When you look at how bad the Dolphins have performed in the last month and how far several of their players have fallen in the rankings... ...and then consider that they almost made the Play-offs despite it all, it's amazing. With the addition of a couple solid Guards and a DT next year , this team will walk into the Play-offs.
In other injury-excuse news, the Cardinals have now lost their...best/anchor DLineman (Dockett), starting QB who was undefeated (Palmer), key edge-rusher (Abraham), stud LB (Washington), and top 3 RBs (Ellington, Mendenhall, Dwyer). They are 11-3.
They are 3-2 since Palmer went down. Here is their scoring per game: 14,3,18,17,12 (Basically 15 per game). Gahd that's ugly. Zona played balanced in wins 32/26, 30/33, 30/33. Opponents who lost to them, Det, KC, STL did not. They did the same thing Lazor is doing. We cannot put the ball in RT's hands and rely on him to win by playing unbalanced. He is not that kind of QB. It's like askin Drew Stanton or Shaun Hill to throw 35-40 times a game. Not a good recipe for success.
Just goes to show what having a great team around you can do. They are better at about every major position group than the Dolphins are. They also have a championship level defense which of course we do not. Our Defense has been exposed against the run and closing out games when it matters. Poor talent acquisition has killed us. We traded 2 high level draft picks for Jordan who to this point has substantially underachieved. We also signed 2 FA LB's who have been abysmal failures. I think the biggest thing that separates great teams from average teams is they get production out of their mid round picks. We have been abysmal at the 2nd round and 3rd round draft picks. The last 5 years in those rounds is case study of what not to do.
I've been arguing for a couple of weeks in other threads that Albert is the team MVP this year. Even with the injury. His loss is evidence of it, imo. He solidified the line. He played the most significant position on the line (though I know LT is not as significant as it used to be, it still is the QB blind side and key). And, when he went down we basically had two new players (rookie going to LT and a pitiful RT). The OL play was significantly better in the first half of the season than it was last year and that was, imo, one central key to the offensive production.
Yeah gosh, games won on the shoulders of your defense don't count, last I heard. The Rams were red hot, fwiw, two straight blowout shutouts. Again...this "championship level defense" as someone called them above have all year been without their best DLineman, best LB, and best edge rusher. And yet...they're shutting people down. That's what a good HC and coaching staff will do for you. In Miami we lose one OLineman and everything turns to crap, our playoff chances squashed, so this thread suggests. It's a sign of weak coaching, acquisition, and development.
It's obvious. Todd Bowles is awesome ( also Bruce Arians ) and Ross made a huge mistake in not Hiring Bowles. Let's bring him home with the right choice this year.
If you've bothered to read my posts, I've been hanging plenty of blame on the defense all year. I was pretty clearly talking about the offensive side of things.