I am often confounded by his play calling and his tendency to simply avoid the run all together for stretches of games for no apparent reason. Today we ran the ball 21 times for the game, which is simply not enough in my opinion. In the second half we ran the ball a total of 7 times, and includes the two point conversion. We had an 11 point lead going into the 4th quarter and we didn't really have a concerted effort to continue to run the ball in the second half of this game. Miller had 6 carries for 5 yards in the second half of this game. Lazor must in my view run the ball more often than 21 times in a game like this. We had a lead in this game and we needed to continue to shorten the game the game a bit by running the ball. Tannehill had 36 passes in the game or 63% of our combined rushing and passing snaps. We should have run the ball more than 7 times in the second half given our success with it in the first half. But, rather than continue to stick with that successful aspect of our offense we went in the other direction. The ground game must become more of equal partner in the offense. It just must. Lazor must grow as a play caller and utilize the run more often that he does if we wish to remain a competitive team and help protect leads that we have in games. Edit: People need to read what is said, not what they add to it or try to fit it into their preconceived ides of what is said. For anyone who said I am have blamed the offense for the loss, I'd love someone to quote some evidence of that.
Part of why we didnt run...was because it was swallowed up every time we tried in the second half. Our pass game kept the clock moving. We scored 36 points.
100% correct. Lazor is a knucklehead, his unbalanced playcalling has cost us games 4 games this year. Our record this year is subjected to his learning whims.
Is it Lazor who has to grow as an OC or an OL that needs work as run blockers? I havent rewatched the game yet but even what Ive seen wasnt pretty even when we were winning. I dont see an OL that can really get the push up front for a lateral running game like we use or are agile enough as a unit for a running style we use. James and Pouncey can work, as can Albert when he returns. The guards suck. Plain and simple imo. Billy Turner cant be worse can he?
It is unbelievable that anyone would blame any part of this loss on Lazor or the offense. He was the OC who called the plays which led to the offense scoring 36 points. That should have been enough to win if the defense had played merely an average game, instead of their worst game in years. I certainly haven't always agreed with the game plans implemented by Lazor in every game this season, but it did appear the Broncos defensive coaches made changes at halftime to stop the Dolphins running game. The injury to James also depleted the Dolphins offensive line and that was another reason the rushing game wasn't as effective in the second half. Personally I don't care if they ever run the ball again, if they can put 36 points on the scoreboard every week. The defense needs to step up and do their job when they go against the better teams in the NFL. They were the problem today. It certainly wasn't Lazor and the Dolphins offensive game plan.
Tough to blame Lazor unless he was the person responsible for putting Daryn Colledge out there to block no one.
Tonight I saw DT make plays at the goal line. I'm yet to see Lamar Miller make a big play and break one. Why is that? Speed is supposed to kill right?
I saw they had a spy on Tannehill after the first quarter, i'm sure that slowed down that beautiful read option. But, the play calling in the second half did seem to get pretty bland.
Can't run with no push. Our offensive line is miles better than last year but its still a weakness....especially with as many injuries as we had... you don't dip into that kind of depth and stay successful with the run. Its a miracle (and a compliment to Ryan) there werent 4 sacks on the night. They sustained and got out of the game okay, but you can't expect 2nd and 3rd stringers to get push on one of the better D lines in the league...
100% correct. Replacing Miller is the top priority on o. I'd love to see Williams and DT take all of the little load that Lazor allows.
I dont know what to say about this. We couldn't run in the second half. Denver knew we wanted to run the clock so they sold out to stop the run. We had to pass in order to maintain possession imo.
We scored 36pts, including all of our red zone trips... and only punted a couple times all game. I wanted to hump Tannehill and our offense today...
Denver's defense was among the best in the NFL in many statistical or analytical categories before today's game.
I'm going to suggest something crazy, but (hopefully) if Philbin gets the boot this off season, I would support Lazor to HC contingent on a new DC. Because he's an OC, he'll need a DC who he can trust and won't need guidance. There's a pretty damn good DC about to shake free this off season in New York. You may not know who I mean because he usually flies under the radar but his players play their hearts out for him and when he has good personnel he coaches top defenses. In 2009 that D was the absolute best in the league, undisputed number 1.
Don't count on Rex Ryan "shaking free" from the Jets this off-season. The owner of that team is in love with him and his media-catering personality. Despite the crappy season, he'll get one more season at least.
He doesn't need to grow as OC. He saw that Denver was stuffing the run and he called the plays to keep the offense moving. If he continued to call running plays and likely result of more punts because of the way Denver was playing defense, people here would be screaming that we were too conservative. If people want to point fingers, there are 10 guys on defense that you can point at (I'm leaving out Grimes because Manning seem to rarely throw his way)
Agree that Lazor's playcalling wasn't the problem in this game. After James went down, there was no running room. Tannehill, meanwhile was on fire. Sometimes as an OC, you have to just ride the hot hand.
Didn't have an issue with playcalling except I think you should take 1 deep shot there in the 2nd half. I did see Tannehill look deep a couple times and go short, so maybe it just wasn't there. Who knows. Either way, the big explosive plays are still lacking. At some point, you're gonna need some quick scores to keep a defense on its heels. That's Tannehill/Lazor's next step.
Sometimes the best Defense is our offense keeping Peyton off the field. Defense was a travesty today. Got nothing from our DE's.....our linebackers were pathetic, Jones did nothing, it was a **** show. However.....if we control the clock, run the ball more, and keep Peyton off the field, it would have helped. Can't be mad at 36 points.....but the opposing team scored 39....it's all for nothing.
That's not necessarily true. Idzik is on the hot seat just as much as Ryan. If the jets continue to lose they're both out. Not even the jets are so incompetent as to stick a second GM with the same embedded coach. They took a pretty good amount of heat for doing it the first time; they would get wrecked for doing it again.
I think it would have been a mistake to go for quick strikes yesterday. Has SICK just said, the best defense against Manning is keeping him off the field.
I agree but at the same time if we hit one, even if its not a TD it loosens up the defense for the run game. That could have helped.
Its not unbelievable, I'd read the **** you post. If they adjusted, then guess what our coaches can also make adjustments. Lazor's gameplan was part of the problem in the second half.
We're finishing the season against the Jets at home. If that's a blowout to complete the sweep, no way Rex survives.
I'm glad you have taken the time to read the **** I've posted. I appreciate it. Just so you don't feel disappointed, I also take the time to read the **** you post. Blame Lazor if it makes you feel better, but when the offense scores 36 points and the team still loses, this loss was all about the defense and how ineffective it was for the entire last three quarters of the game.
I've been really critical of Lazor, but I think his second half wasn't a particularly big issue. There was one single drive in the 3rd quarter. There was one punt in the 4th quarter, an interception, and then a touchdown. When I was watching it I felt like they got a little bit conservative, but I think the fact that the Broncos slowed the game down so well and ran so many long, time-killing drives magnified issues.
I don't get the hatred for Miller. Dude is running hard, and has a good average. He was smoking them in the first half. At one point he was averaging like 8 yards a carry or something. It's hard to break one to the house when there's not much blocking at the second level. Miller is doing just fine. I'd like to see him get more carries, though. Too many Dolphins fans have "grass is greener" syndrome. They always think there's a better coach out there, no matter what we have, or there's a better running back buried on our roster, or a better receiver, or a better QB, or a better whatever. Here's a novel idea: the guys getting the play time are the ones showing the coaches that they give the team the best chance at winning. I don't think there's a coach out there who isn't playing guys who are better just because they don't want to play them. Oh yeah, this loss is COMPLETELY on the defense. All of it. Every last drop of it.
A lot of stingers yesterday. That was frustrating to see them gashing us up the middle like that and us not being able to run. It was a good blocking scheme, they had an extra blocker on our DT's and Coyle dropped the ball and didn't adjust once. It's frustrating when you have a player like Wilson and our back ups and drafts have not been adequately developed to come in and seat that guy when he's complete crap and penalties. That's on Philbin for not developing Aikens and Will Davis and injuries are a part of it we let our top strength and conditioning coach go and it's showing up here late in the season.