Five Things I Think I Think About the Miami Dolphins - Week 1

I’ll let Clay Davis of The Wire take this intro off my hands: Sheeeeeeeeeeit.

Omar comin’? Nah; Superbowl comin’! At least that’s what you might feel like after Week One’s intoxicating win over the San Diego Chargers.

Let’s look a bit closer.

The new vaunted Dolphins’ D looked a little sketchy

Who starts out with a complaint? Boooooo! This guy sucks!

Deal with it.

Vic Fangio’s shiny toys gave up 234 yards on the ground to the Chargers, including 117 to Austin Ekeler and 91 to Joshua Kelley. No matter how many other excellent stats there are to counter with (and there definitely are): that’s bad.

The defense did hold Justin ‘Stats McGee’ Herbert to only 228 yards passing, which is a good sign with Jalen Ramsey on the sidelines until late in the year.

The defense also had its fair share of missed tackles, terrible linebacker play, and a few no-shows (lookin’ at you Bradley Chubb). Lookin’ at you and your giant contract generating 2 solo tackles and hoping that you’ll pick it up as the season progresses. Please. Please pick it up.

Miami’s safeties were the top two tacklers on the team, which tells you all you need to know about how well the front seven handled the run game.

At least Kader Kohou showed up. That guy rules. He single handedly devised a three-and-out with two tackles and a sack at the goal line. Be more like Kader.

All that negative Nancy-ing aside, the Fins’ D did something we fans aren’t all that accustomed to: they dominated when it mattered most. It took them about 58 minutes to get there, but boy did they get there. They ruined the Chargers’ potential come from behind victory with a series that included an intentional grounding penalty, a 3rd and 30, and two sacks.

What a way to close it out. If only the offense could be as good...

Mikey Mike is still too (Tua?) pass happy

Is this guy insane?! He’s gonna cry about too much passing when Tua threw for 466 yards and Tyreek Hill caught 11 passes for 215 yards? What a jabroni!

YEAH. I AM.

Well, kind of.

Not so much for this game. It’s hard to find fault with a disproportionate amount of passing when it’s having such incredible success. I can nitpick about a weird sudden dedication to Durham Smythe for one drive or a really ludicrous jump ball to Braxton Berrios, known for his towering height and high point prowess, in the end zone. I can also point out that with two minutes to go at the 9 yard line, we need to be able to run the ball to kill the clock, especially when the other team’s offense has been unstoppable up to that point.

But none of that really matters when your quarterback is going hard in the paint and putting up Madden numbers.

If Miami wants to seriously contend for a Superbowl, however; it might. Raheem Mostert and Salvon Ahmed both averaged 3.7 YPC, which, scholars will note, is not great. That said, they were only give 13 carries, so if you’re the type of person who believes in establishing a rhythm for your backs, there is none to be found here.

Maybe Jonathan Taylor still comes a-callin, but at least for Week One, the imbalanced attack didn’t stop the celebrating. A few other things tried to though:

Early season miscues threatened to spoil the fun

COME ON. WE WON. WHAT IS HE DOING?!

Hold onto your butts. We’ll get there.

But for now: Connor Williams’ failing to handle the primary aspect of his job at center a few times throughout the game likely stands out most prominently to everyone. Because we all assume that someone paid to snap the ball is always good at it. And because he held out in the offseason for more money, making a shaky performance disappointingly ironic.

Alas!

You’ve forgetten the face of your father. Your father Jason Sanders. And how with 1:45 left in the 4th quarter, he missed a PAT.

That is extremely lame.

The Stockholm Syndromed fan in me knew the game was over right then. The aforementioned Last Second Larrys on defense bailed him out, but you wanna talk about a way to drown your dreams in a shallow pool? That’d be missing easy kicks.

You’re probably thinking “This is the worst. We won an all-timer and now I’m sad because this slack-jawed yokel is finding fault with every little thing.”

You’re right. But there’s a good reason for that.

This team has more talent than any I can remember

I never seriously allow myself to hope. That’s for suckers.

Penn State is ranked in the top 10 and scores 63 points in a game? They’ll finish 8-4 and the Big 10 will fall into the sea.

Miami wins it’s opener in dramatic fashion while putting up monster stats? They’ll forgot to board the team plane and the franchise will dissolve into a series of steak restaurants where the players will be forced to work off their contracts.

The cops never check the crawl space? Well, lucky me.

The point is that we’ve been through this before. Right? Jake Long, Chad Henne, Mike Wallace, Ryan Tannehill, Branden Albert, Ndomukong Suh: big names and big contracts and big hopes, just to be let down over and over.

Somehow this team feels different. Yeah; it’s Week One and all of my prior critiques I hold valid. But when was the last time you saw a Dolphins team do that?

Just the fact that I’m able to even nitpick silly stuff with the focus on possibly not reaching deep into the playoffs or to the Superbowl instead of crying myself to sleep in a puddle of Burnett’s and Red Bull is remarkable. The very notion that the team has skilled players on both sides of the ball, coaches who seem to know what they’re doing, and a 1-0 record might just be enough to also have fans thinking a little further ahead than next week.

Still. Speaking of next week.

The Fins are going to give the *Patriots hell

GRIND THEIR BONES INTO THE DIRT.

Has your heartbeat returned to normal? Do you think Tyreek Hill will have over 5,000 yards receiving this season? Will the Dolphins give us all a reason to continue floating through this mortal coil? Spit the truth in the comments below.