Guys, I'm absolutely thrilled that we won, but I'm absolutely frustrated at the same time. We won the first half 41-0 and lost the 2nd half 26-3. And that makes me wonder- did Campbell tell them to back off a bit in the 2nd half or were we celebrating far too early? Now don't get me wrong, the game was officially over when the score was 7-0. It was obvious that the Texans were outmatched and uninspired, which is why we saw 6 consecutive TD's that never should have happened. Landry's 50 yarder, Miller's explosion off tackle, Jones's hysterical pick-6....we can't count on getting 5+ of these per week in the first quarter. Now, don't get me wrong, I was grinning from ear to ear.....but most of our 1st half scores were gimmies. They simply couldn't match our aggressiveness and they never saw that ***-kicking coming....nor the linemen re-engaging new blocks 30+ yards downfield. As Campbell said last week, you practice super hard so the game itself seems easy...and that's exactly what happened today. And I sat there thinking at halftime, Campbell has a super-tough job on his hands here. How does he go into the locker room with a 41 point lead, one of the biggest lead's ever in NFL history for a half, and convince his guys to treat it like a zero-zero ballgame? We weren't nearly as violent in the 2nd half, nowhere near as explosive....and we have our main division rival in 4 short days. That worried me a lot. Now, they did sit Miller for the 2nd half and honestly, I think they should have sat Tannehill as well. Why not pull him on one of the best half's any QB has ever had in football? He did pick up a NFL record though so it's great he made it into the history books...but I hated, hated, hated that we let off the gas and allowed our players to celebrate early. That goes against everything Campbell has tried to instill in this team so hopefully they're getting yelled at right now. But then again, the first half was magical. Matthews is a true stud. Landry is amazing. Miller looks better than ever. Tannehill is....well, he's a solid quarterback and I'll leave it at that. Two of his TD throws were pin-point accurate down field though and I love seeing it...I just hope that someday we finally know what we really have with him. The screen passes just don't tell enough of the story. On defense....oh wow. Wake and Suh are finding a rhythm, and how can Jones not go to the pro-bowl? Great effort in the first half....we dominated when it mattered. I just hate that we coasted in the 2nd half. My biggest issue right now is- how good are the Miami Dolphins? Will this team end up around 9-7....or is this a 12-4 team that only loses on the worst of possible days? Because the guys we've seen show up the past two weeks belong in the latter category...they're scary good. Which is why I was so frustrated when we coasted in the 2nd half. But what was Campbell supposed to do? Try to score 80+? So I understand, but I wish that he would have kept just a little more pressure out there in the 2nd half. Great game though and a solid stepping stone for New England in 4 days! If those Patsies come out expecting a push-over like our last two opponents, then Thursday's game won't be close either. Get ready folks, winter is coming and our Fins are ready for battle...
Campbell said in his post-game presser that they purposely rotated guys out on D in the 2nd half to help keep fresh legs since they play Thursday night.
Cool, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better then. I figured that's what happened but it's good to hear it from the horse's mouth.
Landry and Miller didn't play the 2nd half. Matthews played sparingly. The D line and LBs sat out much of the 2nd half as well along with Jones and Grimes. Way too early to start sitting players at half time. But they do play Thursdsy so maybe the short week they decided to start sitting players.
I'm still not keen on those extremely short/right-angled passes Lazor keeps pulling out. I get the need to avoid pressure but there has to be a more productive way to use those downs. Seems like the drives where we go out those throws show up. Not saying they're the cause, maybe they're what Lazor calls when he's feeling the pressure, but they just feel like a waste of a play.
My only concern from this game was the stupid penalties...there were plenty to go around. That HAS to be cleaned up for Thursday. Then again, a lion's share of them happened in garbage time, so who knows.
Brady did it today....54 passes, 34 completions, 6.6 YPA. All depends on who you're playing I think. The Cheats know Revis and it worked. In our case, we had the game in hand with those plays, mixed in with the VERY effective running game. No reason to do anything else really.
Fair enough, however, this isn't a new play or even occasional play for the Phins, it shows up all the time. That's my concern.
I was unable to see the game live today but I"m looking foreword to see what could be critiqued in the second half. Glad to see they were in a position to rotate and rest players on a short week.
Did you watch the game? Curious because not sure you could be "furious" if you did , and if you didn't not sure how you could make a proclamation like that ?
yeah I honestly think this game would have been a even bigger blow out, had miami not have a game in 4 days. We could not ask for anything better than to have the game end after the first half, and the Patriots/Jet game to play out the way it did
The beginning of the game is when all players are at their apex...we domintaed at that point...they scored some point when that competitive nature was over... they deserved to have the let down because of how good they played in the first half...game was over... we bad *** son.
Totally agree. I can't wait to watch the game. I was coming home from a wedding and didn't get to start watching until Matt Moore was taking snaps.
I did watch the game....and maybe "furious" was a poor choice of words. "Very disappointed" probably works better. On that note, did you watch the game? Because the Texans basically had one drive for 66 yards in the first half, and they were -1 yards total for their other six drives combined. We annihilated them early but put forth a very weak effort in the 2nd half, which was why I made the comments that I did.
Beasley also tweeted out the same re: Miller. Miller wasn't injured, they just wanted to save him for Thursday.
You ever have sex? You ever have this amazing session where you're slamming it on this hot chick, everythings working, you're lasting forever, you're making her scream, things are great.........you finish and she wants you to keep going.....you oblige....however, you're not going as hard, you're half soft, you're out of breathe, you're weak in the legs....but you still keep going. That was us today. We ****ed the texans so hard we finished them on our "*** legs" On to Thursday boys!!!!
Yeah, gotta piggyback off of what everyone else is saying. We have a short week against an elite opponent. Rest was very important.
I don't think he was trying to celebrate too early. I think he was trying to rest players for the Patriots game. We started to allow the Texans to score so he brought some players back in to make sure we don't lose it. I'm sure if we didn't have another game like this in the future, he wouldn't do that like he did in this game.
i like that they rested the players and the playbook. the less the pats see the better Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
Me too...I was thinking that during the game...we were doing a lot of quick hitters, screens, simple stuff...nothing too razzle dazzle. Save that **** for the Cheats. We had that one fake pass left, offhand handoff to Landry for the 22 yard TD against Tennessee, but everything else has basically been vanilla, but IT WORKED! Gotta expect some wrinkles for the Cheats.
You will almost never see a game where a team opens a huge lead, then doesn't cede some of that ground. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk
So you would have made it a priority to continue to dominate or try to do that at all costs over managing players and snap counts with a Thursday game against the Patriots in Foxborough ? Sure in a perfect world replicating that unbelievable first half would have been intoxicating but realistically the push back and the saving players was going to happen .
I'm sorry, but this funny. "Yeah, we were whooping their behind so bad I figured that hey, might as well give our reserves some stats, you know?"
What a win! The defense is playing just like I thought they should have played from the beginning. The balance on offense if very nice. Miller is so much better than the backups right now. Very disappointed that Gray couldn't make that third and one. I'm also a little disappointed in the 1 for 9 on third downs. The penalties are no good. And for the love of God, Reshad! Don't do that again! I liked that Campbell acknowledged the lack of second half intensity in his locker room speech. I am glad that some of Miami's key players got rest. They will need it. Two weeks ago, I would have put this next game up as a loss. Now? We shall see. The Patriots look like the best team in the league right now. And I hate that it is in New England. Let's see how this team plays. They must give it their all if they're to win this game on Thursday.
I fully expected them to be resting guys in the second half. There was simply no need to continue. Resting players for Thursday and getting our backups some good game reps was the right call. How loud the complaining would be if they had kept the starters out there all of the second half and one or more of them got hurt! The risk was far greater than the reward, especially when there was no further reward to be had.
