I also posted this in Club Level, but I think maybe we can start an intelligent discussion here instead of playing the blame game. Let me know what you think. Watching this game I realize we break the one rule in life that is always true. You will be most successful when your opponent does not know what you are doing. Tonight I saw us repeatedly use the same play over and over, which to an extent is fine. Here is what irks me. When you do run a play that many times it is usually to set something else up. We did nothing to shift the eyes of the defense. Nothing to set up the big play. Nothing to deceive our opponent. It was pure power football, which contrary to popular belief does not win games on it's own. When you run the same play repeatedly, even if it works, you limit yourselves. When we had an opportunity to put a dagger in their hearts...we lined up and ran the same plays they had seen all game. The most basic example of what I'm talking about is running to set up the play action pass down field. Which we did to a small extent, but isn't my point at all. Why do you move the tight end in motion every play to block instead of lining him up next to the tackle? So you can run a play where he chip blocks and takes off into the secondary getting behind the linebackers. Why do you exclusively run out of the wildcat offense? So that when you pass it is completely unexpected. Why do you run the curl route? So that you can have more success running a stop-and-go route. You see my point. What I saw today was an offense that was very good at doing what they wanted to do, but had no grand vision overall. It's great to punch away at a guys ribs all night, but it's all so he lowers his hands and you can stick him in the face. Without the knockout punch it is worthless. What we did all night was set them up for that knockout that we never attempted. One last thing that puzzles me is the play action with under a minute left in the game. Or even after the two minute warning. It is like showing someone an empty chamber of a gun, then threatening to shoot them. A false threat. In fact all it really does is turn the QB away from the defense and give him less time to make a proper read. ????: ThePHINS.com - Miami Dolphins Forums http://forums.thephins.com/showthread.php?p=841841 All that said this loss goes straight to the defense. Two of their touchdowns came in 49 seconds combined. That is absolutely horrible. I can't pin this loss on the offense, but I can say they left me with a lot to be desired. This isn't a fire Henning or bench Pennington thread, but rather a question of our overall philosophy and my wondering if we have one.
Our problem offensively is that anytime the D plays poorly, we lose. We dont have the ability to consistently put up points. Last year against bad teams that was OK because we didnt give up many points. Against Atlanta, Indy and coming up San Diego it wont be enough. We cant close the gap, we cant make a quick strike, we dont get big plays.
My main point is that our best chance to make those big plays is by using deception. We ran well enough to bring the linebackers and safeties up but what did we do with that? We didn't run any plays that deceived the linebackers so we could release the TE over the middle. Nothing of the sort. We needed to attack and score a TD instead of settling for a FG again....and we didn't. I'm really interested in everyones opinion though. I just dont want us to run around screaming we suck and playing the blame game all week.
You make excellent points. And if we were EVER going to set something up for a 2 minute offense, that's when you pull out the Wild Cat and put the ball in Pat Whites hands to attempt a deep ball down field. Don't blame them for running the WC that much, other then, we aren't seeing the various ripples we heard about during camp. It really is very much the same thing we saw last year. Ricky starting on the left, coming to the right, Ronnie gives it to him or doesn't, then they run. Can't believe ESPN is talking up Ted Ginn. Yes he had 11 catches for over 100 yards, but failed to make the big catches when needed. Maybe he is a #2, but he showed me tonight he isn't a #1. Defense...knew our secondary was going to be suspect this season. Was hoping we would see the pressure up front to help with this, but even that isn't forthcoming!! JT was a no show in the second half.
The defense gave up two touchdowns in 49 second combined. That is aweful. To be fair to Ginn on that last play the defender had a hand full of his jersey and readjusted his arm BEFORE he caught the ball. In fact it was while he was in the air. He probably should still have caught it, but it also should have been PI on the defender.
Release a TE over the middle so Fasano can drop a TD, or just fumble it? Meh, we arent setting anything up, because we dont really HAVE anything to set up at this point.
See that is a really bad attitude to have. How many fumbles did Fasano have in his career before last week? How good was he last season? Last week wasn't the norm, and to be fair on one the defender put his helmet right on the ball. We do have to set things up, because we have no chance at a big play unless we do. Don't think I mean just from regular formations either, it also counts from the wildcat.
