Ross "We have the Nucleus of a great team" WHAT!

Now you know the b.s. Ireland and SParano are selling him to stay employed. Whatever he believes about this team, they've convinced him of.

 

So screwed... yup. After two practices in training camp. its all over, the sky is already falling. Give me a break. Lets at least see what we have first eh?

 

You know i don't fully disagree. This defense is good. This defense might be great. We have an awesome defensive line. Our linebackers just got much more consistent with Burnett over Crowder. If wake continues to destroy opposing tackles and get sacks, we're gonna be a force. If our Dbacks catch HALF of the INTS they dropped last season, that'll be 9 more turnovers AT LEAST.

Now when it comes to offense, most of you believe we're going to suck because we still have Chad Henne. I think you're wrong. I believe our offensive problems were a culmination of no running game, bad playcalling, and subpar qb play. Right off the bat with drafting pouncey, thomas, and trading for Bush, i think we've upgraded that running game. Ronnie and Ricky simply both lost a step and it hurt our offense significantly. If Thomas and Bush provide a solid running game, our whole offense changes. And If Daboll is ANY better than Henning, and he will be, then our offense will improve.

I believe in Chad Henne. I think we're gonna be a surprise team this year. i really do.

 

What do you expect him to tell you? The team sucks? The article is filler and if I wasn't so particular about my TP i would use it as such.

 

Eeyore and Chicken Little all wrapped up in one thread... You know, this board is almost beginning to show signs of devolving into the mess of a board we were on before. But, maybe it won't get as bad as the old DD board back in the glory days of Wannstache and Fiedler, you know, when we had no hope and knew that we had no hope at all.

 

What is it that your upset about?, is there someone in free agency you wanted?

Mr Ross is accurate in his assessment of his team, our nucleus looks very good to me..

Jake Long..

Cam Wake..

Brandon Marshall..

Karlos Dansby..

Vontae Davis..

Sean Smith..

Paul Solai..

Randy Starks..

Kendall Langford..

Koa Misi..

Davone Bess..

Jared Odrick..

Mike Pouncey..

MCD..

Reggie Bush..

Dan Carpenter..

Brandon Fields..

Chris Clemons..

Daniel Thomas..

Charles Clay..

Clyde Gates..

BTW, what exactly is your problem?

 

We're in better shape than a lot of teams. We do have a solid young nucleus. They just need to show it on Sundays.

 

I swear....an outsider can wander into this site without knowing a damn thing about the Phins, and they would think this is a 2 win team.

SMH...

 

ok, got it.

 

Ahh, the good ol' days Rev. I remember an earlier forum we were both on, mid late 90s, and you posted some pretty funny jokes. I printed some of them out and probably still got them stuffed in a drawer back home somewhere. "It's a nicknack Patty Wack, give the frog a loan, his old man is a rolling stone." That was one I first heard of from your post on that old Dolphins forum.

 

IMO, our nucleus is as strong as any AFC team. The one key difference is we do not know yet how our QB will respond in 2011, be it Henne, or some other surprise acquisition.
If you put someone like Marino in his prime on this team, it's a Super Bowl favorite. From top to bottom, it is a more talented team than he ever played on. He may have had better WRs, but never had a defense even close to this one.

 

He's like Jerry Jones minus the being good at what he does part.

 

Abbi, I agree with you, I'd hope we still continue to upgrade in free agency. A #2 TE with primarily receiving skills and an upgrade for Hartline would be a good start. Also, I like the idea of a better ball hawking safety. Hoping the Goldson rumors have wings, and we can sign him and move CC to SS.

Even if we stand pat though, other than not knowing how much if any growth we see from Henne this season, the rest of the team is really strong.

 

We just need to add Toooooommmbbbssss and we'll be all set.

 

It could also be a set up for the coaches. If the Dolphins fail this year, Ross can point at the coaches. I know a lot of people don't like our coaches. I think of two things, one, he's planting a bug that it will be the coaching staff that fails. Two, he's trying to sell tickets.

 

Not so, we do have a great nucleus Bpk, think about it.

Cb: Davis and Smith
LT: Jake Long
Wr: Brandon Marshall
Passrusher: Wake
Qb...zrrrppp...record started skipping on that one...

Otherwise we are solid

 

I see what you did there. That said, Jeruh knows what works most of the time.

 

Agreed, unlike last season Ross did not say Henne was going to be the next Marino, which is true, but the nucleus of the team, with Wake stepping up, is solid, but you'd think he said we are going to build electron microscopes with tinker toys by some people's reactions

 

There are still some questions on the team, like RB, S, OLB, the OL, TE, and QB. I'm not sure if our defense is great enough to drag us to wins if the offense falters, but I expect it to be improved provided we get some additional passrush.

 

C'mon Aqua, this schedule is front loaded to say the least, personally I do think "so what' to that as Sparano has been around the block long enough that we should be able to beat the Pats and Bolts and Houston, and a warm weather game in Cleveland.

Not saying we start 4-0, am saying we should at least split and go 2-2.

 

What happened to the, it's going to take time for the new offense? I really believe that our O is really going to struggle early on. So by the bye week is, IMO, way to early.

 

Well, what do you mean by questions?

When I say that does it mean "we are starting scrubs"? As we had young players who showed well at OLB and S, and Fasano was fine, he had Shockey type numbers at least, RB should be nailed down with DTrain, and agree on Qb, to a point, I would like to see Henne replaced but at the end of it all, he is not Alex Smith, he can play a bit.

 

ST were upgraded as well, with Trusnik, I know some folks slough off the value of ST, but it is worth 1 or 2 wins per season, you have to have that ability.

As for the offense, I agree, and suspect we are not done yet, the pieces we need a G, #2 Rb, are not "core" pieces, we can fill those holes with Brian Waters and anyone from C Portis to whomever, no big deal.

 

From an outsiders perspective -

2010

L vs NYJ - 31-23
L vs PIT - 23-22
L vs CLE - 13-10
L vs BUF - 17-14
L vs DET - 34-27


That would be 5 losses by 8 points or less and you guys finished with a 7-9 record in one of the toughest divisions in football.

I'm just saying, teams can make improvements, the ball can bounce your way instead of the other way. The year before the Saints won the superbowl they were 8-8 with a pathetic defense. You guys finished 7-9 with a bad offense. You guys have made moves on offense.. things can happen. Do you have Drew Brees? no, but that doesn't man you can't make the playoffs and challenge some teams

 

All teams have question marks.

I agree with DJ. Our nucleus is something to be excited about and proud of. IMO a foundation like ours is what contenders are made of. I know our QB play needs improvement to be a legit contender, but I believe Henne's turning the corner into becoming the player AND leader this offense needs. Coaching is IMO what would hold us back more than QB...... but I'm not counting Daboll out yet, and I'm not ruling out Sparano learning from the errors of his 2010 ways until I see us play in 2011.

 

I don't think we can put too much credence in what any of Ross, Sparano, or Ireland say right now. A lot of it is just simple PC stuff to assuage the media and fans. They will darned sure upgrade personnel anytime it works out for them to do so. We ain't gonna know about it ahead of time. They have stuff cooking on the QT all the time, and we find out about it when their desires come to fruition.

 

Theres a distinct lack of passrush outside of Wake - can Misi step up and provide something from the other side? That's a question. Are we going to get better play than what we got from Clemons? He hasn't been making a lot of impact plays back there. While we know for a fact that Bush can't be an every down back, and saying Thomas is going to fix our running woes is a bit presumptuous right now. Fasano is a good enough TE to be certain, but can Clay provide more of a David Martin threat as a receiver? QB I'm not even going to bother with, for obvious reasons. We may not be starting scrubs (the possibility of rookies failing not included) but there are some concerns at spots.

 

What got us in 2010, in all seriousness was the Running Game went from #4 in the NFL producing 22 Td's to #23 and producing 6 Td's, no way to overcome that, have to hope Bush and DTrain and maybe Sheets or Lexxy can pick up the slack.

 

thank you. Sound voice of reason right there w/o all the doom and gloom attitude sending a wrecking ball through common sense.

Welcome by the way, even if it's temporarily.

 

Well that is what Ross means about a nucleus emoc, we have the passrusher in place in Wake, now add pieces, or Misi develops or what have you, I think perhaps people are taking "nucleus" to mean "team is perfected" and that is not his message.

As for the passrush, added Odrick, Starks quietly had a great yr in terms of pressures and Edds is back healthy, Clay is what he is, I do not expect much out of him, and think maybe he plays FB/Rb more then we realize he will.

 

The defense will be good. I have trouble believing it can be great. We're a Cameron Wake ankle tweak away from having absolutely no pass rush. Just as importantly, we have nothing but run defense at safety; there are no ballhawks or top notch cover guys in that unit. Having our CBs haul in even half those INTs they dropped would be nice, but frankly, they're DBs because they can't catch. When they're dropping that many balls, it's not a series of freak accidents, it's normal and expected behavior from those players. That's not to say they can't start racking up INTs, just that you shouldn't in any way expect them to.

To counter, I believe that you are incorrect when you proceed from the thought that the running game allows the passing game to flourish. It's precisely the opposite of what actually happens: the running game flourishes when the passing game is functioning. Further, the running game has little to no correlation to winning. The primary purpose of running the ball is to keep pass attempt totals down, because excessive pass attempts (40+ per game) are correlated with losing.

By virtue of the position they play, Daniel Thomas and Reggie Bush cannot deliver a playoff berth. The running back position doesn't work that way, despite popular myth. They're hopefully going to stay healthy and function well within the offense, but winning and losing will be tied to the efficiency of the passing game. And Chad Henne is the wildest of wild cards, to put it mildly.

When Ross says that we have the nucleus of a great team, he's somewhat correct if you consider all positions equally important and think they all impact the game equally. They don't, but let's set that aside for the moment. We do have good CBs. We do have a potentially great DL. We do have an upper echelon cast of WRs. We have fresh legs at RB for the first time in seven years. But if you consider the actual nucleus of a team—the quarterback—then Ross is simply wrong, receiving bad information, in denial, or some combination thereof. Henne did not play up to par in 2009-10. He's getting the starting job handed to him for a second straight year, and he doesn't really deserve it. But he's getting it. And if he fails, it's not going to be because Brian Daboll likes the A-11 offense a little too much, or because Sparano likes field goals, or because Brandon Marshall got upset after spending much of the game setting up the DB for a specific play fake only for the QB to screw it up. It won't be anyone's fault but Chad Henne's.

That Dan Henning/Wildcat/running game/dropped INTs/field goal/play calling international conspiracy against Chad Henne stuff won't fly this year. And if it takes the most wasted season since 2004 to finally put this topic to bed, well then, #SuckForLuck.