It’s the Fest Game folks, so I’m putting aside all the negativity that’s usually laid on pretty thick, and well deserved I might add, for this one magical week. It’s our annual get together, and one I so very much look forward to. I think this is year 13, which to me is amazing. I’m thankful that this group has stuck together all this time, and can’t wait to see everyone again. What’s nice is this particular game has the potential to have some magical moments of its own, with the return of QB Tua Tagovailoa. We know he struggled before getting injured, and this offense never really got in stride with him at the helm this season, but this week is an opportunity to really have a strong game. The O-line is relatively healthy, we should have all 3 RB’s (Mostert, Achane and Wright) in good shape, and you just know that both WR’s Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle are itching to have an offensive breakout. This game against an Arizona Cardinals team that just lost their best pass rusher, OLB Dennis Gardeck who is on IR, is a team we should be able to handle. Their defense has been generous, allowing 25.4 PPG, and they’re one of the worst run defenses in the NFL. This is one of those games where we can methodically run the ball, and then open some big plays in the passing game.
Tua coming back is such a boost to the team, you have to think that Waddle and Hill are just salivating knowing they finally have someone who can deliver them the football. If I told you before the season that after 6 games, Tyreek Hill would have 294 yards receiving, and played in all six games, you’d say I was crazy. On that same token, if I told you that Jaylen Waddle would only have 269 yards receiving, and that combined, these 2 great WR’s have only ONE receiving TD, again, you’d think me mad. That’s how bad this offense has been. Right now though, the RB’s are feasting, and I’m not the only one that feels this way, but rookie Jaylen Wright should be the workhorse back. He looks great, agile, slippery, quick, powerful, and has good vision and anticipation. This is not the time to worry about guys contracts, like Raheem Mostert, and you really don’t want RB De’Von Achane getting too many touches if you want him to be around for the entire season. Let’s start giving Wright more carries, Mostert can be the #2 guy, and then find Achane for some big plays here and there, maybe even in a 2 back set on 3rd and 5 or less.
Besides Tua coming back, we potentially get a boost in the secondary as well, as CB Cam Smith is set to make his season debut coming off of IR. The fact that CB’s Kader Kohou and Storm Duck are both hurting, Kohou with a neck injury and Duck with an ankle injury, Smith may get a good amount of playing time. CB’s Jalen Ramsey and Kendall Fuller are the starters, and special Teams ace Siran Neal will also get some snaps at CB as well. CB Ethan Bonner will also potentially get some snaps, but I think the Dolphins want to see what they have in Cam Smith. Kohou has not been ruled out, either has Duck, but a fully healthy Cam Smith may finally have his time to shine.
Last week, TE Jonnu Smith, who I, and many others here felt could really have a big season here in Miami finally had his breakout game. Jonnu had 7 catches for 96 yards and a TD, and just think how precious and few receiving TD’s have been for these Dolphins. Just imagine, that was the first Dolphins TE touchdown reception in 23 games. Unbelievable! I know there will be the temptation to throw to Hill and Waddle who have been languishing in the absence of Tua Tagovailoa, but Jonnu Smith should not be ignored. Of course I want to see Waddle and Hill be Waddle and Hill for a change, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of TE Jonnu Smith. Keep feeding him the ball, and use him in the red zone, where the smaller Hill and Waddle don’t have the physical presence Jonnu has. If you saw his TD reception, he weaved and ran through a bunch of defenders to get his TD, it was very impressive. We need more of that!
Once again, I can’t wait to see all of you, this will be the latest arrival for my family and I, I had to work, but I will be ready to party once we get there. Some day, we can get a few of our regulars down in FLA, Tim, Randy and M13. I know they would have a blast! Tim did experience a NE Fest at the Meadowlands, and I know he thoroughly enjoyed it, but we need to get him to experience the real Fest of Fests, a Florida Fest. Now none of us have ever met M13, it would be special to get that done at a Fest. We do get the wonderful Doggy family back this week, I look very much forward to seeing them again. We also get the almighty one, Jahn as well, and some of the usual attendees, Stanger and Hulk, Sonny and his family, Toba and Dar, Herd (now a regular), Krishna, Twice, Steve, Robert and others, too excited to remember everyone, don’t hate me! See y’all soon!
GO DOLPHINS!!!
Finsmob Unleashed 
As always, thank you Mike E. Boarding now and wii be in FLL by 2…I hope, lol
Awesome Krishna! Have a blast pal, see ya tomorrow night!
Yessir.
And a good time will be had by all 🤷♂️👍👍
Indeed it will! Actually, I found a way to get my Aqua GO DOLPHINS text at the end back. I was fiddling with the editing and it finally popped up. Maybe that’s a good sign for the team, can’t hurt!
Holy fuck! Zach Sieler OUT Sunday, got poked in the eye in practice. WOW!!
😭💔
Oh nooo. He’s my fave.
Damn!
nice write Mike and everyone have a blast at the fest.
Thanks Boulder! We’ll miss ya!
Hope the Fins can pull one out for you all this week!
Enjoy it! Have a great time everyone!
^
Thanks ER – Hope you can make it back someday, and that our team is worth the trip!
Kader Kohou also OUT Sunday. Cam Smith is line for some action! Let’s hope he’s up to the task.
WR Tyreek Hill QUESTIONABLE with a foot injury
Tua officially cleared
That was expected, but still good news
Sieler with a fractured orbital bone- that’s not great
That’s not just a poke in the eye. Damn!
Good game on tonight if you can get it. A Mountain West show down with #17 Boise State at 6-1 UNLV at 9:30 on CBSSN.
Boise has the #1 RB for next draft. Dude is fun to watch.
Also at 6:30pm, Louisville at BC on ESPN2
and Rutgers at USC, 10:30pm on FOX. QB Miller Moss is one to keep an eye on if he enters the draft. I think he needs to wait another year.
what color is the parking pass, where you guys are setting up for tailgate?
I’ll be tailgating in my office…
My recollection was Orange, but I’d get confirmation on that
Orange. I will text and post as soon as we get a spot
Good, we’re in 🍊
Saturday:
5-2 Nebraska at #4 Ohio State, 11am FOX
#12 ND at 6-0 Navy, 11am ABC, Navy got a good team this year and a QB who can throw. They’re not one dimensional like they usually are.
Washington at #13 IU, 11am BTN. IU will be without starting QB Kurtis Rourke but they have a decent backup. Could be an upset game, unfortunately.
Oklahoma at #18 Ole Miss, 11am ESPN
#20 Illinois at #1 Oregon, 2:30pm CBS, Illinois is underrated IMO. Tough team.
#11 BYU at UCF, 2:30pm ESPN, I could see an upset here.
#21 Missouri at #15 Alabama, 2:30pm ABC
Texas Tech at TCU, 2:30pm FOX
#5 Texas at #25 Vanderbilt, 3:15pm SEC Network, Vandy upset Alabama earlier.
#3 Penn State at 5-2 Wisconsin, 6:30pm NBC
#8 LSU at #14 Texas A&M, 6:30pm ABC
#22 SMU at 6-1 Duke, 6:30pm ACC Network
5-2 Cincinnati at 5-2 Colorado, 9:15pm ESPN
Oh, um, FSU is at #6 Miami, 6pm ESPN. It’s at Hardrock the night before the Dolphins game. Y’all should go. I am sure there are FSU fans trying to unload tickets. lol
I hope the college game doesn’t tear up the field too much before the Dolphins game.
My fear is that Seiler is going to miss multiple games, including the Bills game next weekend.
I was looking into why the Bills are doing well when Josh Allen’s stats are meh. It’s because they lead the NFL in turnover ratio. They are +10 with only 2 turnovers (both fumbles). Josh Allen has thrown ZERO INT’s and only been sacked 9 times in 7 games.
He’s the only starting QB in the NFL not to throw an INT yet.
Not counting Russell Wilson’s 1 start
Another crazy stat:
Chiefs are 6-0 and the only undefeated team left. Mahomes is the #17 ranked QB who has only thrown 6 TD’s to 8 INT’s and sacked 11 times in 6 games.
Israel launches retaliatory attack against Iran.
Not sure of specifics.
These guys are pretty good with their updates. Right now, they are live streaming.
No need to fear, Bey Once (Beyonce) is singing in support of Commula right now. That will fix EVERYTHING. LOL/SMH
Mike E,
Nice write, and thank you for the shout out! Y’all have a GRAND time down there, ya heard?!! Be SAFE, be HAPPY, and GO PHINS!!!
Well there you have it, the helmet he already uses is already a Guardian Cap built-in model…..
Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa is not wearing Guardian Cap, and NFL chief medical expert explains why Dolphins QB wearing a helmet that the NFL has deemed ‘Guardian Cap optional’
By Jonathan Jones
12 hrs ago
•
Tua Tagovailoa will make his return to game action Sunday, and he’ll be doing so in his normal helmet sans a Guardian Cap.
Tagovailoa has worn what is considered by the NFL to be the top-of-the-market for quarterbacks in terms of reducing head-impact severity. And by opting against the Guardian Cap on top of that, Tagovailoa is forgoing what amounts to redundancy.
Tagovailoa is returning from his third known concussion in his NFL career, and he’ll start against the Cardinals 45 days after suffering that concussion in Week 2 against the Bills. He wears a VICIS ZERO2 MATRIX ID QB helmet, which is a quarterback-specific modification of a VICIS helmet the league has deemed “Guardian Cap optional.”
“For most helmets adding a Guardian Cap, an extra layer of padding, will reduce the force of each blow by somewhere between 10 and 15%,” NFL chief medical doctor Allen Sills tells CBS Sports. “Now there is a subset of helmets that we tagged as Guardian Cap optional. And the reason for that was that those helmets in the laboratory testing showed that there really was not additional benefit of that magnitude by adding a Guardian Cap.
“In other words, the helmet itself was doing as good a job of mitigating the force as a regular helmet plus a guardian cap. So adding a Guardian Cap to those helmets did not show that same 10 to 15% benefit.”
Technically, the VICIS ZERO2-R MATRIX ID is the Guardian Cap optional helmet, and the one Tagovailoa wears is the quarterback modified type that adds padding in the occipital area to better protect a quarterback from more typical blows to the back of the head.
To determine the best performing helmets, scientists test the equipment in labs by mimicking the collisions on the field that involve the types of force, direction and speed seen in professional football. Helmets are then ranked according to their effectiveness at reducing force, and they are compared to the data the league can pull from RFID tags in every player’s helmet to see the rate of force on the field and diagnosed concussion.
“Because we tag every helmet that every player’s wearing, we know exactly the concussion on-field rate for every single helmet, and we can go back and compare that to the lab data,” Sills says. “And so that’s why we have a lot of confidence in that lab data.”
No quarterback, no matter what approved helmet they wear, has worn a Guardian Cap in-game this season, the first in which these devices have been permitted. The Guardian Cap itself adds about 0.8 pounds in weight.
Asked Monday why he wouldn’t wear the extra layer of protection, Tagovailoa said “personal choice.”
Of course, Tagovailoa isn’t just any quarterback. He’s the only quarterback of the past five seasons to enter the concussion protocol at least three separate times. He cleared protocol this week after practicing for the first time since the Dolphins placed him on injured reserve. Clearing protocol after nearly six weeks is just a technicality since he needed to return to practice before getting full clearance, something he couldn’t do while on IR.
Tagovailoa has said he was symptom-free as soon as a day after the concussion. And while declining to speak specifically about Tagovailoa’s case, Dr. Sills did say such reporting is not atypical.
“I would just say that we do see in a substantial number of cases with very transient symptoms after concussion, meaning that many players are asymptomatic by one or two days after an injury,” Sill says. “And I think that reflects the fact that we are very quick to diagnose concussion now in today’s system — meaning that even if someone has very transient symptoms, we’re going to ahead and diagnose them with concussion and put them through that rigorous return to play protocol because we always want to err on the side of being cautious.
Krishna – I think his physical nature is that if he’s going to get concussed, he’s going to get concussed. Doesn’t matter what he’s wearing on his head.
Yep, like last time which he initiated and was not “violent” imo
Stanger, I might need 1 ticket, any left?
I wanted to check first before I asked my cousin’s kid
I think that should be fine. I will double check with Stanger but I am pretty sure we have an extra ticket or 2 due to cancellations
Confirmed. We have an extra ticket
thanks Ken, let me make sure he wants to go for sure. I’ll post his response shortly
Not counting the one Steve has asked for there are 3 extra tickets available if anyone is interested
we’re trying to confirm with him for the ticket
I will likely need a ride from the game. Stanger is likely to stay for the entire game. If I could get a ride from someone back to the hotel I will then get an Uber back to Stanger’s. I think getting an Uber at the stadium might be too chaotic
likely not to stay ^
Reminder 6PM Dave & Busters Hollywood Florida tonight
Ken, my cousin doesn’t want to go, he has another soccer game tomorrow thanks
Okay
I have extra tickets if Stanger doesn’t
Thanks, but don’t need it, he says Dolphins suck🤨
playing soccer instead
IU does it again!!! This time with their backup QB.
Beat the Washington Huskies 31-17.
IU stays on top of the Big Ten at 8-0(5-0) ahead of #1 ranked Oregon and #3 ranked PSU. lol
IU travels to a tough Michigan State team next week. I hope Kurtis Rourke is back to start but not looking that way.
This is the first season for IU football with Curt Cignetti as the HC. I think he should be Coach of the Year.
Cignetti has been around college football for a long time and has good records everywhere he’s been. He’s deserving.
I know this isn’t a big deal to many, but IU has had a losing record 26 out of the last 30 seasons.
What Cignetti has done with this team is HUGE!
any of youse guys at D&Bs yet?
Leaving Hollywood now
D&Bs, feel like Chester going in with no kids, WTF?
oh! We’re in the adult room😜
Nussmeier been shaky lately.
Orange East 10 parking lot
Row 109
use gate 3
I’m really starting to hate Julian Hill
Great start minus the two fumbles
I can give Tua a pass for being rusty, but I’m sick of J. Hill’s negative plays.
yeah- he makes so many mistakes. Penalties, dropped passes, missed blocks.
Great start for the Festers!!
Defense did its job. Let’s go up two!!
Well, at least we haven’t lost any of these fumbles, lol
stop blitzing Murray if you can’t get him down.
Can’t stop ’em
Heck of a play by Fuller
They need to crush that little jitterbug. Every time he keeps it, they need to pound his ribs in the pile. Oh, and there should be a pile EVERY TIME he runs past the line.
Discourage that shit
I rooting for the Festers. Go Dolphins Fans!
All right offense. Pinned deep. Let’s run this clock out and finish it with a TD!
^
Looking good so far
Baker all over the place
Perfect throw
There is Tua and Hill!!!
perfect pass
Hill saves the time out just for us to have to use it anyway, lol. No worries, drive looking good.
did everything right except throw a good ball on that last pass. oh well, just don’t give the 3 back up in the last 15 seconds
Cardinals only had 3 full possessions in the 1st half (plus the 15 second last possession).
Mostert 4 for 2 .5 ave
but the other guys are averaging 6.5 and 9 each
Keep giving it to the hot hand. Mostert will get his too
You guys know I love a having a true fullback. AND I like that he can catch, but MM you are paying more than the combined generational wealth of this entire blog on two WR’s. THROW TO THEM. LOL Designed play to the FB?
Man save that.
No presnap penalties.
Only ST gaff was the touchback.
There should have been. There were at least two false starts they didn’t call on us. Two guys can’t be moving and man did we have 2 guys moving more than once.
If they didn’t call it, it didn’t happen
Long has been eaten up by TEs all day
he took himself out of that play by hitting the WR out of his route
He wouldn’t have hung with the TE anyway. He hasn’t been able to all day.
Nobody misses extra long FGs against us
our 100% over 50 yard FG against streak
continues
Give us a two score lead
ACHANE!!!!!
Need to get in the endzone
Man, two fucking drops today have really hurt
thank you for sliding, lmao
that’s using your head Tua. Or not using it…
HAVE to punch this in
There it is!!
Our friends in the stands are going nuts for that run by Tua.
YAYCHAIN
This is the best this team has looked all year. Good timing. We need to keep the pedal to the metal for another 2 months.
Hell of a play by Murray
Woohoo D!!
This is the most fun I’ve had in any game this year. We’d better finish strong.
let’s punch another TD in here
Achane is super productive player.
If has any room to make a move, he always makes at least one guy miss, and often more than one.
I’m happy for the festers that we are looking pretty good. Still a stand up or sit on the edge of your seat game, but payers are making plays. YAY to the YAYs
What a fucking disaster
sigh
this team is so undisciplined
Damn, I spoke too soon. WTF.
heads up play to try and batt it and make it 2 instead of 6 or 7 but that said. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?!?!?
I blame myself. I foolishly let hope creep into my heart.
crush the bug
Murrey is going to toss one up for a pick. Maybe a 6er
Let’s go
Fucking Long sucks in covergae
Long having a miserable day
That missed tackle may end up a TD
yeah, and a poor angle there on Connor
our turnovers, penalties and mental mistakes seem to make every game close
Jordan Brooks like a shark out of the foam. CHOMP
When he went airborne I thought he was going in easy, then it looked like he hit a brick wall. Awesome play.
if Conner keeps his feet, he scores to the right of the pile
Well, both phases went to complete shit, but that was a nice stop by the D on the 2 pt.
Offense needs to make up for the last possession and even if Long continues to give up all the plays on D he needs to make his fucking tackles.
Three words
RUN
THE
BALL
AGAIN
I still can’t tell from the angle, was the safety a bad snap or did Tua just drop it?
all on TUA
When it first happened I thought it was a bad snap, but on the replay, I think I agree it was on Tua.
smacked him right in the hands and popped off
RUN THE BALL AGAIN
Don’t bother rinsing, just repeat
Fantastic drive
WOOT WOOT
I wish I was in the stands with those guys now instead of a shitty hotel room that smells like mold and an AC that rattles nonstop.
Lookin’ pretty good right now! Now DON’T allow them back in the game, Defense.
Tyreek Hill threw a big block on that TD run
Jordan Brooks’ stuff on the 2-point conversion keeps this a 2-score game.
That was an unbelievable throw by Murray
I think I’d call it a catch by Harrison.
I think it might too. It’s close
This commentator is a dick he is a dictator arizona fan
That’s a catch by the way IMO great play by them
Agree.
I don’t think we will ever be able to cover a TE
And there is Long missing another fucking tackle to give up the TD. That guy has had himself a game.
he was the one bright spot for LBs. Our LBs suck
fucking Long with the missed tackle