http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...iots-full-roster-report-card-grades-for-miami I'm sure everyone will once again be distracted by my stance on the Olivier Vernon penalty. I wish they wouldn't be. It was really a very minor part of the game.
What are your thoughts on Tannehill as QB of the future? He obviously in in fairly awful circumstances, but he has also made his share of mistakes.
On the subject of Mike Wallace, I hate to make early judgments on an acquisition like this because the bottom line is he'll likely have two full years to get it together. That said, I am almost ready to just raise the white flag on him. Joe Philbin, Ryan Tannehill and Mike Wallace himself are all visibly uncomfortable with him in Miami. Philbin has explicitly and implicitly stated he does not like the concept of the number one wide receiver. I could sense signs in his press conferences that he was reaching a frustration point in dealing with questions about Wallace's involvement in the game a month ago. Right away, first game of the season they win the game by two touchdowns but the big story is Mike Wallace being upset with the coaches, to where Philbin had to have a private meeting with Wallace. I'm sure Philbin LOVED that. Wallace himself doesn't appear comfortable in Miami. Part of it probably stems from the fact that Philbin refuses to feature him despite his $60 million contract. He came to Miami on a huge contract to be "the man", not to be an underperformer, to be known around league as the guy who is getting paid like one of the top receivers in the game yet isn't producing like one. You can see it in Wallace's game. He's not even doing things he did back in Pittsburgh. One of his strengths as a player in Pittsburgh was his ability to FINISH catches. He finished contested catches all the time. He adjusted to balls in the air, made a lot of tough grabs. The big myth is that everything was just this nice and easy floater to him in stride as he streaked five steps beyond the deepest defender. Nothing could be further from the truth. Suddenly in Miami, he can't finish. The last uncomfortable party is Ryan Tannehill. Look at his history. Where did he come from? Texas A&M. Who did Tannehill jive with at Texas A&M? Ryan Swope and Jeff Fuller. Despite Fuller's size, he was never a consistent big play kind of guy. He was a route runner. That's how he caught passes against Patrick Peterson when Texas A&M played LSU. Fuller ran a lot of the same routes Hartline runs well. As for Ryan Swope, is it any coincidence that in Miami Brandon Gibson became such a favorite target of Tannehill's? Tannehill never learned to succeed throwing to a guy like Mike Wallace. The closest model he's had to Wallace at Texas A&M or Miami were guys like Nwachukwu or...Anthony Armstrong? Never had anyone like that in 2012 I guess. When you really look at Wallace's contract, it's basically a two year deal with the ability to keep going if everyone deems it worth it. We're now a quarter of the way through that two years and I think it's looked pretty thoroughly NOT worth it, thus far. I don't know. Others will disagree. Maybe I'm inclined to see the situation through this lens because I predicted that Joe Philbin, Mike Wallace and Ryan Tannehill would all ultimately end up uncomfortable with Wallace in Miami.
A statement like that is only going to increase the amount of distraction. It directly led to a touchdown
You know what I have noticed...at least, it seems this way to me. The Phins do a very good job of mixing up the play calling..until they get down in score. They did a great job of keeping the Pats off balance through three Qtrs of the game. But, then it seems that Sherman pulls back. He quits doing the things that gave them that lead. It seems at that point he becomes predictable. And for the life of me I cant figure out why? We arent down by that much, why not keep doing what has got you there?
Ryan Tannehill is a turnover machine whose career in Miami is in jeopardy Guy fumbles like he's giving change to beggars
It's pretty safe to assume what your stance on Olivier Vernon will be on any particular issue ahead of time.
Well...not going to get into it, because A) nobodies going to change their opinion, but on the OV call I disagree completely, and I believe the Refs had a large part in the outcome of this game.
With the number of fumbles he has given up....its hard to argue. But...how many of those fumbles are from being hit from the blind side? You know...it would be interesting to see...how many sacks were to the blindside? Im just not sure what we expect Tannehill to do in this case... Its not like the majority of the fumbles have come with him being careless....really if you look at them, only one during the scramble, can I really say he wasnt being careful with the ball. I think some of the problem is we are running a WC offense which is based in large part to timing. Would be interesting to see, but I bet, on alot of those hits, they are right when his arm is beginning to come into motion to make a throw. Could defenses know, Tannehill is most likely going to throw the ball say at 2.8 secs. They know, they have good odds of getting to him. What I dont get is, when you move Tannehill out of the pocket, hes extremely athletic and accurate. He never gets hit blind side when he moves outside of the pocket. Look at the plays he made at the end of the Ravens, and Bills game. The guy made defenders miss, had the ball out in one hand as he kept himself from hitting the turf. His fumbles come from blind side hits primarily during short timing throws, where he gets hit blindside.
If you choose to believe that to be the case, so be it. For me, I saw the Patriots move the football 59 yards from their own 18-yard line to the Miami 23-yard line BEFORE that play. I also saw the Patriots move the football from the Miami 13-yard line into the Dolphins end zone AFTER that play. But if you want to say the Patriots scored a touchdown on that penalty, so be it.
As a fan of he team, i am starting to get uncomfortable for wallace, something is not right. seems like he is not trying, and that Ireland kind of forced Wallace on Philbin's staff.
You say Vernon batted the ball with an open hand, what do you want him to do, attempt to recover the ball with a closed fist? Agree to disagree on Vernon. Other than that, spot on assessments.
It's a catch-22. He either tries to get rid of the ball immediately so he can avoid sacks (making him vulnerable to fumbles as he gets hit trying to throw), or he takes the sacks and everyone freaks out about how he holds the ball too long. It's sort of incredible he is throwing so quickly and not having more passes batted. My worry is more on reading defenses and his ability to consistently limit INTs and find the open WR in the future.
Dolphins created a game changing play and were robbed then penalized. That completely alters everything after that point. Just one mans opinion.
Any play that can swing field position by about 40 yards and a first down is not minimal. It's more likely that without the penalty the Patriots come away with no points. No, the officials did not signal touchdown after the penalty, but the Patriots chances of scoring a TD were increased significantly by the penalty. You can think Vernon deserved the call, but I see no way to describe the penalty as minimal
it is funny that all coaches, (coaches speak) that they always go back to the fundamentals in practice. who the hell is teaching them? fundamentals of what?
Without the BS penalty, it's 3rd and 30 on the 40, so yeah I believe it made a gigantic difference. But I don't think it single handedly cost is the game.
But I think...if you look back, these sacks and fumbles are coming on the short timing routes that are part of the WC offense. The ball has to be at a certain spot at a certain time, and he is getting hit right as he is beginning to throw. I wish we could put a number on the amount of his fumbles came as a result of blind side hits.
Its really a dumb argument. Why? Nobody is going to change their opinion, and the end result is the same. Id say we look at the other aspects of the article, because getting caught up in the refs thing, is only going to lead to wasted air on both sides
So you find it predictable that I'm going to think you're predictable? I feel like you could do better than that. Seriously, though. You've basically started taking contrived, faux-controversial long positions on a bunch of Dolphins related issues that seem more article fodder than anything else, and everything that happens good, bad, or indifferent somehow ties in. You didn't like something about Olivier Vernon and staked out a position ludicrously early on him, and now everything he does well is minimized, everything he does poorly is maximized, and stuff that doesn't even make sense(the penalty) all ties into the grand position. Are you telling me you didn't drop the "oh, please don't talk about the OV penalty" business as anything other than something to get people talking and drive up page-views? The whole thing is very Omar Kelly and Armando Salguero.
Saying Tannehill was nearly flawless through 3 quarters is just baffling to me. What did he have, 110 passing yards going into the 4th? That is just crazy to me.
Is it really worth arguing over the impact of that penalty? Do we feel so good about the current state of this team that we should only focus on that play? This team lost 4 games in a row. Major problems are forming. The future of quite a few positions (roster and FO) are up in the air. That play is so pointless in the big picture right now.
That's like saying if a defensive back is beaten and the only thing he can do to prevent a completion is grab the defender's jersey, "what was he supposed to do? it was the only thing he was in position to be able to do to prevent the completion". Besides, he very clearly could have come over the top of the ball or made some kind of effort to grab it that would not look very obviously like attempting to bat it away from the offensive player that was diving for the football next to him.
I'm not really sure how you can see it so differently. The fact is that if that call was not called it would of left the Pats out of field goal range and it would of been 4th and something like 30. Instead they got an automatic 1st and the ball was spotted inside the redzone. That was a direct result of that call. If no flag was thrown the pats would of punted unless you think they would of gone for it and converted on that 4th down??? By the way the refs interrupted that rule, that penalty should be called whenever the ball moves forward for whoever the last person to touch the ball before its recovered. So if the RB fumbles a handoff and the ball moves forward and a lineman for his team then falls on it, a penalty should be called for advancing the ball from a fumble.
Much like the tuck rule, since it's a call that you don't see very often, the outrage is justifiable. Unfortunately, this is a case of a really bad rule that needs to be looked at, rather than a bad call by the ref. First, you should be able to review the call, and I believe after seeing the video you could not show any intent, meaning the call would be overturned (intent is required under the rule). Second, the penalty for the violation of the rule is completely ludicrous and completely unrelated to the offense. Why is it a ten yard penalty? Just wipe out the fumble and replay the down if you're going to have the penalty at all. why should the offense be rewarded for a bad play?
The last thing I want to do is watch the **** show that this passing offense is again. Although I would to debate you. I didn't DVR this game because I figured we would be losing easily. If I find something later on I'll come back with my findings and my opinion.
I have seen that penalty called before at least half a dozen times. It's just unfortunate that everyone comes away thinking Miami lost because of that play. Excuses like that are for the weak, IMO. I hope the players don't share the same opinion as the fans on that one.
Tannehill played an outstanding first half. He should have had three touchdown passes in the half. He lofted a fantastic floater over Charles Clay's outside shoulder that should've gone for a third touchdown just before the half. Then when you really dig into the third quarter...well hell, it's not like I just made one simple statement and then didn't explain anything. Read the damn slide. It's all in there.
I understand the purpose behind the rule and agree with its intent. You can not let players intentionally kick or swipe loose balls down the field. What they should do is modify the rule similar to something like facemasking, where it can be ruled intentional or incidental. In this case if it was ruled incidental because the guy was just trying to pull the ball in then they could just leave the play stand but spot the ball at the point where the ball was advanced. Nobody would be upset by that because that would of been the fair thing to do.
You know...your right. Why should they get rewarded for giving up a sack? At worst...it should be that the sack is negated and replay the down. My point is that the call was soooooo subjective, its not even funny.
