http://www.thephinsider.com/2012/9/19/3355680/pro-football-focus-grading-miami-dolphins-players-high "Safety Reshad Jones, however, picks the rankings back up for the Dolphins, coming in as the third safety in the league. Chris Clemons was ranked as the 29th safety. "As for the interior linemen, Miami's Randy Starks is the second best defensive tackle on PFF's rankings, trailing just Seattle's Brandon Mebane. The Dolphins other defensive tackle, Paul Soliai, is 11th. Other than Seattle (who also have Jason Jones at five), Miami has the highest pair of defensive tackles."
I'm of the belief that you continue to add to a good thing in this case the defensive line. If they can get a premier strong side end or close end to match alongside Wake, things could be special. You fill the holes on the team quietly but you add by means of value. Right now I can't see a Marc Colombo position on the team that is a spot that's so incredibly bad that in the next draft Miami has to take a guy there (Jonathan Martin).
I couldn't help but think about some posters that were saying we had no talent a couple of weeks ago. lol. We will shock a lot of people this year. We all know where Reggie and even Hartline stand as well. Reggie meant business when he set a goal to lead the League in rushing this year! He's only got one man to beat right now. As long as he stays healthy I would be shocked If he isn't leading the league after week 16.
How is Odrick doing? If he's not doing an exceptional job closing down the run on his side I'd strongly consider starting one of the small defensive ends and moving Odrick to the nickel rush.
I don't think he can do that. I just don't see it from him. I think he'd be a heck of a three technique. If Vernon can come close to Odrick in holding down against the run I'd consider starting him and hoping that pass rush impact comes along long-term. I doubt Cameron Wake would have done much at his age in the NFL. Neither had the pass rush potential just yet, but you can see the strength, motor, and explosiveness. If it's not hurting you start him, so at least you can see if you really need a second guy across Wake.
That's what I was thinking of as well. The most heavily debated position for Miami during the preseason was the wide receivers. The Dolphins were declared to have the worst receivers in the league. Following Week 2, PFF has Brian Hartline ranked as the 11th wide out in the league, with Davone Bess at 38th. Hartline's ranking puts him ahead of Brandon Stokely, Michael Crabtree, A.J. Green, and Dwayne Bowe. Only six other teams have two receivers inside the top 38 receivers in the league, using PFF's stats. Obviously this is just one opinion, but it does show that all those posts about how our WRs were inarguably the worst in the league were wrong. Reality is that this team does have talent. It has some holes too, but so does every team. I think it will take some time for Philbin and Co. to adjust and eventually have the players they feel fit their system. Some talented but ill-fitting players will be lost and some players will blossom as they find their fit here.
Well i was one of the people that was extremely frustrated with our WR's situation in the off-season but I never denied Bess' and Hartlines talent, I questioned Hartlines health(but never voiced that concern) and was glad to see he is back to form, if not even better! But I was one that argued with the people saying we had no talent.
Jones is learning to cheat in coverage. He was playing well. We all know that is what a good S will learn to do. I won't break him down but watch his development. I know people have been down on this guy.
I wasn't thrilled with how they addressed the WR position in the draft. I would have probably taken Sanu in the third instead of Vernon. And I wanted Markelle Martin S in the 6th instead of BJ Cunningham. But reality is that at this point Sanu hasn't contributed. Vernon has contributed more. And Martin is on the PUP list after suffering a knee injury. So maybe Ireland made the better choice. I wouldn't have pursued any of the bigger name FAs (although I also wouldn't have traded Marshall unless it was something Philbin demanded). Either way, I don't expect big contributions from rookie WRs. I was prepared to go through this year with what I considered adequate starters at WR, taking the risk that we would be thin there and susceptible to injury. I preferred that approach to spending too much on what I considered less than adequate FA WRs that were at best one year fill-ins. I also believe that something may become available before the trade deadline. I would consider that if I liked the opportunity to grab some talent.
I think we need to remember that all this excitement and declarations that we have a lot of talent on the roster are based on one great half of football. The Texans game was not impressive, nor was the first half against Oakland. We do not suck, but neither are we talent-laden all of a sudden. Let's see how we do against the Jets, who are not as good as the Texans, but not as bad as the Raiders.
As Rafael pointed out, this is the most surprising part, at first glance. But then you remember that the Raiders scrub CBs covering Hartline are not representative of the average caliber of CBs we will face the rest of this season. I hope Revis does play, as he and Cro will be a good barometer of where these WRs stand. By the way, imagine how we'd look if we were;t starting Naanee. I'm convinced that rookie Rashard Mathews would acquit himself well enough as the #3 WR that we should sit Naanee and play Bess/Hartline as the #1-2 until Armstrong can rotate in. So, positionally, it's like this on defense. DTs are best. DEs are good. LBs are average to below average. CBs are abysmal. FS sucks but our SS is good. On offense: Our WRs are good (?), RBs are good. TE average. QB is average, OL is inconsistent with C being amazing LT/RT being good to average and OGs being average to below average. On STs: Kicker average, Punter great, Returner amazing. ** Note though, the direction certain positions are trending. QB is trending upward after a terrible week one. Ditto, I should think, for the WRs.
I think we are pretty much on the same page as to what we would have preferred in the off-season except I wanted a FA 1 yr fix at WR because I thought is would be the major thing holding us back from competing this year. Of course I would have preffered that problem to be fixed in the draft, but since it wasn't I was hoping for finding that fix in free agency. But In retrospect I am glad we didn't because I believe we can get the job done with what we have as long as injuries don't slow us down. If we can pull it off Ireland will be a genious because of all the draft picks and cap space we will have next year. We still need a deep threat and we need to get rid of Naanee. But I think we are in pretty good shape. The jury may still be out as we face tougher competition but I am pleasently surprised by our passing game so far. If the secondary can pleasently surprise me I will be a happy camper. The rest of our success isn't a surprise to me. I knew we would be strong in our run game as well as our run defense. Even Tannehill's success doesn't surprise me. I did expect more rookie mistakes but so far there's only a couple of minutes in one game where that was a concern. I will say that there's only been 2 games played, but so far so good!
Run D is fine, but 5th worst for pass rush. If you went by strictly PFF ratings, one would definitely start Shelby opposite Wake at DE, and let Odrick rotate at DT. Shelby only has 25 snaps but is tied for 12th best DE when considering all DEs. Odrick is down at 36th. For run D only, he is the 8th 4-3 DE. Since Philbin said this team's identity now is stopping the run and running the ball, I'd say leave Odrick as the starter, since he does make the run defense much better. Just hope to see more of Shelby at DE in the nickel packages and such. Gotta give Ireland some credit on signing Shelby. He's turned out to be a heck of a find for a UDFA. Outplaying the 3rd round DE at this point in time. The pipeline to Utah is strong. Loved seeing them whip BYU the other night.
I totally disagree about the Texans game. Take away the few minutes of rookie mistakes from a rookie QB and a fumble in those same few minutes, and we were beating the Texans by 1 point for 55 minutes of football against a team that may be in the Super Bowl this year. We shut their run game down, had a pretty good run game against their great defense, and Special teams was a huge plus in that game! Sure our offense didn't score a TD but that game should have been a win if it wasn't for unfortunate back to back turnovers that bit us in the *** over a couple of minutes. Don't sell this team short, get excited about it!
It won't happen against Sanchez this week, but once we face a great QB, having that run-stop DE instead of a rush DE will get our shoddy secondary murdered. This secondary needs pass rush help or they'll get torn up.
Hartline started against Oakland. Barring injury, I think we've seen the last of Naanee in the starting lineup. Thank Buddha for that anyway. Now, if Armstrong doesn't have anymore hammy issues and can be the definite #3, that relegates Naanee to no higher than #4, which is where guys who should only be special teamers belong.
I expect Coyle to come up with continually more creative blitz packages to help cover for our undermanned secondary.
Fair enough. They certainly did okay in the Texn game. But not IMPRESSIVELY. I think we aren;t as BAD as we/others had thought. But we aren;t suddenly great either. We have *some* talent on the roster. The talent to be a 7-8 win team with good coaching, not a 3-4 win team as many thought. But, we'll know more once we face the Jets.
So what you are saying is that you agree with the original poster. I believe with good coaching, some luck and little injury bug this could be a 10 win team. I do not think the difference in talent between the best teams and the worst teams is as big as people tend to believe it is.
I wanted him there too. I wanted both WRs that Cincy drafted. Sanu would likely be much higher on our depth chart than he is on Cincy's. They have a top 4 that is pretty good IMO. Green of course, but also this Andrew Hawkins looks like a real find. Dynamic little waterbug. Armon Binns was another local UDFA they signed last year along with Hawkins who has come on and starts with Green. People used to make fun of the Bengals scouting dept. Not anymore. Then Brandon Tate is their 4th WR and KO returner, so Marvin Jones and Sanu don't see the field on offense. They also have Ryan Whalen as a developmental WR too. Cincy is in fine shape with young and talented WRs. I'm envious.
27 snaps @Houston and 39 vs Oakland, which was higher than it would have been had AA been able to play. In an ideal scenario, as long as we have to have him on the roster, is Legedu plays STs only and is no higher than the 4th WR.
I concur. I welcome the Jets game and like you said, I hope Revis plays so we can get a better guage of where we stand.
I don't understand you guys reasoning. The main thing I want is for us to win the game. That is more likely if Revis does not play. Therefore I hope very much they have to hold him out one more week. We'll have plenty of chances in coming weeks to see where we stand.
I hear ya! That hope has crossed my mind but how much more satisfying will it be to beat them with Revis? We've done it before and hopefully we are better off this year and will do it again. What I said doesn't mean I wouldn't want us to give Revis another concussion! LOL
Jimmy Wilson is a good blitzer, from what I've seen. Would be happy to see him coming after Sanchez. Culver is decent as well.. or did we cut him? I haven't seen him in a game yet.
Of course the counter-argument is that the Raiders' CBs were bad, but if your wide receivers are as bad as some have said, they can't very well be used to exploit other bad players, as was done with Hartline.
I think the pass offense is going to come back down to earth this week. Our WR's won't be facing backup corners providing that big, soft cushion. They're going to get Revis and Cromartie suffocating them at the line of scrimmage. They ain't winning that matchup. The 'wins' are gonna have to come from elsewhere this week.
