Bengals@Dolphins game thread

I still say if Grimes pick didn't go for 6, the defense would have looked better in the 3rd quarter, since they were gassed being out there so long.

The call on Hartline was as bogus as every other bogus call on us this year. Just one more travesty of officiating.

I'd like to see Charles Clay get to rush ALL short yardage runs instead of Miller, Thomas or passing.

I think Sturgis had the yips. I think once he's past them, he'll be better than Carp.

Great summary, as always.

The Brian Hartline interference was an instance where Hartline got a little handsy but he was nowhere near taking Jones out of the play, it looked like a typical receiver/corner hand battle and he got called for it. What's frustrating for a Dolphins fan is you see an egregious push-off from Aaron Dobson to Dimitri Patterson last week and nothing gets called. You see Jimmy Wilson going for a pick on the Gronkowski throw and that gets called, fast forward a week, Jones is riding Hartline like he's breaking a mustang and nothing gets called. Where's the consistency with these calls?

"Disgustipate wrote:

What was the pass interference call on Hartline? We didn't see a replay at the game.

Complete BS. The call was a pushoff but it was very clear that Adam Jones just slipped when Hartline stopped.

Cameron Wake may not be here as long, and won't end up meaning as much to Dolphins fans, but I think there's a good argument he's more dominant than Jason Taylor was in his prime.

That's tough to say. It's been a few years now but Taylor was a fumble causing machine. In 2002 he had 18.5 sacks and 7 forced fumbles. In 2006 he had 13.5 sacks and 9 forced fumbles. He was pretty great.

I'm a little bit unsure how to take the play of Randy Starks and Paul Soliai. They're playing the best football of their careers. They are doing so in a contract year, which is kind of suspicious, but both players have been in the same situation before and not responded this way.

I'd love to keep both but I do not want to lose Soiai. He would be the tougher one to replace in my opinion since Odrick is a similar player to Starks.

Brent Grimes will be remembered for the long interception, but he had a pretty godawful game in terms of missed tackles. He had what, five? Did he have two on the Bernard run?

He had some bad misses but he also had some really good tackles as well.

I'm not sure Sturgis really represents a notable upgrade over Dan Carpenter, at this point.

Hopefully he'll get out of his funk and stop missing. He is an upgrade on kickoffs though.

My responses in bold.

Grimes had more good plays then bad ones. He gassed twice on the one run, but balled out the rest of the time. I hope we sign him before the season ends.

Grimes wasn't brought here to tackle. He did make a few tackles at some crucial stages. His effort last night was amazing. You could see how much he wanted to win. Wake is the same type of player.

The most disappointing player last night was Wheeler. He's the one you expect to make the tackle in the backfield, not Grimes.

Hartline got screwed twice. He was also interfered with and didn't get the call.

I think clemons has been pretty solid this year.
Did pacman jones have pictures of the refs naked zebra party? WTF first he gets the call for the small pushoff then he gets the no call for the raping of hartline. At least I thought both of those plays involved him.

Egnew's run blocking was pretty good. There was one play where he drove a linebacker from the numbers o out of bounds, effectively playing to the end of the whistle. It's nice to see him on the field, hopefully he can be worked into the passing game soon enough.

Hartline's OPI was bogus. We saw DBs slipping on the field all night. When Pac-Man slipped it was right after contact with Hartline during his break, so it looked worse than it was. I wish Hartline was strong enough to toss DB's around like that.

If we could just call the game over at half time these last two games we would have a good looking team.
The second half has just looked like a different team the D needs a real chance to breath a few first downs would really help.

I really liked what I saw out of Miller. That's what I hoped to see from him all year. I never expected him to be a bell cow, but I thought he could be that 15 carry guy that had a high average and fewer tackles for loss than we had with Bush. I don't think he was stuffed behind the line except for those few plays where we tried to run the zone stretch in the second half. I really wish they'd burn that part of the play book.

People keep talking about Dion Jordan's lack of snaps, and it's a valid discussion, but Olivier Vernon deserves to be on the field too. PFF gave him a +2.9 rating with 5 hurries last night and he was a bit banged up. Mike Mayock was giving him a lot of love. He's vastly improved.

We have so many guys on that line that can do so many good things and that's what is most important, not snap counts. Rotating all these guys also keeps them fresh in crunch time and it paid off last night.

What a great win. I'm still on cloud 9.

"unluckyluciano wrote:

I think clemons has been pretty solid this year.
Did pacman jones have pictures of the refs naked zebra party? WTF first he gets the call for the small pushoff then he gets the no call for the raping of hartline. At least I thought both of those plays involved him.

I think Clemons may be the brains of the secondary. Multiple times I noticed him putting Jones in the right position.

"GridIronKing34 wrote:

I think Clemons may be the brains of the secondary. Multiple times I noticed him putting Jones in the right position.

I feel like Clemons has been a much improved player this year.

"GridIronKing34 wrote:

I think Clemons may be the brains of the secondary. Multiple times I noticed him putting Jones in the right position.

Since he's been the start even his first season he was making calls back there.

Man i could feel Sturgis' butterflies through the tv screen at the end of regulation. He's a young dude, he needed that one to go through so lets hope its all uphill from here.

"GridIronKing34 wrote:

I think Clemons may be the brains of the secondary. Multiple times I noticed him putting Jones in the right position.

Most notably on the safety.

Yeah, I haven't talked about Sturgis, but that kid came up HUGE. I think it was pretty obvious his confidence was shaken, yet he pulled himself together to nail what is up to date the biggest kick of his career.

"Rocky Raccoon wrote:

I feel like Clemons has been a much improved player this year.

AND he plays on special teams.

"Disgustipate wrote:

Lamar Miller is a guy I think could be pretty special if he were handled better. A better run scheme and dedication to running it and I think he could potentially be a premiere back. The last couple weeks his outside rushes have been excellent- He extends the play almost completely to the sidelines to the point you're expecting a minimal gain, and he turns the corner for a 10-yard gain sometimes untouched.

Credit to the coaches for sticking with this even after those outside plays weren't working too well for a while.

"bakedmatt wrote:

AND he plays on special teams.

Good point. I saw that he played over 100 snaps last night. Insane.

"KingMotion wrote:

I'm not saying he's as good as Aldon Smith but the Niners found ways to get Smith in the game his rookie year with 0 starts. Dion Jordan has to get some snaps somehow.

I don't think its a matter of "finding a way". I think this staff is hesitant to start rookies....especially when the spot is already adequately filled.

That Tannehill to Hartline pass on the last drive was so sick. Protection held up, Tannehill threw a dime and Hartline continues to be a magician with his feet on the sidelines. Really happy for Tannehill. He's taken so much heat the past few weeks and he came up HUGE last night. Clutch.

"gunn34 wrote:

Grimes had more good plays then bad ones. He gassed twice on the one run, but balled out the rest of the time. I hope we sign him before the season ends.

I don't think we can. Seems like I read there is some rule of free agency, when you sign a UFA to a 1 yr deal, you cannot extend or resign him until the next new league year starts.

"Disgustipate wrote:

If Dmitri Patterson could stay on the field, he'd be a huge boon to this team. The guy is tied for the league lead in interceptions and has played in 33% of the defensive snaps this year.

Patterson, when he plays, looks great, imo, maybe our best DB. Close coverages when he presses and on slants, makes nice breaks on balls, he doesn't seem too bad at tackling, and he's had an instinct for the ball. His INT last night was really good, but it didn't match the degree of difficulty of the two he had in the Cleveland game. But then, he went down again last night, and all of a sudden RJ Stanford is manning the right CB spot. That's a drop-off. For whatever reason, Patterson just seems like a guy that cannot stay on the field. While I think he can be pretty top notch on the field, he's not a guy I can believe in long-term.

Here's hoping he can for the stretch run, though, because we're a better team with him out there. In fact, we have really good corners when Patterson and Grimes are both out there. (Last night, with Patterson's INT before halftime and Grimes pick-six, those two guys basically accounted for 10 of our 20 points in regulation.)

"Finrunner wrote:

Patterson, when he plays, looks great, imo, maybe our best DB. Close coverages when he presses and on slants, makes nice breaks on balls, he doesn't seem too bad at tackling, and he's had an instinct for the ball. His INT last night was really good, but it didn't match the degree of difficulty of the two he had in the Cleveland game. But then, he went down again last night, and all of a sudden RJ Stanford is manning the right CB spot. That's a drop-off. For whatever reason, Patterson just seems like a guy that cannot stay on the field. While I think he can be pretty top notch on the field, he's not a guy I can believe in long-term.

Here's hoping he can for the stretch run, though, because we're a better team with him out there. In fact, we have really good corners when Patterson and Grimes are both out there. (Last night, with Patterson's INT before halftime and Grimes pick-six, those two guys basically accounted for 10 of our 20 points in regulation.)

when they showed him walking on the sidelines after that he looked as if maybe he had a finger poked in his eye or something. Just a guess, but he was doing wonky things with his eye. hopefully minor