Monday Night Football! Dolphins go prime time again! Prime Time has been nothing less than brutal for our “Not Ready for Prime Time Players”.
vs Saints in London – LOSS 20-0
vs Ravens TNF – LOSS 40-0
vs Panthers MNF – LOSS 45-21
So basically, 3 games in prime time, and we were outscored 105-21. That’s unbelievably hideous. I don’t know what to expect from our Dolphins after we drubbed the Broncos senseless on Sunday 35-9. Will that be the team that shows up on Monday night, or is it the NRFPTP troop? I wish I could tell you, but I just haven’t a clue as to what’s going to happen. If I’m being honest, I’m not really expecting us to be in this game, I just can’t imagine we’re going to put it all together against an NFL team like the Patriots who is just methodically dismantling every team they play. Even on a day where QB Tom Brady has a poor game, they win easily. They are a tough beat at 10-2, they really are. On the other hand, we usually give them one tough game per year, so maybe this is it.
Well, Gronk did us a favor last week when he got all frustrated that the Patriots didn’t get a call for once on what he thought was defensive holding at the least, or even pass interference on Bills DB Tre’Davious White, so Gronk took matters upon himself to dish out judgement, and after doing a whiny little dance about not getting the call, he promptly turned around, and dove on top of White who was already face down on the sidelines, and delivered a vicious forearm shiver to his helmet. Gronk should probably be missing a few games for that, but he happens to play for the Patriots, so . . .
I’d love to see Drake have another strong game, and I would really love to see Devante Parker have a freaking big game for once! If Parker does nothing, I’d sit his ass and start Leonte Carroo III at least for one game, while the embarrassed Parker assumes the bench role Carroo III currently owns. Who knows, maybe the kid will finally show us why we traded up for him. I’d also love to see the defense play like they did last week, and make some big plays and turn the Pats over a few times.
Anyway, enjoy the game, and hope for the best!
Finsmob Unleashed 
i haven’t seen cutler throw many bad balls, last night he was very accurate, in a fair competition does tanny beat him? i’m not so sure
Easily. No problem at all
I will give Drake some credit for blocking in pass pro, he picked up a LBer and you could clearly hear the pop, good job by Drake
Cutler goes back into retirement….
Cutler would want a pay raise if he were too stay and they cut RT17(just my speculation)…..so I don’t think that happens as a younger more athletic and mobile RT17 would be better at about same price Cutler would prob get.
ER,
Yeah, I don’t know so much that Cutler is raising the level of play of anyone but I also don’t think Tannehill raises the level of play of those around him. Was the play calling compromised? We don’t know. How do we go from where we were to where we are now on offense? Seems to me Gase has changed things up since Ajayi is gone and it has little to do with Cutler and more to do with Drake. But, like you said, we’ll all have different opinions on it and we will never know.
If Tannehill is the guy, I guess we’ll see next year.
Our pass pro was really good, run blocking not so much. I will take that though over what we have seen most of this season.
That’s about right. Drake rarely had much of a lane to run thru.
He had seams in the defense though so that means they did a pretty good job. The lane thing is more power blocking schemes. If they were zone blocking, they more create seams in the defense and not so much gaps.
We also do a little bit of both blocking schemes so i am sure they had some failures and some successess that might have all looked like failures. I am more just pointing out that today’s football isnt like yesteryear and what was a good run block doesnt always have the look we might expect. Also in pass pro i have seen tons of times we blamed the wrong guy and or we have thought it was a OL’s guy when it was a RB’s and we didnt have a back to pick it up, etc. Sometimes that makes it on the QB, or the RB if he picks up the wrong guy, or maybe even the OC or OG depending on which guy had which defender. It really is a world where you almost have the playbook to know who is at fault, or who did good and who did bad.
Drake’s 193 yards from scrimmage against the Pats were the most by a Dolphins player since Irving Fryar had 211 in 1994……also against the Pats. 🙂
It must have been “against the Pats” as the criteria, since we know Ajayi had 200+ yards just rushing in previous games, just not against the Pats.
Didn’t think about that and you are so right…..guess you can’t always trust stats from FF football sites, especially since these guys have to come up with stats on the quick and for each player (that one was for Drake).
Thy usually dont explain how they came with those numbers, they just use them to make whatever point they were trying to make. Its really easy to do that picking out the stats you want to vs using multiple ones to show the real fact of the matter.
Actually this one was my bad not their’s…..just re-checked” and against the Patriots was right in there. Mea Culpa to you guys and ESPN.
Today’s football doesnt have the man against man charm likeit use to. Offensive and Defensive schemes were pretty straight forward and it was really your man against theirs in a battle of physicality. Today’s offenses and defenses can look simple but have a bunch of layers of complexity that changes the dynamic of what each player does on each play just by picking up on small nuances you see before the snap and quickly adjusting your plans after the snap when you figure out it was a decoy and they are doing something different.
Thats why Gase was so adamant about the players taking work home, and studying like its a college class, because its not just physicality against physicality and that edge you need is the edge of knowing what the other guy is going to do before he does it because you have studied it so hard , once you see his “tell”, whether is just before the snap or just after, you need to be able to react quickly and compensate. You also need to be able to see if you can spot his “tell” for the decoy so you wont be fooled.
When you hear me bitch about Alonzo not having good play recognition, im saying he is bad at this part of the game, and unfortunately, as a LB, and specifically at MLB (where he played last year) its at a premium to be great there.
So as to not make it seem i dont like Alonzo, i think he is picking it up some, but i kind of fault his elite level physicality and blame his college coaching staff for just going with those gifts as the easy way to be successful and not really putting effort towards the brain game. Maybe he gets there with our staff, because i fell that if he was closer to the football smarts of Keuchkley, he would be so dominant it would be scary.
I can certainly live with McShay’s mock:
“14. Miami Dolphins
Quenton Nelson, G, Notre Dame*
When the offense was clicking the way it was last night, it makes me less concerned about the OL
The weakness in the game seemed to be Parker and Thomas, both Davis and Larsen seemed to perform well
That said – I don’t want to have a false sense of confidemce based on 1 game
Seeing the patriots defense, I tend to think they’ve been able to hide how bad they are based on their scoring output.
I was looking at the names and saying to myself “who?”
I wonder if the Steelers really hand it to them this weekend
When the offense is constantly staying on the field, it helps that defense. The Cheats D usually get to play with a lead for almost the entire game. That does mask their weaknesses….
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