Dolphins Training Camp 2014

I think he meant he hopes the O line gets to average, which would be a MASSIVE improvement over last year. I think they're already passed that with the left side starters, just need to get the other dudes figured out, stick with it, and make it happen.

 

Seems to me, with this system, and simple fact we don't have any creative playmakers at RB, the running game will be heavily tied to the O line, so it's almost the same thing.

 

I'll never forget Ben Volin's first year covering the Pats, being at a training camp practice and being like "So this is what a good offense looks like in practice"

The Defense is always ahead of the offense at this point in time is a myth created by fans and reporters of teams with bad offenses (i.e. The Miami Dolphins)

I'm fully prepared for this offense to finish where's it's finished the past 5 years. Right around 23-28th in the league.

 

When the Dolphins had a decent offense, even then the defense destroyed it during the first week of camp. Of course Fielder was the quarterback then, sad years.

I guess my expectations just lowered in the last 5 years. We had 15, 30, 20, 27, 26.

I just want to see a 15th ranked offense.

Plus I have a policy not to worry until the 3rd preseason game. Something I have learned in my 14 years of reading training camp reports.

 

Me too sadly

 

The last time the Dolphins had five new starters on their OL starting the season was 1966. That was also their first year in the AFL. Lazor and his schemes can only do so much with an offensive line which could take much of the 2014 season to figure out how to work together or even who the best starting five might be.

Beside the fact the OL will probably take a long time to jell, the rest of the offensive players and especially Tannehill are all trying to learn a brand new offense. It would not surprise me in the least if the offense this season actually scores less points per game in 2014 than it did in 2013.

The defense certainly appears to be playing well in training camp. Of course they are playing against the Dolphins offense, so it is really hard to tell at this time how effective they will be when they go up against the many top offenses they will play during the regular season.

It appears at this time that it will once again be the job to the defense to carry the team this season. If they don't end up being a top ten defense this season, the Dolphins appear headed for their sixth straight season at 500 or below.

 

I think every Dolphin fan is upset that this offense probably won't be any better this year than it has been the past few years.

I just think that most of us are being realistic in regards to our expectations, based on the fact there are five new starters on the OL. The RB position remains a question mark, especially if the OL doesn't jell quickly and the run blocking continues to be a problem. Unless Tannehill picks up this offense quickly and takes a giant leap forward in his development as an NFL QB, I think it is realistic to expect this offense to once again be a bottom 10 offense in 2014.

 

Pretty close to where I am, but I don't think RT needs to make a giant leap forward in his development...as long as he really gets the offense, he'll be fine...it's the other stuff you mentioned that causes concern for me.

 

The reason I think it is imperative Tannehill takes this giant step forward is basically because of the problems with the OL. His weaknesses beyond his accuracy on the deep ball have been his ability to quickly read the defense and get the ball to the open receiver. He also tends to lack pocket awareness and just doesn't seem to feel the pressure in the pocket until it is too late.

With the new offense, he must be able to read the defense much more quickly and locate the open receiver quickly. While I expect Albert to play much better at LT than the players who played this position in 2013.
I still think that Tannehill is going to be under a great deal of pressure this season because it just takes OL's time to jell, especially one with five new starters.

Hopefully Lazor will have Tannehill rolling out more to avoid the pressure. I just think that when it comes to pocket awareness, QB's either have it or they don't. I just don't see Tannehill ever being a QB who can stand in the pocket for a period of time waiting for receivers to get open. This OL probably isn't going to give him a lot of time and he just doesn't give me a lot of confidence that he can feel the pressure the way many other QB's in the NFL seem to be able to do.

I think last year Tannehill played well in some games and poorly in others. Therefore he basically had a very average season. Average isn't good enough in the NFL if you want to take your team to the playoffs. I don't see the OL, RB,s or even the TE's, (other than Clay), being anything more than average to below average this coming season. The WR's are the one group who could carry this offense if Tannehill takes that giant leap forward I mentioned earlier.

If Tannehill plays merely average again this season, I just don't see this team being any better than 8-8 again and against the teams they are playing on their schedule, 5-11 or 6-10 would not be out of the question. To me it is Tannehill, the WR's and possibly Clay who need to carry the offense and just hope the OL and the RB's play much better than those units did last year.

 

How about neither?

 

Whether you have 4 new or 5 new starters, it is essentially the same situation. 5 guys who have not played together before, unless more than one of them came from a common previous team.

 

Well, right now the Broncos defense is dominating the Broncos offense on a daily basis. Do you think the Broncos defense will be better than their offense this year?

 

So much of the pessimism is because of how big the question marks are along the offensive line. Honestly...I feel like last year's bad oline is not very likely to happen again. I Think by game 3 of the pre season...we should feel pretty good about where our offense is in respect to where we should be with a brand new offense like this.

 

I understand your viewpoint. Yet if Pouncey weren't injured and out in the early part of the season, at least he would be starting at the same position for the Dolphins he did last year. Of course you are correct that if Pouncey wasn't injured , this unit could possibly be starting the season with five players who did not play together last year.

To me, the fact they will have five new starters and also have to all learn a brand new offense only makes it harder for this group. I just think this is going to be another year where the OL is going to be a weak link for this team.

I think in a couple of years this OL could be very good, but it doesn't have quality depth with the backups and I suspect that the young starters will be using much of this season to adapt to playing in the NFL. I think the loss of Pouncey early in the season is a huge loss for this offense. Other than Tannehill and possibly Albert, I don't see any other player who will be missed more on this offense than Pouncey.

As far as this team starting the season with five new starters on the OL. I don't know the actual stats, but I would guess that teams starting the season with brand new starters at every OL position, probably didn't enjoy much success in the win column during that season. Hopefully someone can find an example where a team with five new starters on the OL actually made the playoffs that season.

That would at least give me some hope for this season.

 

Peyton Manning has led a top NFL offense for the past 15 years and there hasnt been much turnover there either. So I have more confidence in them righting the ship.

Miami's had a bottom third offense for the past 5+ years. Do you really expect, given the OL circumstances, that that trend won't continue? Honestly, especially given the training camp woes?

 

It's only been what...A few years where we have had the ability to get a real time feel for what practice is like. Before that...We'd have no clue really till the pre season started. EVERY bad snap is bolded..highlighted...EVERY time. I think it's very easy to let social media dictate how we feel about the team. Every season is new. I feel like Lazor's offense is a pretty drastic change from what we have seen in Miami in a long time. For the most part we've been a ground and pound team for a long time. I'm optimistic that our team will be fun to watch and competitive week in and week out. I'm optimistic we will again be playing relevant football in December...and really..we shouldn't forget we played December relevant football last season...even after all the cap that happened midseason.

 

Also...what I do like is the potential to have a young talented offensive line play together for multiple years. We really don't have any aging parts on the team..you can't deny the potential.

 

Any chance you can reference that?...because a week or so ago Pouncey himself was quoted as saying it was his goal to not miss any games

 

Meh...4 of the 5, at least, would be learning a new offense regardless. Whoever's making the calls needs to be completely wired into the playbook (like Misi's doing at Mike).

 

That's my expectation as well. I'm getting the pre-season game package again this year, and just for objectivity, I plan on watching last year's games compared to this year's. I have many doubts we'll be as bad. There's still some stuff to shore up, sure, but there's also some major improvements already.

Edit: Poor snaps aside, the daily reports are getting better and better regarding how the O line is doing...everything just gets overshadowed by, "oh hell another worm-burner from the center!"

 

the quote from Philbin is in reference to his tenure, not this particular camp.

 

pauly is emotional right now.

 

Here's the issue for me, Ryan has not displayed a sense of urgency in certain third down situation, I don't follow stats but I would bet our third down conversion rate was poor.

That's on the Qb, a Qb has to make plays on the down, this is the down to scramble if it's not there, to take off immediately if you see a lane and run for the first down, he showed none of that the past two years..now was he brainwashed by the leader of Darma mike Sherman, maybe so, but this dude needs to play free football on third down..

All this BS about progressions and reads, screw that, it's about making plays, and you either do it or you don't have it to do it, expecting everyone to be on the same page and the timing to be right to convert hi pressure third downs is like asking for perfection..

 

IMO its not fair to break the salaries down like that. I understand the logic but every team is built differently.

Bottom line is that by the time we have to dish out serious cash for tannehill, we might have already cut ellerbe, wheeler, Hartline and Wallace.


I don't like the Hartline or Wallace contracts but Tannehill needed them. Now the lbs... Your guess is as good as any, that was a bad move. It also just happens that we have a nice group of your wrs and lbs they we hope will develop.

 

Lol

 

Beats me. That's why I want the offense to click arse.

 

If you are addressing other people touting it as a good reason for us not scoring TDs, cool. If it's me you were addressing, yeah ... no. I was saying since our defense was semi-decent in allowing scores, I want my offense to kick their arses so then I'd be confident we have two good units. Just clearing that up.

 

Isn't some degree of concern inherent given we scored so little last year...learning a completely new offense..With a new offensive line. Not being concerned would be akin to pulling an ostrich. But some are resigned to believe we won't improve...The offense will sick just as bad. I think most are in agreement no conclusion can be drawn so early into camp.

 

I think I might as well wait for a few games to be played before I raise my skirt and declare the new OL and offense as failures.

 

Dont underestimate the fans here. It's never to early for them to start crying, hell they never stopped, it's mainly a continuation of all the crying that occurred last season and the one before that and the one before that...

 

The nerve we have!!!! On a message board discussing our team's offensive woes during training camp. The same offensive woes we showed during training camp the past 5+ years which led to poor offense. I mean, how dare we discuss these things!!! And how dare we get alarmed when we see the same trends continue that resulted in ~26th ranked NFL offense year in year out.

We're all just a bunch of whining, crying babies I guess.

There has been maybe 3 posts in this entire thread that represent whining. Everything else is discussion about what we see and how it's eerily similar to past years performances that led to poor performance.

The posts calling out the "whiners and crying babies" are really lame and getting old

 

The Bears last year. None of them played together before. Robert Garza was a holdover at Center. They signed 2 UFAs. Matt Slauson to play LG, and Jermon Bushrod to play LT. They drafted Kyle Long who played RG, and Jordan Mills who played RT.
Whether our opening day lineup has Garner, Smith, Satele or Pouncey at Center, it would be roughly similar to the Bears situation last season.

 

Of course this is coming from someone who actually thought Ireland was a good GM. So it is a little difficult to take you seriously.

I don't remember anyone crying last year or in any of the previous years. I merely remember many individuals quite rightly pointing out that the GM at the time had no clue how to draft or sign quality players for this team. Since that GM is no longer with the Dolphins or working anywhere in the NFL at this time, I would have to say that those individuals were proved correct in their assessment of Ireland as an NFL GM.

 

If an OL needs to "gel" so they can function as a unit, why are people so surprised that there are some struggles the first week of training camp?

 

I don't think anybody's surprised at the line struggling during camp, I just think the bad snaps are worrisome...bad snaps are very destructive. Aside from those, the line seems to be improving.