Dolphins’ offense delivers, defense disintegrates in 29-28 heartbreaker

Good read.
It was a loss and a disappointment but there were positives even though the negatives stood out more. Miami will lose games in this rebuild mode but we can hope for gradual improvement while the players needed are brought in.
As Bill Parcells said that there was no talent on this team, its probably a difficult job for our coaches to best use the available talent we have to be competitive as they try to aquire the players needed to make this a good team.

Offense scored well. But they squandered a few chances as well. The D of course is more to blame, but it's a team game, you pick up where your teammates slack off. Convert some more of those 3rd downs why don't they?

We didn't help the defense out in the first half either.

I feel bad for our front 7. Langford and Porter looked great, again.

I realized earlier that Miami should be playing Houston again next season. I wonder if they'll ever beat those guys.

I'm sorry I just can't agree with your findings, completely. It is a team sport and for us to win all parts must be running well. We don't have a great offense or defense and our Special teams, which was to be a strong suit, is in fact very bad!!

When you have an offense which can't convert 3rd downs, until the 4th quarter, and a Special teams unit which gives the other team 10 points, plus a defensive unit that hands you 3 turnovers; you can't blame the loss on the defense. Not in my book. If anything offensive play calling is more suspect than the defense on our team.

This link says it all for me.

Dolphins fail to build long drives

And I quote:

Re-establishing the Dolphins' ball-control offense would be a good place to begin.

In the wins against New England and San Diego, Miami held a decided edge in time of possession - a combined 69:14 to 50:46.

On Sunday, Miami's inability to sustain drives gave Houston's Matt Schaub, who finished with 379 passing yards, more chances to capitalize on the Dolphins struggling pass defense.

Houston finished with a 32:17 to 27:43 edge in time of possession, ran 70 offensive plays compared with 51 for Miami, and had nearly twice as many first downs (23-to-14) as the Dolphins, who had four in the first half.
"That happens when you don't convert on third down," Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said. "We didn't stay on the field."

The Dolphins finished 2-of-10 on third-down conversions, picking up their first on a 10-yard pass from Pennington to Davone Bess with 11:49 remaining in the game.

Pennington said the problems began early in drives. The Dolphins averaged 2.3 yards on first down during the first half.

Of their seven drives in that half, five went fewer than 10 yards.

I rest my case.:wink2:

"gafinfan wrote:

I'm sorry I just can't agree with your findings, completely. It is a team sport and for us to win all parts must be running well. We don't have a great offense or defense and our Special teams, which was to be a strong suit, is in fact very bad!!

When you have an offense which can't convert 3rd downs, until the 4th quarter, and a Special teams unit which gives the other team 10 points, plus a defensive unit that hands you 3 turnovers; you can't blame the loss on the defense. Not in my book. If anything offensive play calling is more suspect than the defense on our team.

This link says it all for me.

Dolphins fail to build long drives

And I quote:

I rest my case.:wink2:

I can only assume that you didn't really read my column. The point I made is that our offense put together a go-ahead touchdown drive late in the game; something we hadn't seen this year. We also failed to stop our opponent from putting together their own go-ahead touchdown drive thereafter, which is why we lost.

There were various other factors (special teams and lack of clock control are just two of them) that contributed to the loss, but it's fairly straightforward in most people's eyes that had our defense made the stop on that final Texans drive (god knows they had the opportunities) Miami would have won the game.

The Dolphins were pitiful on 3rd down. Our Oline was dominated. It says a lot that on 4th and inches, we punt the ball. Especially since we've gone for it a few times (and have been successful). There were a few other occasions.

Like the Dolphins of old, we're to conservative with a lead. No aggression, no confidence. Put the game on the defense and hope they won't **** up. Problem is, we played to conservative on D too, at the end.