Last year the OL, and our season, turned around after we canned Thomas, Turner and Douglas after week 4. It was a bit rocky at times, but the offense grew up until it was derailed by late season injuries. Maybe the sacking of Foerester will have a similar effect this year. The reason I say this is that as a chef I have worked with more than my fair share off bosses who were cokeheads or drunks. While some of them were very good at hiding the physical signs of their drug use, it was very obvious that their addiction had a negative effect on their ability to do their job. Essentially their brains got shorted out and they were incapable of doing any deep analysis or diagnostics, so they resorted to yelling at the closest person if something wasn’t perfect. Also they tended to play favorites, because it made the decision of who to blame easier. With these type of bosses the kitchen ends up completely disjointed with some people being told they’re doing a great job when they’re not, other people being totally confused about what the boss wants and no cohesive force to pull everything together. Which to me seemed a good analogy for the OL for the first 4 weeks. The OL looked to me like they knew their assignments and what to do as a whole for the first time this year. Obviously it’s early days and we have to see if it will continue. But, hopefully, it turns around the OL which will allow the run game to function, and we know is the key for Gase’s offense to work.
That seemed to be a difference on the surface, but Miami moved the ball better in second half when Pouncey was out
True. Playcalling improved in the second half too. But also there where at least 3, maybe 4 outright drops by the receivers that could have kept first half drives alive. As for Pouncey, there has been a disconnect between how outside and inside observers have rated him this year. Maybe its due to injury, maybe its due to the outside observers not knowing the assignments. However, having a boss doing coke and assuming that his Golden child did no wrong as another possible explanation.
Our run game was non existent for 3 weeks. We averaged 62 a game. Pouncey went out and we were deadly with the run. I'm not buying he is healthy or graded high. And if he is hurt, Gase is doing the team a dis-service by keeping him in
The run game was good in the first half, too. Inge drive like three straight 10 yards runs by Ajayi, then they got cute and threw three in a row to kill the drive.
We should trade Pouncey while we can get something for him. From what i hear about his character it wouldn't surprise me if he was the one supplying Forester with the coke and strippers.
a gentleman much smarter than me at x's and 's and scheme told us that the dolphins went away from the zone read stuff and went towards what ajayi did in college, a scheme designed where ajayi can bounce it outside, which he loved to do.
For me it was more about how thw OL looked as a unit than the specific play calls made. I think that if the OL had worked like they did yesterday in the first 4 games then we’d have a decent chance of being at leasr 4-1.
Agreed. I'm pretty sure they were comparing him vs Freeman in the first half and I was impressed with how well we were running the ball given the last couple weeks. I believe he ran for more yards in the first half than he did the whole game last week (could be wrong but I remember thinking that during the game). So I don't buy the we magically ran the ball better after pouncey left stuff. We had a good game by the whole oline and Ajayi after a rough week. Ajayi wore them down and ,continued to run well all game. Whether we are better off trading pouncey is debatable for sure, but regardless I think the whole line played better this week.
I don't think you can attribute Pouncey getting concussed with some sort of karmic culling theory. That line was super motivated to perform well after being berated through the first four games. The Foerster incident could've galvanized the group further, or you could argue it just took that long to gel, or a combination, yada, yada. This week against the Jets should be a true measuring stick for our o-line...
I don’t think anyone indicated that Pouncey’s injury was karmic culling. People observed that there was no real noticeable drop off after he left the field. In previous years ihis injury would have been a disaster. While there are many possible expkanations for he OL getting it together, from my experience drug users are very poor bosses because of their inability to handle the unexpected. This inability carries over to when they are off their gear of choice (hungover, coming down, whatever). So for me it was zero surprise to see the line come together after Foerester left.