And WHY they tried to use him to run into the end zone instead of Daniel Thomas I will NEVER know!!! And Clay didn’t catch a single pass all day. Miami needs to get gates more playing time at WR.

With the ending of the game in particular… the last drive and the failure to let them into the EZ to preserve time to try and win…. but all in all we played a great game last night, and this team is night and day from the early season version.

That also means there was a lot of GOOD in that coaching effort as well as the frustration at the end. 0-4 in the red-zone wasn’t great, but that Dallas front 7 was seriously tough, and we certainly tried HARD to get in. That touch pass inches too long for Reggie springs to mind. D and Special teams were great, first two punts inside their 10… Wake was consistently good, Burnett was everywhere (11 tackles), Bell made some great tackles, McDaniel batted a pass, Solliai was excellent, Starks had tackles for losses. Davis and Smith both had interceptions. As you note, it took an awesome effort from Romo to score on our D late on. Offensively – they got everyone in the game and had some real impressive drives, goal to go aside. Catches wise… Marshall 5, Hartline 4, Bush 3, Fasano 2, Bess 2, Gates 1, Thomas 1, Clay 1.

If it wasn’t for the 0-7 earlier in the season, we wouldn’t be beating up on them too hard for this one IMO.

Great post! Had we converted just one of those red zone attempts into a TD, it would be a different story this morning. I think we did a decent job of managing the clock as well. All in all, we only lost by one point…against an arguably better team. I still see some wins in our future this season!

The only people that criticize Matt Moore is everyone outside of the editors of this website. He played pedestrian. He’s not someone to groom a rookie behind, you do not tutor a franchise QB behind a perennial backup. Wow, just wow.

He just didn’t implode.

He threw balls behind receivers.
He ran out the clock at the end of the half by running for a yard, instead of throwing it away to save clock and get one more play at a TD.
He DIDN’T run on that 3rd and 3 from the 6 when he COULD’VE HAD A FIRST DOWN.

The people who disemboweled Henne for these kind of mistakes are blinded by the Ws.

Don’t confuse my criticism for hate. Moore’s done plenty right to demonstrate he can play at this level. But his decisions aren’t indicative of a 5-year vet, either.

To think of Moore as anything other than a solid backup would be foolish and premature.

I do agree that he is someone you could trust at the helm while a rookie learns the system.

That 3 game winning streak sure came crashing down in a hurry when the Dolphins played a legitimate contender instead of the previous, 3 bottom feeders. This was the test to see if the Dolphins could play against a substantive team, but once again the Dolphins failed to capitalize on numerous opportunities. Sparano will have a job, much to my chagrin and countless other fans, through the remainder of the season. However, I will have great satisfaction in the fact that he will not be there next year. That’s all I want for Christmas is for Sparano to be gone.

Make no mistakes, he made some critical errors, but that is harder to get away from when you have a hand “or several” on you at several points.

People can point to Romo, and say how well he did under pressure, but the key is, he HAS BEEN in this position for years, and was able to learn how to adjust. Not making excuses, but people were and have been saying the same thing about him that people on this site are now saying about Moore.

Coming into the game, people were saying the Cowboys are a playoff team. Yesterday, they showed why. They also showed why I had been saying all week that one of the keys would be to limit Whittens effectiveness. I should have added that rookie they got from the Chargers to that list, and Murray. Both seemed like they have been playimg for years.

Overall, people are overlooking that the game against a playoff contender came down to one point. Our secondary prooved that they CAN catch footballs, and our line on offense prooved how important Carey really is to our lineup. Imo, the excitement of playing across from Ware got to Long, and Garner really should be playing snaps at RT. If of course Carey comes back.

Overall, minus the loss, you have to see that this is a game that shows we are not as far off as some say.

I’m torn because he played really well at times and other times your just scratching your head. As someone mentioned above on 3rd and 3 he easily couldve ran for the first instead of throwing the ball out of the back of the end zone. His accuracy was also off in this game on several throws, but he also made some money throws. All in all they played a great game and showed they could hang with anybody. Our blitzes were just a second late several times and it amazes me Romo was able to hit on all those throws with pressuring baring down. I was hoping he’d fumble the hold on the FG at the end :)
Tough loss and definitely a game we could’ve won, but I feel better about my Fins. Sick of people like Armando talking about how this team has no talent. We do have talent and we are way better than 3-8. Things are looking up for us, when was the last time we had an offense that could move the ball like this??

Spoiler role is here, let’s knock the jets officially out of the playoffs, knock the snot outta brady, remind buffalo in game 2 where the division’s basement is. We are the second best team in this division no doubt, we have 5 games to put everyone back in their place.

Go Fins!!

I think the play calling definitely hurt him, way too conservative to win. All in all I think he is an upgrade. but I’m really looking forward to drafting jones, or someone that could be a franchise qb.

I thought Moore played well outside a few obvious mistakes that basically cost us the game. The fumble deep inside our red zone directly lead to 7 points for example; the unnecessary sack making a longer FG for Graham being another. But Moore shows a much better than expected (at least to me) touch on the deep pass, which he connected with frequently. Yahoo Sports has Moore going 19-32, 1 TD and a 99.5 Passer rating. You take those kind of numbers every time from your starter. I can see why some people are annoyed at some of the mistakes, like the ones mentioned above and the behind-the-back attempted pass to Devone Bess with 4:00 MIN left, but some of the mistakes are correctable (fumbles).

Or course we still have to grab a QB first round no matter what, but as long as Moore keeps playing like this and cuts back on some errors, the rookie Qb wont be seeing the fireld for awhile.

But I’m quite confident that things like the 2 fumbles are correctable, and perhaps a strategic throw-away instead of taking the sack. Those mistakes did cost us this particular game, but are correctable going forward.

It’s looking increasingly clear that Ireland made an excellent decision getting Matt Moore to back up for this team. I don’t see ANY downgrade here from Chad Henne, and his contract is quite reasonable. In fact, I’d say he’s a clear upgrade from Henne – at least with the way he’s playing the last 4 games. Keeping Moore for 2012 can be quite beneficial if we draft a guy like your man RGIII, allowing us to sit him in year 1 if Moore keeps playing this well. RGIII probably needs a bit of time watching (like a Colin Kaepernick but a bit more advanced) to help his development long term. No rookie QB will be seeing the field anyway with Moore playing this well. All for $3M/season.

As much as I slag Ireland for being a hit and miss kind of Player Personnel guy, he deserves credit for getting Moore cheap. If he keeps playing well, we might be able to trade him a la Kyle Orton for picks while our QBOTF grooms for 2013.

Skimming through the replies and reading the whole article, I think you ALL have undervalued how hard and ferocious Reggie Bush was yesterday. Number wise, it was a so-so game. Nothing great, but definately nothing to be ashamed about. With that being said, did you all not watch Reggie Bush? The man refused to do down yesterday. There were multiple times I was extremely impressed with how hard and how much power was behind Reggie’s runs. He looked possessed out there.

I’m loving the Reggie Bush pick up and I think he CAN be used as a every down back. Thomas is a nice change of pace bruiser, but Reggie showed his ability to run hard and fight for extra yardage, even up the middle, yesterday.

the season is over, it would have just been a win to boost our confidence and our recognition
Still, some young players showed a lot of good qualities and showed that we have the potential to be a serious contender in years to follow. I loved watching Pouncey pull on a running plays, the guy is a lot better than we thought he would be and he will grow out of his rookie miscues

And every one gave Sparano crap. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!?!?! He obviously should have gone for two in this situation. The touchdown puts you up by 5, it is only logical to go for 2 and make it 7, but Sparano didnt. Guess how many points our team lost by?!?!?! I’d rather our team lose 18-20 then have the game be 19-20. Yea, I understand that the number of points dallas would score is unpredictable, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt still try to get your team up by a solid touchdown. If we are up by 6, 2 field goals ties it, but a touchdown wins it. If our team is up by 7, 3 field goals wins it, and a touchdowns only ties it. The positives of going for 2 outweigh the negatives. If we are up by 5 if we failed, yes, 2 field goals does win it for them, but with how our defense has been playing, I’d trust them.