I did read it. And I know he made some throws that were left on the field. I also remember missed opportunities. I can't remember specific points and times so I'm not going to act as if I'm in any position to debate you. If I find something with his every snap, I'll come back with my opinion. Whether I disagree with you or come back with agreeing with you.
I disagree with you on this point CK, and heres why. You are dismissing the other obviously botched calls during key plays that happened the other times in the game. The holding call on Dimitri Patterson? They punt. The Pass Int call on Gronkowski...they punt. Those were key..KEY not even well, I can kinda see what they were thinking calls that had a very direct impact on this game. I have a feeling Secs numbers will support this...but, think about it. 3 calls that would have led to a change of possession. If you have a finite number of possessions in a game, and we had obviously made plays to force that change of possession, I would argue it would have been probable that we would have kept them from scoring. Lets put it this way....if those were 3rd and long plays where our defense had given up a big play and the Pats had converted, would those three big plays have been key in the direct result of the game? Of course they would have.....we would have all looked back and said...this game is different if we had not given up that 3rd and long play. But we didnt give up those big plays, and infact, made the defensive play at critical junctures of the game. Our defensive stops were negated by blown calls by the refs.
I didn't feel the defensive holding penalty against Patterson was all that bad a call, really. The pass interference penalty was. There were some other no-calls I felt were bad. But what about the holding call on Nate Solder that wiped out Rob Gronkowski's touchdown and forced the Patriots to settle for a field goal? I guess in Dolfanland that was a great call and totally unlike the calls that went against Miami?
And this is why, arguing ref calls is pointless. Im not changing your mind, your not changing mine. Theres so much other worthwhile discussion to have. But, its a sore subject, and thats why it gets air play. And are you kidding me....were you just saying that Nate Solder didnt hold on that play? Come on man....
Here is my take on that play. That rule is there to prevent the obvious and blatant attempt to move the ball in a advantageous way for the defense/offense. In this instance for the defense. It can be done a number of ways, kicking the ball, swatting at it in the air etc. Basically not making ANY attempt to posses it. You cant tell OV's intent on that play, the guy is going in face down on the ground and IMO he tries to corral it with his left arm and he hits it......there was nothing intentional about it.....nothing obvious...that was about as bad a call I have seen is a long long time...
Also the case with Nolan Carroll and, more egregiously, Daniel Thomas. Nolan Carroll got beat bad by a rookie WR. The article, though, says that he gave it up after coming in cold, and then takes a paragraph to explain what a great play Brady made. Excuses. Leaving out the fact that Dobson was quite open after Carroll failed to play sound coverage. The comment about Daniel Thomas's 3rd-and-1 CONVERSION is pretty laughable. CK, you constantly criticize DT for his short-yardage execution. Then when DT actually does execute and move the chains, the article points out that he 'barely scraped it out' and actually add this play to evidence of his limitations. What? I know you want to be right about things, but this was just ridiculous. And DT's stats, his best of the season as he averaged over 5 yards/carry, are curiously absent, as is the fact that he's now had two straight games at 5yds+/per, some of the best football he's played for us. The fact that you are always trying to prove your early opinions to be correct makes it harder to take your opinions seriously. Stuff like this is just unnecessary, imo, whether it's about Russell Wilson, JFauria, whoever: By trying to build credibility by always pointing out instances you were right about someone and twisting the wording around times your early opinions don't hold up, you're actually undermining your credibility as a contributor for B/R and even here, coming off as less and less objective.
The one-sidedness with which you read and interpreted the article speaks much more to your own shortcomings than to mine, trust me.
Damn let's forget the Penalty already. Conspiracy, game changer, whatever. How did our players do? Why did we abandon the run game? Why didn't we want to shorten the time Brady has the football? What's up with Ryan Tannehill's girly hands?
You relize that passing yardage isn't the only indicator of a QB's performance right? Tannehill was very sharp in this game. In the third quarter near the end it started to get rough, but in the first half and early in the third quarter, Tannehill was nearly flawless. If Clay hangs on to that one down the sideline we could be talking about 3 TD passes in the first half alone. Just because the team didn't rack up huge yardage doesn't mean he's not playing well. He was in command of the offence out there, hitting guys with great passes, moving around making things happen, doing everything you want him to do, and doing it damn well. Once Wallace dropped that pass and momentum swung bigtime in this game, that's when it started to fall apart. Heck, even on that last Miami drive, Tannehill wasn't bad, guys just weren't making plays.
I agree 110% with CK's criticism of the DT short yardage conversion, yes... it worked out, but DT got more lucky there than anything. It seems to me in those short yardage situations, that one in particular, once he hits that pile, he stops trying to drive forward with his legs, either that or maybe he just has no leg strength whatsoever. He just looks soft... hit his the pile, and just gets stuck, rather than driving himself and the pile forward with his strength.
Yes and let's not mention the parts where I explicitly praise Thomas for having done a good job in the game and specifically praise his going off-schedule on the 4th & Short play, showing true daylight instincts. None of that fits with the one-sided hit job narrative that Limbo was attempting to lay out, so we pretend none of that was in the article.
Thanks for that intelligent reply. It's about as great as your comment saying he wasnt sharp in the first half. That cutback run of his was beautiful. That was one of the few games in DT's career that he actually looked like a good running back. For the most part he ran the ball well yesterday I thought.
If your going to quote me and act as if me or someone else doesn't know anything about football. I'm not wasting my time on a response.
The calls that extended the Pat's drives also deprived us of possessions. They almost always seemed to happen on third downs when our D had stopped them. You can even go back to the one in the first half that led to their FG. Our offense was moving the ball well at that point. Not to mention the non-calls like when RT was knocked to the ground well after he'd let go of the pass or the non-call on that long pass where Dobson (IIRC) pushed off on Patterson. As for the batting call I thought his arm motion was that of a person trying to gather it in. Almost every time I've seen a person bat the ball intentionally they have used either a straight out hand motion or an inside out motion.
He had another cutback that was pretty keen, which I also pointed out in the article. Or rather, I didn't, according to Limbo. My editor must have stuck that in there. Couldn't have been me.
Well you initial comment about tannehill not having a sharp first half, or 3 quarters because he only had 100 and some odd passing yards allows one to assume that... Not that I assumed anything... just making the point that its not all about the stats... So... Im not sure I see the issue here other than you have no way to say he wasn't sharp for the first 3 quarters without any sort of proof to make your point?
I recall the run you're talking about, it was a nice one as well. Even Miller had a nice cutback run or two. They both looked great out there. I hope its a sign of things to come, however it very well could just be the fact that NE's defensive line just isnt that good. I wish DT had more speed though, initially I thought he should have been able to take one of those all the way, sure looked like he had that kind of room anyways from the TV broadcast.
There were a few runs when Thomas really kind of focused on plowing and plodding through open spaces, whereas you'd wish he'd just GO. I pointed those out in the piece, obviously because I have zero interest in being objective about Daniel Thomas being an integral part of an above-average B+ grading for the position.
I find that with Miller too though, there's times where he just tries to do too much, rather than just turning on the speed and going, because we've all seen it, when he sees the hole fast, and commits, he's got great burst through it. Im not a huge fan of DT, especially since we traded up for him, but damn he looked good yesterday. Gotta let that stuff go, people are just going to pick on little things like that because they disagree, or theyre just searching for an agenda thinking everyone must have one, because they usually do... rather than being objective. Overall, I thought the grades were pretty spot on.
Wheres the thumbs down button... And you throwing your two cents in like this every single article he posts....is...not an agenda?
This is true, however, I think the point is do you still think that our team played well enough to deserve the win after being up 14 at the half?, do you think they showed the mental toughness a team needs to play at a high level, do those ref mistakes mask the flaws that we saw?,being gouged by the run with our supposed great Dline, having Nolan Carroll on the field, the inability that Ryan Tannehill has in understanding situational football so he can play with a sense of urgency to place the ball away from the defenders, to protect the ball when pressure is collapsing, to quicken his reactionary time, and most important to understand where the line is when to pass, tuck and take the hit, or take off and get your team a freakin first down..there is 0 sense of this element to his game right now, and that very element is a very important factor in qb'ing unless your name is Tom Brady or Peyton manning.. Hey, a lot of qbs can look good when protection is good and the pocket is all comfy...but is that really what were gonna have to do to get the best out of this Qb...are we really gonna depend on that type of perfection to win a championship. He either starts to speed up his sense of awareness and reactionary time, and do something to make A play, or else the ball security issues are gonna continue..and they cannot continue on this pace.. This whole staying in the pocket training is the biggest crock of sh&$ I've ever heard..let me know when you have a fully functional upper echelon oline that protects and run blocks at a very efficient level, then lets talk pocket passing, until then, you better run a moving, bootleg,multiple, pistol, read option, tell your freaking Qb to bail and make plays when he feels pressure, style offense.. The problem even with that, is that Ryan has not proven he can be a playmaker, and unless you have Brady or manning or Bree's arm and pocket man awareness, your gonna see losing streaks, inordinate amount of sacks, and turnovers.. I would sit Ryan Tannehill down, and tell him were changing directions, and were gonna start moving the pocket more frequently, were gonna run the pistol, the read option, and were gonna erase the part where we taught to hang in the pocket at all costs, and were gonna retrain you as to where that line is as to when you need to take off..A lot of that is feel, so lets hope for the best.
I dont see people saying we lost because of the call, I see people thinking it was a big play in a close game. Football is a game of momentum, opportunity, inches etc.....a play and such a drastic turn of field position after a ticky tacky call does have an effect. Did it directly lose us the ball game? No. Did it have a negative impact to the Miami Dolphins? Yes.
I never said it was all about stats. Just pointing out a stat. If someone told me Matt Stafford had a bad game and then quoted that he threw 2 picks and only 1 TD I'd probably slap the person. But throwing more interceptions is not a good thing, it's ok to quote stats when talking about a QB play. To make that stat be definitive is another story.
As for the Nolan Carroll note, I mentioned that he came onto the field "cold" for a reason. The man only played 8 snaps during the game. And I believe most of that was the stretch where Patterson was hurt. I mentioned Brady standing tall in the pocket for a reason. When you've got a blitz on, your top priority is to protect against the slant, which would have been an easy, quick throw for Brady to make on the play. That was Carroll's priority and he focused on taking it away. But because Brady stood strong and did not shy away from the vicious lick that Wheeler was about to lay on him, he bought just enough time for Aaron Dobson to turn that slant into a fade. It was a really nice piece of work by Brady on the play, and it deserved mention. But I guess I'm not allowed to give details...when they're the wrong details.
Do you do coaching grades as well? It would be interesting to see your thoughts. Two things stuck out to me: 1. We got away from the run early in the second half. I saw you covered this in the article, but does anyone have any insight as to why we keep doing this to ourselves? 2. The offense seemed to play with no urgency at all when down in the second half. I'm interested to know whether this is just a bias I have, or whether we genuinely are slow executing the hurry up. It seems to me we've had this problem going back to the Sparano days. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 4
What did Starks do in the game that was so impressive, I know he was part of a line that gave up 150 in yards, didn't get any sacks himself, I saw him lolly gag a couple of times....did he have a lot of pressures?
I can't speak to the urgency but I will say this much: Mike Wallace makes a play, we're not having this conversation. Tannehill takes the football in the second half and on his first drive brings it deep into New England's side of the field, throws a perfect strike on a well designed play to Mike Wallace. If Wallace makes a play that receivers making a tenth of what he makes can regularly make, that's either 1st & Goal at the 3-yard line or just a touchdown. At that point it's a different game. They'd be up 24-3. New England would have to abandon the run. The touchdown NE scored after our missed field goal, 27 of those yards came on the ground. Does that happen if the Dolphins are up 24-3? And hell you go back to the first half, final possession, Charles Clay makes a catch on a great throw and that's a 21-3 halftime score. Combine that with the Wallace play on the following drive in the second half, we're talking a 28-3 ball game. Everything within a context. As for abandoing the run...I didn't agree with it. But it's their call.
He has relatively small hands as QBs go. I was wondering if this would be a problem from the moment I compared the hand sizes of the QBs in that draft, and with some of the ones in recent drafts. FWIW, Henne has relatively small hands too. That trait alone isn't going to be the only reason he fumbles a lot, but it could contribute.
On Miami's first drive of the second half, on the incomplete pass to Wallace on 2nd and 2, the officials could have called a PF on Gregory for the hit on a defenseless receiver. I've seen similar calls made before. Had it been a Dolphins DB doing that to a Pats WR in the same situation you can damned sure bet it would have been called.
I can only tell you that Tannehill has the smallest hands of all the top 10 or so QB from the 2012 draft. Something like 7.5". Edit: 9" then. I did not look it up, just going by memory that he has the smallest and it wasn't close. As I recall, Luck and Foles have hands the size of catcher's mitts.
About 10 inches. He's at 9 inches. It CAN make a difference. Or it can not make a difference. I personally wonder if the coaches have even bothered addressing the issue with coaching points. If you ask them what are they coaching Tannehill on to prevent fumbles, and they say something along the lines of "Well, he knows he's got to take care of the football" then that would tell me everything I need to know. Some guys (e.g. Brees) are more dilligent with a pre pass triangle while they're in the pocket. This is something that can help you prevent fumbles from surprise hits. Basically just holding the football with both hands and the bottom nose of the ball pointing downward at the ground, forming a triangle with your head and elbows. Does Tannehill do this dilligently? Does he like to pat the football? Patting the football opens you up for the potential for fumbles.
Who are these coaches that lay out the precise and detailed plans for fixing anything with their team? Its mind boggling to me how someone who is so connected to the game pretends coaches give out all this specific info to reporters and during PCs.
