The Dolphins are one of only seven teams this year that have held opponents to a negative EPA per passing play. If Tua and the passing offense take off, this team could very well have the key ingredients necessary for winning at a high level in the league.
Dolphins at 9-7 and the 13th best team in the league, but missing out on the playoffs due to divisional finishes. Chiefs and Packers most likely to meet in Super Bowl.
If Tua plays as well as Fitz has played I have little doubt the Fins will make the playoffs. They won't go far, but they will get in.
I actually like Cowherd. He just likes to be contrarian. He's been pumping Tua for over a year and now that he is getting the start and everyone is on board he's going the opposite way. It's funny he brings up three smaller QB's and talks about how mobile they are and that's why they work in the NFL but he fails to bring up Drew Brees who is the exact same size as Tua and not exactly known for his running around. Seems to work for him.
I gave up on him about ten years ago. He's openly and blatantly biased in favor of big market and popular teams, and speaks down to fans who live in or are fans of smaller markets.
I cant say I disagree. He has alot of things that tick me off too. I think it's like a moth and flame thing with me.
I saw a very recent video where he specifically refers to Brees as the only example of a QB providing anything like a model for success for Tua... ...here it is: If you want to skip his initial political analogy start at 1:05
Holy crap. 1st half almost over, and this defense is fantastic! Playoffs? Playoffs??? Yeah I think so.
My hopes for the playoffs took a serious hit today. I don't think Tua is sufficiently ready to play for this team to be competitive at that level.
More like 6. Do you figure they're going to get long turnover returns and punt return TDs every week? Those plays are the very definition of random and unsustainable. The sustainable kind of play they've been terrible at today, especially in the offensive passing game.
lol.. the defense does NOT look terrible. That was fantastic game planning by Flores. THAT is sustainable. Belichick's genius is game planning, and it's possible some of that rubbed off on Flores. In any case, I think our defense is for real.
They won't always have two weeks to gameplan against a team coming off a Monday night game. The big issue is that the ceiling on the offensive passing game just got seriously lowered. That's a major hit.
Big plays are fun and important, but you can't rely on them. Our defense is terrible vs the run, and gives up far too many regular passes as well. They also don't create much pressure without the blitz. There's a long, long way to go.
The defense was #3 in points allowed per game before this. This wasn't an anomaly. As far as offense, give it some time. Tua needs a lot of experience but he might be pretty good by the end of the year. Yeah I think playoffs is realistic now.
What I think was an anomaly were the game-changing mistakes the defense made Goff and company make. And then of course the "bounces" that followed those mistakes favored the Dolphins heavily. Throw in the punt return TD and you have the kind of game that's very unlikely to happen again. Then throw in the fact that Tua was being babied and still played relatively poorly and you have some serious concern here. I wouldn't be surprised if this team finishes 6-10.
OK you see this differently. Let's put down our predictions to compare at the end of the season. I predict 8-8 as the worst we end up with. So 7 wins or less you win, 8 wins or more I do. Fair enough? I see good game planning and a tough competitive mentality. So even if we're not quite polished yet that's 8-8 at worst IMO. We'll see.
The defense gave up 471 total yards, 131 rushing yards, and an astounding 31 first downs today. Let's not get caught up in the win and the points allowed. You aren't going to win week after week with those details. We have some really good parts on defense. Guys who we can build around. But there are a lot of holes as well. You just can't bend like that all the time, because its going to break.
The defense was on the field so long more because they (and ST) did such a good job than because of offensive ineptitude. No we're not going to win like this each week. But I think you and The Guy are totally underestimating the ability to game plan well. I haven't seen that in a LONG time and am almost ready to say I think Flores is the HC we've wanted (not quite there yet but it's getting closer). So.. like I said in the post above, let's compare predictions at the end of the season. I think you guys are paying attention to the wrong things here. There IS something sustainable, and that's good game planning.
Do I think we can sneak into the playoffs? Yes. Do I think we'll go far into the playoffs if we made it? No. We're in year 2 of a complete rebuild. I'm not expecting miracles, but I'm enjoying seeing the groundwork being put down.
I'm grateful that our coaching staff was able to come up with a plan to counter what the Rams do. Kudos to them, absolutely. They're making chicken salad right now. But that can only go so far. It's a lot different than stopping the opponent because you're just flat out good. I'm not going to be comfortable with the defense until we can regularly stop the run, force teams into a low completion percentage, and limit plays run and first downs.
I feel the same way. If things keep progressing, then I think that we could have a really solid team in 2022.
I loved the fact we won and I'm not going to ding the defense for yards given up because we were playing aggressively, but honestly, Tua didn't impress me at all. I hope he improves and he should, but I do NOT get the instant "wow" factor from him that I did from Herbert and Burrow. Part of that may be his size, I don't know. And these things sometimes level out, with a QB who looks great in their rookie season never doing that well again and a so-so rookie becoming good, but I would have liked more "wow" from the fifth overall pick.
Tua's size bothered me as well. Looked like a boy among men out there. Then again he's no smaller than Drew Brees.
The last time that we hit a mid range pass to a WR or TE was the first half of the 49ers game. I'm grateful that the team has figured out a way to score and win the last three games. No question. But they're giving me ulcers.
At the moment, the Fins are 9th in the AFC. Top 7 make the playoffs now. They have the opprotunity to put distance between themselves and the teams trailing them, facing the Broncos and Chargers soon.
We play the Raiders late in the season. That is a crucial game as they're also 4-3. Otherwise, don't forget that the AFC north will beat each other up a bit, which is important since the Steelers, Ravens and Browns all have 5+ wins. Colts also play the Raiders which will help us too. Yeah, I do think we can sneak in, but that Raiders game may be crucial.
While the big plays may not be sustainable the reason they happened is Goff was under duress all day. If he wasn’t getting sacked, he was getting hit. If he wasn’t getting hit he was getting pressured. And if he wasn’t getting pressured, balls were getting batted down. If you can do this against a QB, good things are going to happen, especially turnovers.
Right, but they won't do that against a QB every week, and what ensued after that pressure certainly won't happen every week, nor will the special teams TD. This team's offensive EPA per play yesterday was nearly -0.5, and it scored 28 points nonetheless. That kind of thing won't be replicable in the least.
all that matters is we keep finding ways to win football games. Our defense is much improved and the best scoring defense in the NFL. And we basically handed them 7 points with the Tua fumble. That won’t happen every week either. We also won’t be going against the most disruptive DL in the NFL every week.
It looks like the opening line for the Arizona game is between 4 and 5. If you want to make yourself feel better next weekend, bet on Arizona. With Tua at QB that line should be more like 9.