I really hate to rain on the parade. Honest I do. The Dolphins just beat the Jets and that's a good thing no matter how you slice it. But...
Just so we're all still aware, we haven't won two games in a row since the beginning of the season. We also haven't lost two games in a row since the loss to New England on Monday night.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with trend analysis -
W OT 3-2 @ Green Bay Packers
L 3-3 Pittsburgh Steelers
W 4-3 @ Cincinnati Bengals
L 4-4 @ Baltimore Ravens
W 5-4 Tennessee Titans
L 5-5 Chicago Bears
W 6-5 @ Oakland Raiders
L 6-6 Cleveland Browns
W 7-6 @ New York Jets
L 7-7 Buffalo Bills
L 7-8 Detroit Lions
If I were a betting man, I'd put a big chunk of change on Buffalo to win that game. I can hear some of you now: "We won't lose to Buffalo! They're terrible!" To those folks I say, We lost to a Jake Delhomme led Browns team. AT HOME. And that's the problem with this season. We go into Oakland for an impressive victory and then lay an egg at home against a Browns team that is decent, but who at that point in time were led by not only one of the worst quarterbacks in the league today, but one of the worst players period.
Where is the problem? Inconsistent QB play is a huge part. Dan Hennings offensive playcalling isn't helping either. But when you have this kind of identifiable trend I think it points to a coaching issue as well. Obviously Sparano seems to be able to motivate the team after the loss. Why can't he keep them motivated after a win?
This will be a huge game this week. If we can't beat Buffalo at home this tells me we have a serious problem with coaching. It's the coaches job to keep players from having a letdown after big victories and to me that just isn't happening this year. I hope Sparano can prove me wrong this week.
And if we do lose to the Bills this week, put everything you have on Miami against the Lions...
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The Buffalo game is also gonna be played down here at home, so there's that as well.
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True, but is home field "advantage" really that big a "disadvantage" for us? Or is it more a case of Sparano not doing a good enough job from preventing letdowns after victories?
Probably a bit of both, but if you look at the Ravens and the Titans game, they fall in line with the "see-saw" theory. We lost on the road and then won at home. -
Buffalo is playing well enough to make it a game against anyone. Their problem is that they haven't learned to win. Really, they're no different from us in that regard. We are inconsistent, but so are they. In fact, they're more consistent at finding ways to lose. I don't know that the odds of us bouncing back poorly from a win are any greater than the odds of Buffalo bouncing back poorly from their win.
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Very good point. If we were 11-2 right now, I'd still be worried about Buffalo. The fact that we can't seem to win 2 in a row just makes this game that much scarier.rafael likes this.
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Why the hell didn't I bet my life savings on Buffalo?
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...and there's another loss
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Updated thread. Look at that streak. Sadly comical and completely inexcusable, and you have the coaches to blame here. When you see a trend like this, a team that can get up and beat good teams on their field and lose to dogs at home, it's coaching. Dan Henning being the worst offender, but also Sparano for allowing it to continue.
Clean house. -
Well at least we broke the pattern with that pathetic loss yesterday.