Saturdays to Sundays--A Look at College Players Who Could Soon Be Miami Dolphins

This line is sorely lacking a good athletic guard who excells at pulling and getting to the second level. Right now I’ve been looking heavily into DeCastro (sp?) The guard from Stanford. From what I have seen he appears to be stellar and fit that role really well, if we end up with a high draft pick I would not be against trading back and cashing in like clevland did last year to pick up another 1 next year and another 2 this year then get DeCastro and then spend the 2nd grabing a pair of safties.

I like that he’s always in position to make the tackle or deflection. I just want to see him start making the BIG plays.

safety is the last line of defense

But this is a different league now. it is harder to get a truly elite defense and running game at the same time then it is to find a good qb and build around him.

- The run game succeeded as much because of placeent as it did effort. The majority (not all) of Thomas big runs (7+ yards in Sunday’s case) came by running to the center or center-left gaps.Maybe Sparano finnally figured out to run to the left because Carey and Colombo are crap.
- Henne’s INT was because Colombo let his man burn him like toast similar to Wake’s forced fumble on Favre last season. The Texans rushed 5, each lineman was one-on-one (although Pouncey’s and Incognito’s Texans both bunched up in the middle), and everyone held their block clean except Colombo. Henne finished the 3-step drop and set to throw but both of his targets were too tightly covered. Henne pats to give his receiver a signal to break to the sideline to get seperation and the receiver (Hartline) did that just as Henne started his throw. Colombos’ assigned Linemen then whacks Henne’s arm sending the ball fluttering into the air. A nominally good O-line gives Henne enough time to complete that 2-5 yard pass. In other words it wasn’t a long developing play that required the OLine to hold the Texans back for a long time. Schaub’s 3rd quarter bomb to Johnson saw the Texans O-Line hold us out for a full 5 seconds with no pressure in sight. That is an O-Line playing well.
-Henne was sacked twice on Sunday and both were because the O-Line caved in around him.
- How many balls were batted down at the line of scrimmage? Henne isn’t Pat White (ie. Short) so why did this happen? Perhaps if the line was playing so well they would have kept on their blocks instead of letting them back off (still inside the line of scrimmage mind you so no penalty would be called on us for ineligible downfield) and throw their hands up. Show me a good O-Line coach that hasn’t instructed his palyers to pop the chest of a D-Linemen who has thrown his hands up to get him to drop them as a reflex. Twice I saw Carey just stand their while his guy disengaged and threw his hands up to bat down a ball and succeed doing it. Someone should be telling Carey and the rest of the O-Line that the play ends on the whistle, not when your guy decides to disengage from you!
- The Texans weren’t blitzing!! For nearly the entire game, Houston rushed 5 or fewer (often less than 5) and still put pressure on Henne.
- The answer on the batted down balls was 6 by the way. Now if Henne completes half of those and half the drops are caught Henne would have been 18-30 (60%)
 and had each of those passes gone for just 4 yards each (well below Henne’s career 6.62 Y/A) Henne’s QB rating would have jumped 20 points to 76.25. factor in another TD (Marshall’s drop) and the rating would top out at a little under 90 (which many here agreed would be a suitable performance to put Miami in the playoffs).
- Henne had 6 passes dropped 3 of which were all but impossible to go incomplete. Are you gonna suggest we draft a #1 WR because Marshall dropped a TD pass in the end twice in as many weeks?
- Henne isn’t gonna elevate a 7-9 team to 11-5 and the playoffs perennially but there is no guarantee than any drafted QB is either. I was all ready and willing to draft Landry Jones out of Oklahoma this year if Henne didn’t improve but in both games he has shown big improvement in his game. It isn’t Henne’s fault that our defense no-showed week 1, Daboll called a fade route for Brian Hartline while jumbling up Bess and Marshall on the right side and not utilising his TEs (that should probly say TE in the singular sense), or that Colombo is about as effective at stopping somebody as a limbo pole erected 6 feet off the ground. Let’s cut the kill Henne garbage and watch how the Cleveland game turns out. Also don’t forget that Henne is average 8.5 yards per carry (Mike Vick is averaging 7.17 BTW) so he has even added that extra dimension to his game. Will you get that with a college QB next year? If our O-line still sucks we will need a scramblin QB. Sad part is, Henne can play great all season but if Sparano goes, Henne will be shown the door by whoever the new coach is.

Maybe Morris Claiborne, Coryell Judie or even Janoris Jenkins.

their own lumped with all the others in the last decade? People do not think before talking or in this case typing.

That is sooo Ireland’s and Sparano’s fault for letting Parcells draft him.

Henne grows and we have two solid QBs, much like SD did with Brees/Rivers. Plus Henne could stay on to start with a young QB to sit on the bench for a year or 2. Too many solid QBs is probably the best problem to have in the NFL. Or else Henne falters and we have a young first round QB that will hopefully fill the void.

Oh yes, I also don’t have to see Dave Buck post the same comment 500 times within a 2 months span.

I absolutely despise the 3-4 scheme.

lol

But I really believe that the elite safeties in the NFL have instincts and awareness that you really can’t teach—you either have it or you don’t. These rare abilities are why guys like Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu seem to disrupt any throw over the middle. The same theory can be applied to MLB centerfielders like Willie Mays and ‘90s-era Ken Griffey Jr.—they got a great jump on almost every ball hit their way, because their heads were in the game and they knew exactly what to look for. Willie Mays supposedly could hear the hit, and without even looking for the ball, turn and run to exactly where the ball would eventually land. And he was able to do that because he could judge the distance of the hit just by the crack of the bat. That’s an attention to detail that very few people possess.