Miami won today, so a part of me wants to say, “End of discussion.” It’s so tempting here because an ugly win is always better than an impressive loss. And we know that firsthand from recent years when we beat the poo out of team and somehow still managed to lose. But today was such utter chaos; a few things need to be spoken here. For starters, how about all the preseason hype about Tannehill taking the next step in his evolution towards elite-ness? He had three interceptions dropped…two of them a pick 6. He had three passes tipped from locking on receivers. He had a wide, wide open tight end in the end zone that’s out hurt because he missed the easy TD lob by about 10 feet. And another easy TD toss to Stills. The bad throws just kept piling up. Then the fumble where he refused to go down even when that was the only possible option (besides what did happen). It was a pure mess. Here’s where the math lies to us people-23 for 34 and 1 TD with no picks sounds pretty sweet on paper, but that’s an outright lie. The decision making was at times downright ugly. If not for Jarvis Landry today and his typical highlight-reel performance, this one wouldn’t have even been close. How mad would you be if you were Brent Grimes with a game-changing pick in the red zone, only to see a wide open tight end being carried off on a stretcher? And before we start the excuses, the sun wasn’t in his eyes. The line didn’t fail him. The receivers didn’t make poor adjustments. Tannehill was just all over the place. Let’s talk about Lamar Miller for a moment- he was a workhorse today and literally fought for every inch in the first half. Once we saw the run wasn’t there, it was 100% passing from Tannehill for the entire second quarter and a good chunk of the 3rd as well. Then all of a sudden, we were back to Miller time and he was bouncing outside with ease. The kid had no quit in him and seeing Miller bulldoze for that final 1st down was nothing short of awesome, but I have to wonder why he had to do it on his own. Miller will not last 16 games taking that kind of abuse. The only aspect worse than Tannehill struggling, however, was our defensive front. Suh played a pretty good game given that he was double teamed every play, but Cousins had a fairly clean pocket for most of the afternoon. Where was the pressure you’d expect from the <alleged> best line in football? It just wasn’t there, and thank heavens for people like Jones stepping up from the secondary and landing monster hits. If the right side of the field wasn’t basically on shut-down mode in the 2nd half from Cousins fear of Grimes, we may not have earned that W today. But then again, we did see Landry bust through that seam untouched for one of the most exciting punt returns in quite some time. Man, this guy is really something special. We did see Grimes read plays perfectly and get several key stops, and we did see Dolphins refusing to give up despite being outplayed for most of the game. So yes, we did earn this victory today but it also created more questions than answers. I think that everyone here agrees that no matter how good our defense turns out to be, the season still hinges squarely on Tannehill’s abilities to lead this offense to victory this week. And today, that didn’t happen….he delivered a “D-“ performance with just enough luck to have things go Miami’s way. So let’s give some grades on the day- Tannehill- D- Miller- B- Offensive line- C+ Landry- A+++ Total Offense- C Suh- B- Defensive Line- D Secondary- A- Total Defense- C We got lucky today Dol-fans, because Washington showed a whole lot more heart than we did for the majority of the game. Although the stats don’t show it, Tannehill had one of his worst games as a pro and a stat line pretty enough to convince you otherwise. Make no mistake though, we did not play at championship caliber today and some very quick adjustments need to be made. As I said at the start though, a win is a win and that makes me happy. But I can’t help but look back to a year ago when we opened the season with a win despite a bad day by Tannehill. He went on to play poorly in games 2 and 3, and then really came out as a superstar in week 4. So this weak schedule for the early part of the season luckily gives Ryan some room for to figure things out, but he’d better do it quickly.
Well.. we all saw the game and saw all kinds of problems. But one rating I disagree with: "Total Defense" cannot be a C. The MOST important stat for defenses is points allowed. I don't care what mistakes they made. If they can keep a team to 10 points, that's a good defense. Doesn't matter if it's due to tons of mistakes compensated for by a few turnovers. They deserve at least a B/B+.
I'm with you there...and would give RT a C to C-. D-? Naaa...3 bad throws and 2 bad decisions, not good, but not basically failing. Edit: following not directed at you cbrad. This seems like it maybe should be in the rant thread, quote, "23 for 34 and 1 TD with no picks sounds pretty sweet on paper, but that’s an outright lie." How so? That's their numbers on the passing game for the day. Outright lie? Yes he made a few bad decisions (who makes 100% correct decisions?), and definitely missed some passes, some of which would be considered easy for him, but the numbers are what they are. You sound rather a hater saying they're an outright lie.
I dont think Tannehill deserves a D-, He definetly was not comfortable in the 1st half till the end. I dont think we are using Miller correctly and Landry will have another amazing year. The D line did not look ready, you were very generous giving Suh a B-, On a couple of plays he got handled and tossed aside. We made Kirk cousins look very good in first half
How so? He had 2 pick 6's dropped plus a 3rd interception that should have been caught. He got Landry slaughtered twice for losses on plays he had to throw the ball away. He had poor accuracy on around 70% of his throws, he missed two wide open TD passes and injured his starting TE in the process. He had three balls tipped for locking on targets...something he did not do in preseason. He fumbled the ball after refusing to take the sack and spending two precious seconds trying to escape being in the grasp. He got lit up even harder on a run fighting to break free on the sidelines. Once you add it all up, he had 10 good throws on the day, 13 bad throws that were caught, and 11 throws that were off (9)/dropped (2)...three of which should have gave the opponents 14 points. I'm sorry, but that's not a C effort in any book.
How does one even know they were pick 6's? Lemme guess...you didnt like 17 last season either. lol And wtf is 13 bad throws that were caught? I dont even know what that means...
Who cares if they were dropped? It counts as an interception when he puts the ball in the WRs and they pop it up in the air and the defense comes down with it. Which happened 3 times last year. Sounds like an agenda to me. He didn't play great, but he was not terrible either. Landry didn't throw himself all those passes.
Smh, I'm kinda sick of ppl bringing up **** like "almost" int's. Who cares. EVERY QB in the league makes those throws. Tom Brady, Peyton manning included. only thing that matters are what actually happens. And tannehill,despite making some poor throws, overall played well. Nothing spectacular. But nothing to cry about either. Especially when we win. I swear some of you have never watched another team or QB play before. Thinking every QB goes 35-35 with 4 tds and no ints the way you guys talk about tannehill I'd swear we still had chad henne back there.
You don't know what it means because you don't understand football. Let me guess, you were thrilled over 17 last year and said he could do no wrong, weren't you? No worries though, I'll educate you a little bit. A bad pass that's caught is when the quarterback places a pass where the receiver has to break his stride to catch it, which usually means that the defender is going to be knocking the dog s*%t out of him as soon as he touches the ball. Not only does it lose potential yards and kill drives, but it also gets players hurt. Landry and Miller both got pounded today on bad passes and we lost Sims to a concussion because of one too.
You need to turn the channel once in a while and watch some other QBs cuz you seem completely out of touch with some of the stuff you are saying.
LMFAO!! You are so football knowledgeable for a kid who have never gotten off the couch lmao!! Blocked.
LOL. It wasn't RT's fault Sims got a concussion...it happens, guys hit the ground on every play, it was a bad pass yes, but he didn't CAUSE the injury. And as for throws, he also made a few throws today that kept receivers from taking a big *** shot if they'd have been in the normal location, or did those escape your prowess?
Giving RTH a 'D' for the day is a joke and just overreacting emotionally. Definitely not a good day, but 1 step above 'failure'? Lol. No.
Well I think that Washington is better than most thought. Clearly their offensive line is markedly improved. They were blowing holes up the middle pretty much whenever they wanted. Our D line really did not play well and our Lb's did not cover well either. I think our offense is better when we are pushing the ball downfield some, everyone is expecting the dink and dunk route. It wasn't until we started throwing the intermediate routes that things got better for the offense. 1st game in a place where we have never won, I'll take it. But things need to improve out of the gate, just like last year the team seemed flat out of the gate.
Sorry to disagree but I think our defense is not as good as advertised. The Redskins are one of the worst teams in the league and I have no doubt that will be shown over the rest of the season. While the defense did shut out the Redskins in the second half. The Redskins were playing without their best WR for the majority of the game and Cousins is no better than a backup QB in the NFL. Next week the Dolphins are fortunate in that they are playing the one team which might actually be worse than the Redskins. The Jags are another team which will probably be battling the Redskins for the top pick in the 2016 draft. In two weeks when the Dolphins play the Bills, we will finally get a chance to see if this years version of the Dolphins can be the contenders we hope they can be or the pretenders they have been for so many years.
So if he makes a good throw and Sims can just stand there and catch it, he still gets a concussion? If the answer is no, then the bad pass caused the injury. Of course he did...several really good passes. But when you get a guy that throws 10 good passes a game and 10 bad ones, you usually call him QB3. That's not what you see from a guy that's turned the corner in year four and ready to lead a team to the playoffs. Look, I'm a Miami fan and a Tannehill fan, but the make believe attitude by some here claiming he had an awesome afternoon is simply ridiculous. He played poorly and other team members bailed us out on the day; that's all I was saying. You said he had a "C" performance, I said he had a "D-"....so I'm not sure what we're arguing about here.
I don't see anyone saying he had an awesome afternoon. You are just overreacting for no reason. Most ppl with any sense are saying he played good, but not great. I dont see see where he played poorly at all. Maybe you were watching a different game. did he make some bad throws? You betcha. But no more than most any other QB makes in a game. anytime a QB throws more tds than ints and gets a win I find it really hard to say he had a d- performance. But you stay with that agenda....
Against a bad team. We don't walk out of there with a win vs. you know an opponent that's actually playoff caliber.
The OP is not entirely off base, though sounds more concerned about it than I am. Tanny will be fine.
New season, and so far, same old Tanne and same old Dolphins, they better get their act together because the Jets and Bills actually looked good.
That performance was garbage. Even an average team would stomp us into the turf. I think it's the minimization of talent from these clueless coaches. If we actually had a coaching staff that maximized talent we beat Washington by 2 TDs at least If this is the type of performances we can look forward to for the rest of the season, then it will be another typical mediocre one that lands us short of the playoffs.
I get that total points is the ultimate benchmark but no way does that defensive performance merit a B. The Redskins kicked their asses in the trenches where we were meant to dominate. Sure they played better in the 2nd half but that 1st half performance alone should give them a D. The Redskins must have held the ball for about 23/24 minutes in the first half and had 37 minutes of total time. If we turn in that kind of defensive performance against a competent team then this defense will look an awful lot like the one we witnessed over the last 6 games of last season.
When I went to school a C was a pass and a D was a failure. Tannehill didn't have a great afternoon, it's was borderline acceptable but it wasn't a failure. Therefore C is the rating I would give him as well.
well this is a little hyperbole after 1 week, they played a whole game for the first time, they held the skins to 10 points and we will look at how the redskins do in the next few weeks, did they came out flat again ? absolutely yes....and something needs to happen in that regard..and it sure wasn´t pretty, but a road win in the home opener..i take it and never look back
Next time when doing a game review, try less bias, try making less assumptions as well. All this has turned I to is a debate around tannehill, and we already have a thread for that. Just my two cents... Appreciate the effort though. Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk
I'll take a GARBAGE performance like that for the WIN anytime. Maybe you should stop watching the Dolphins cuz if you are gonna overreact like this after week ONE on the ROAD after a WIN then this will be a long season for you.
Who argued that it would get us to the playoffs? I'm so tired of this crap. If you don't think the team sucks then you're a homer, but if you think games like yesterday were proof positive we suck, then you're just a realist. Its horse****. Ignorant horse**** that causes problems on the forum.
