Coaching Matters

Time's up for Tony Sparano. We may be stuck with him the rest of this season, especially with Mike Nolan, the most obvious possible replacement, not looking any better than his boss, but any lingering belief that Sparano might be an NFL head coach has been extinguished.

For the second week in a row, this team was unprepared to play football.  The defense, especially, is starting to look like it did late in the Cam Cameron year: like they don't even know where they're supposed to be on the field.

People -- probably Coach Sparano above all -- will say Thomas's 100+ yards say otherwise, but the fact is this O line is bad.  A 100-yard rusher is nice, but it doesn't win games in the NFL when you can't keep your QB clean or open passing lanes.  Being able to run block is not a substitute for being able to pass block.

Aside from being unprepared to play, the biggest knock on the head coach's leadership is the way this team falls apart when the chips are down.  This team just flat quit late in today's game.  The D quit, and the O-line quit.  That's a rot that develops from the head down.

Some more specific mysteries from today's game:

Why on earth was Nolan Carroll repeatedly lined up against Andre Johnson?  With Sean Smith on the field, why do you put your worst corner on the other team's best receiver?

Why on earth was Reshad Jones put in at FS at the same time Carroll was on the field?  We know Carroll will get burned, as sure as the turning of the Earth.  You've got to have a FS in there who's going to be in position to backstop him.  That's Chris Clemons.  For the second week in a row, we've put our two DBs most likely to give up big plays on the field at the same time.  Why?

How is it we still don't have any effing clue how to use Reggie Bush in this offense?  You get him outside.  Toss sweeps, bubble screens, flat routes, motion him out, etc.  Running him up the gut over and over . . . there's just no excuse for it.  If that's all you're going to do, why put him in the game at all, especially when the back who is effective up the gut is in a good rhythm?  It's like all those times last year when Henning would randomly call the Wildcat, apparently just to make sure his offense didn't maintain any kind of rhythm.

One last thought, which isn't coaching-related: what is all that franchise tag money buying us?