Finsmob Unleashed

How exciting!!! The 1-5 Miami Dolphins travel to Cleveland to play the 1-5 Browns!! Oh joy! How many of you just can’t wait until Sunday 1PM to watch this one? Our defense is beyond bad at this point, teams are running all over us, and scoring 29 points per game. The Brownies just might be the fix for the defense because they feature a QB with no arm just like us in QB Dillon Gabriel, since they sent QB Joe Flacco packing to their division rival Cincinnati Bengals. Hey, by the way, Joe Flacco has a message for Tua and those that defend him relentlessly.

“Hey Tua, I know it sucks when your defense gives up a late score, but the QB’s job is to WIN THE GAME. You don’t say “Hey, I scored the winning TD with 4:42 remaining”. “You get the ball back at the end of the game with a chance to win it, GO WIN IT!!”

Obviously, Joe Flacco didn’t say that, but he could! I do! Yes, Joe Flacco, who has been in Cincinnati for all of 2 weeks managed put up more than 30 points with his new team and win coming back after his defense blew a late lead. Flacco engineered the comeback drive with 2:15 remaining in the game. What do you know? QB’s actually can come back and win the game for their team, EVEN AFTER YOUR DEFENSE BLOWS A LATE 4TH QTR LEAD. Oh, and does it make it more or less palatable that the QB is 40 years old? How can we expect Tua to do that when he’s been in the same offense for more than 3 years? Oh, and hey, the Bengals don’t have an O-line either or QB Joe Burrow would still be playing. I’m sure there will be plenty of excuses forthcoming, y’all can’t help yourselves!

Anyway, back to the task at hand. The Dolphins will be in Cleveland on Sunday and while the temperature is expected to be a mild 60-65 degrees, there is a chance of heavy rain and very heavy wind, somewhere in the proximity of 50MPH winds. I don’t see RB Jaylen Wright on the injury report, but also haven’t seen any signs that he’s going to play. If the weather forecast is correct, you’d have to imagine we’ll see an awful lot of running plays if the winds are 50 miles per hour during the game. That could wreak havoc on any QB’s passes, but especially so for two QB’s who don’t/can’t put pace and velocity on the ball when passing. For the Browns, we’ll be seeing a lot of Browns rookie RB Quinshon Judkins, one spot before the worst OG in the NFL through 6 weeks, Jonah Savaiinaea. Judkins has 383 rushing yards on 84 attempts with 2 rushing TD’s, averaging 4.6 YPC. For the Dolphins, our best player, De’Von Achane will once again be asked to reproduce “The De’Von Achane Show”. Achane is the one true constant force in this MM offense, but if conditions are really poor for the pass game, could this be the week that MM relies on someone other than Achane to carry the rock? Could it be RB Jaylen Wright, he of trade up fame, or this year’s 6th RD pick RB Ollie Gordon, who “spells” Achane. By “spell”, I mean 1 carry and then GTFOTF. RB Jaylen Wright hasn’t been healthy enough to play in 2025, and that was after his huge 2024 campaign with the enormous workload of 68 carries.

If there was ever a cure for a a defense as bad as our Dolphins, it’s a team that is averaging only 13.7 points per game. That’s good for dead last in the NFL. I wonder if Brownie fans will defend QB Dillon Gabriel as vigorously as Dolphins fans defend our QB Tua Tagovailoa. With Shedeur Sanders waiting in the wings, they may not have to for very long. To add, I heard something along the lines that QB Deshaun Watson says he’s healthy and wants to play. Watson’s fully guaranteed contract of 5YR/$230M makes Tua’s contract look good. I feel bad for the Browns, they have great fans there and they were brutally betrayed by Owner Art Modell who moved the team to Baltimore in the middle of the night and became the Baltimore Ravens. These new Cleveland Browns haven’t been the same. They were much worse than us in 2024, at 3-14. In 2023, they were our equals, 11-6 and a brutal WC loss exit. Now, once again, we’re equals, so take that Chris Grier, Mike McDaniel and Tua fans, we’re hanging with the Browns baby!

Someone has to win this game on Sunday, it will probably be us so we can ruin our draft position. To be clear, if Chris Grier is still here, then it doesn’t matter in the least because he will fuck it up as per usghe. When Achane is on the field, he’s the best player on our side, but Achane and Tua both, had better keep their eyes open wide for #95 DE Myles Garrett. Probably bored and uninspired, Garrett is a fierce player and we don’t want him, well at least YOU don’t want him falling on Tua, and WE don’t want him falling on Achane. Garrett is the best player on the field period, with 106.5 sacks in 8 seasons, a 4 time All Pro and 6 time Pro Bowl player, and 1 time Defensive Player of the Year in 2023. The Browns defense, while not good, is better than our Dolphins, 21st in points allowed at 24.3 PPG.

On the injury front, it looks like all but S Elijah Campbell are a GO for the Dolphins. That means CB Storm Duck is set to return, and we might see the return of our old friend WR Cedric Wilson as he’s off the injury report. Tua, Jordyn Brooks, Alec Ingold, Tyrel Dodson is returning from his c-c-c-oncussion, Dante Trader and Aaron Brewer all set to return. I’d imagine TE Darrell Waller will be active but how many reps he get even MM doesn’t know. It’s a mystery every week! On the Browns side, Myles Garrett and Joel Bitonio are a GO. OT Jack Conklin is OUT. WR Jerry Jeudy is up in the air with a knee injury but TE David Njoku will be OUT with a knee injury. Good for us, because we still can’t cover a TE!

If the weather forecast is correct, do you think we see the season debut of RB Jaylen Wright who has been a healthy scratch for 2 weeks in a row? I’d say we should, this would then be the type of game that will be won on the ground. On the other hand, does MM trust anyone other than Achane to carry the rock more than 5 or 6 times? Probably not. How this manifested itself, I’ll never understand. Do Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel discuss what they need in the draft? Why trade up and use a valuable 3rd RD pick for a player you can’t/don’t trust to take the field? It’s maddening, and really inexcusable. Those picks are not disposable when you have shitty depth on the O-line, D-line and secondary. While I like Ollie Gordon, this year’s 6th RD pick, he’s a physical runner that requires repetition, maybe a drive where or two where he gets consecutive carries to get into a rhythm and maybe bring some physicality to the offense. This game seems like it would be the one to do this, but . . . Dolphins . . .

GO DOLPHINS!!!