Dolphins@Saints post mortem

A slightly edited version from my Club Post:

Well, Miami ran into a buzzsaw tonight. Not much to be said losing 38-17; New Orleans was the better team. You have to appreciate the way Miami fought until the end though. Jared Odrick and Dion Jordan both had incredible effort plays on the drive that Sproles fumbled the ball. However, Miami shot themselves in the foot tonight, and you're not going to win games when the turnover margin is -3 against you. Miami had this game within reach, and that last TD before the first half was pretty much the dagger. The column changes from Good, Bad, and Bizarre, to Good, Bad, and Very Bad tonight because well, some things were very bad.

Good:
- Lamar Miller is clearly Miami's best back, and it showed tonight. He's got great burst, and I thought he showed some physicality tonight. He was better than Daniel Thomas in pass-pro for the second straight week.
- Mike Sherman showed a little creativity bringing the zone-read (I called this in the Main Forum) and pistol formations tonight.
- Brandon Gibson, at this rate, is going to turn into a better signing than Mike Wallace.
- Charles Clay continues to impress, though you did cost me a victory in fantasy this week.
- Mike Pouncey. If there's a better C in the game, I'd like to see who it is. He's about the only lineman that was worth anything tonight.
- The run defense had a pretty good game overall until the Khiry Robinson drive. That was nice to see.
- Paul Soliai; when healthy, he's pretty good.
- Jared Odrick had a nice game and made some nice plays despite getting flat out pancaked by Jahri Evans (that was REALLY nasty) on one play in the 4th quarter. He had some nice hustle plays, and IMO, was better tonight at DE than OV.
- Marvin Austin showed some things tonight, and played both 1 and 3 techniques for those counting.
- Derrick Shelby was Miami's best DE tonight. It's beyond me that he's not starting over Olivier Vernon. He should be when Wake comes back.
- Brent Grimes quietly had another productive game. Let's call it 3 of 4 for the year. Strangely enough, Cleveland was his worst effort.
- Chris Clemons wasn't injured and came back in the game, so that's a plus.
- Jimmy Wilson I thought did a nice job for what he was asked to do, and caused a fumble.

Bad:
- Mike Sherman abandoned the run a drive to early. Again.
- Ryan Tannehill had a bad night. It happens. Hard to fault him for two of those INTs, but the one that happened before the first half was rough, and squarely on him. His ball security when in the pocket and when running needs to get better. All in all though, I liked how he kept fighting until the end of the game. Last year, I think he would've unraveled pretty quickly. The kid has poise.
- Daniel Thomas just isn't good. There's no way around it.
- Mike Wallace had a bad night, and he's had a rough start to the season. Tannehill threw his best deep ball and hit you in between the 1's in #11. C'mon man! His effort deteriorated at the end of the game as well. He stopped running on one INT and just didn't seem to be in the game the 2nd half. This needs to change.
- Dion Sims was alligator arms tonight on that last deep pass.
- Jon Martin and Richie Incognito, you're in this category tonight. Tyson Clabo is BARELY in this category.
- Olivier Vernon should not be a starter. I hope, if anything, Miami's planning on having Jordan or Shelby take over either this week or after the bye. It's clear that OV is a situational player.
- Dion Jordan? Hello? I thought he could have been used more.
- Jamar Taylor had a rough night.
- So did Reshad Jones, who has had a rough season.

Really Bad:
- John Jerry was a catastrophe tonight. Getting blown off the line, losing 1-on-1's regularly, on the ground too much. I'll lump Jim Turner in with this category. Miami's on pace to allow the most sacks in franchise history. 18 in 4 games? Really?
- Kevin Coyle...that was awful. Two weeks in a row his game plans have stunk. And I mean they've been really bad. No one was physical at the line all night with Jimmy Graham. How many times was Darren Sproles left running in the flats without anyone near him? That's kiddie $h!t. How is it possible you give up conversions on 3rd and 12, 12, 14, and 20? It's not even poor execution, it's poorly designed defense. More of the same on tipping blitzes this week as well. Miami's total (yardage) defense was only like 21st or 22nd coming into this game, so it's not like it's been overly good this year. I feel like Coyle could do so much more with this personnel, and what he's done overall so far this year, it's just not working. I wonder if Miami would be better off going to more 3-4 (i.e. Under and Over) oriented looks. They did it more tonight than any game so far in base packages, though still not as often as last year, and lo and behold they had their best rush-defense performance all year...but that might have backfired as it put the ball in Drew Brees' hands even more, and he was surgical.

All things considered though, if Miami rebounds on a short week and beats Baltimore, they'll be 4-1 heading into the bye with a chance to get healthy. I thought at best, Miami would be 2-3 at that point, so I'm very pleased with how this season has started. I love the direction that Ryan Tannehill's headed in, and if they would just rely on Lamar Miller and the ground game more, this offense could be pretty potent. I'm worried about the defense though. Very worried. I was worried after Atlanta, and Drew Brees showed us tonight that this side of the ball clearly has holes. Hopefully Miami's able to get these sorted out during the off week after the Baltimore game. Go Dolphins!

The fact that that we are 3-1 cushions the blow from tonight's loss. I ust don't want to heat the usual dip****tery from those in the media.

Tanny had a bad game but he will bounce back.

Did Dion do anything tonight? Seemed pretty quiet and it'd kind of amplified w/ living up here in Ohio (God's country) and seeing the good things that Barkevius is doing for the Browns. Wd like to see some of the same from him. And I hate alligator arms and shoestring tackles. Pick up your damn feet, your a running back!

Hoo. Tanny looked like Brady with wheels all the way up to the first int. It REALLY seemed he got "it" into his head. He wasn't throwing accurate passes after that. Damn shame. I'm curious to see how he responds next game. EDIT- Oh I almost forgot! 3-1 is pretty darned good any way you slice it. Fins lost to a damn good team. Nothing to be mad or depressed about!

"Hooty wrote:

Hoo. Tanny looked like Brady with wheels all the way up to the first int. It REALLY seemed he got "it" into his head. He wasn't throwing accurate passes after that. Damn shame. I'm curious to see how he responds next game. EDIT- Oh I almost forgot! 3-1 is pretty darned good any way you slice it. Fins lost to a damn good team. Nothing to be mad or depressed about!

I'm pissed that Mike Wallace isn't making plays and dropping the football.
Geez it hit him dead on. The accuracy was there. Wallace seems to be distracted.

Really be interesting to see how the team rebounds from this.

Pretty thorough thrashing.

"WhiteIbanez wrote:

I'm pissed that Mike Wallace isn't making plays and dropping the football.
Geez it hit him dead on. The accuracy was there. Wallace seems to be distracted.

Hoo. Oh totally agree with you bud. That deep ball to Wallace was perfect. That was such a pretty pass and such a terrible attempt to haul it in. Wallace is a buster. Like I said, He looked GREAT, yeah great up until that first int. After that, he started throwing some balls into the dirt, behind some guys. Not every pass, just some. But to me, he looked rattled. I could be totally off, maybe it was just the bad protection.

John Jerry really should be benched, he's literally a menace on the field, if Turner cannot see how crappy he is playing, and has played, then he should look to draw a paycheck elsewhere b/c his lines performance is pure garbage.

I think THill trusts the OL, and hold the ball b/c of it

Think Wheeler and Ellerbe are good players in general but are more pieces then answers, they are not the types who can do it all.

Thought Sherman lost his balls

Could someone please explain to me how Thigpen has 1 touch, and a 50 yd gain, then never touches the ball on offense again, how does that happen.

Think Tannehill has to realize that it is on him, the D can only do so much, he has to internalize that when we play a high scoring offense he simply cannot play as sloppily as he did tonight.

Basically, he has to put on his big boy pants, he does not understand it yet, he's trying, he's not doing, he needs to own this one.

http://youtu.be/Tie0tz7jGDI

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 4

"RoninFin4 wrote:

A slightly edited version from my Club Post:Well, Miami ran into a buzzsaw tonight. Not much to be said losing 38-17; New Orleans was the better team. You have to appreciate the way Miami fought until the end though. Jared Odrick and Dion Jordan both had incredible effort plays on the drive that Sproles fumbled the ball. However, Miami shot themselves in the foot tonight, and you're not going to win games when the turnover margin is -3 against you. Miami had this game within reach, and that last TD before the first half was pretty much the dagger. The column changes from Good, Bad, and Bizarre, to Good, Bad, and Very Bad tonight because well, some things were very bad.Good:- Lamar Miller is clearly Miami's best back, and it showed tonight. He's got great burst, and I thought he showed some physicality tonight. He was better than Daniel Thomas in pass-pro for the second straight week.- Mike Sherman showed a little creativity bringing the zone-read (I called this in the Main Forum) and pistol formations tonight.- Brandon Gibson, at this rate, is going to turn into a better signing than Mike Wallace.- Charles Clay continues to impress, though you did cost me a victory in fantasy this week.- Mike Pouncey. If there's a better C in the game, I'd like to see who it is. He's about the only lineman that was worth anything tonight. - The run defense had a pretty good game overall until the Khiry Robinson drive. That was nice to see.- Paul Soliai; when healthy, he's pretty good. - Jared Odrick had a nice game and made some nice plays despite getting flat out pancaked by Jahri Evans (that was REALLY nasty) on one play in the 4th quarter. He had some nice hustle plays, and IMO, was better tonight at DE than OV.- Marvin Austin showed some things tonight, and played both 1 and 3 techniques for those counting.- Derrick Shelby was Miami's best DE tonight. It's beyond me that he's not starting over Olivier Vernon. He should be when Wake comes back.- Brent Grimes quietly had another productive game. Let's call it 3 of 4 for the year. Strangely enough, Cleveland was his worst effort.- Chris Clemons wasn't injured and came back in the game, so that's a plus.- Jimmy Wilson I thought did a nice job for what he was asked to do, and caused a fumble.Bad:- Mike Sherman abandoned the run a drive to early. Again. - Ryan Tannehill had a bad night. It happens. Hard to fault him for two of those INTs, but the one that happened before the first half was rough, and squarely on him. His ball security when in the pocket and when running needs to get better. All in all though, I liked how he kept fighting until the end of the game. Last year, I think he would've unraveled pretty quickly. The kid has poise.- Daniel Thomas just isn't good. There's no way around it.- Mike Wallace had a bad night, and he's had a rough start to the season. Tannehill threw his best deep ball and hit you in between the 1's in #11. C'mon man! His effort deteriorated at the end of the game as well. He stopped running on one INT and just didn't seem to be in the game the 2nd half. This needs to change.- Dion Sims was alligator arms tonight on that last deep pass.- Jon Martin and Richie Incognito, you're in this category tonight. Tyson Clabo is BARELY in this category.- Olivier Vernon should not be a starter. I hope, if anything, Miami's planning on having Jordan or Shelby take over either this week or after the bye. It's clear that OV is a situational player.- Dion Jordan? Hello? I thought he could have been used more. - Jamar Taylor had a rough night.- So did Reshad Jones, who has had a rough season.Really Bad:- John Jerry was a catastrophe tonight. Getting blown off the line, losing 1-on-1's regularly, on the ground too much. I'll lump Jim Turner in with this category. Miami's on pace to allow the most sacks in franchise history. 18 in 4 games? Really?- Kevin Coyle...that was awful. Two weeks in a row his game plans have stunk. And I mean they've been really bad. No one was physical at the line all night with Jimmy Graham. How many times was Darren Sproles left running in the flats without anyone near him? That's kiddie $h!t. How is it possible you give up conversions on 3rd and 12, 12, 14, and 20? It's not even poor execution, it's poorly designed defense. More of the same on tipping blitzes this week as well. Miami's total (yardage) defense was only like 21st or 22nd coming into this game, so it's not like it's been overly good this year. I feel like Coyle could do so much more with this personnel, and what he's done overall so far this year, it's just not working. I wonder if Miami would be better off going to more 3-4 (i.e. Under and Over) oriented looks. They did it more tonight than any game so far in base packages, though still not as often as last year, and lo and behold they had their best rush-defense performance all year...but that might have backfired as it put the ball in Drew Brees' hands even more, and he was surgical. All things considered though, if Miami rebounds on a short week and beats Baltimore, they'll be 4-1 heading into the bye with a chance to get healthy. I thought at best, Miami would be 2-3 at that point, so I'm very pleased with how this season has started. I love the direction that Ryan Tannehill's headed in, and if they would just rely on Lamar Miller and the ground game more, this offense could be pretty potent. I'm worried about the defense though. Very worried. I was worried after Atlanta, and Drew Brees showed us tonight that this side of the ball clearly has holes. Hopefully Miami's able to get these sorted out during the off week after the Baltimore game. Go Dolphins!

Haha about charles clay and your fantasy. I started him with gronk out and finley on the bye, down by 9 points. Clay had 10! Silver lining for me.

"padre31 wrote:

John Jerry really should be benched, he's literally a menace on the field, if Turner cannot see how crappy he is playing, and has played, then he should look to draw a paycheck elsewhere b/c his lines performance is pure garbage.

I think THill trusts the OL, and hold the ball b/c of it

Think Wheeler and Ellerbe are good players in general but are more pieces then answers, they are not the types who can do it all.

Thought Sherman lost his balls

Could someone please explain to me how Thigpen has 1 touch, and a 50 yd gain, then never touches the ball on offense again, how does that happen.

Think Tannehill has to realize that it is on him, the D can only do so much, he has to internalize that when we play a high scoring offense he simply cannot play as sloppily as he did tonight.

Basically, he has to put on his big boy pants, he does not understand it yet, he's trying, he's not doing, he needs to own this one.

Damn shame, great team we played, wish it had gone better.

I think people are a bit hard on Tannehill. I actually liked his play tonight all things considered. Considering

1. Wallace dropped a game-changing bomb
2. Wallace dropped a drive-continuing pass
3. The first pick was his fault, but it was a dialed up quick slant. He's impressed me with them before but it just looks like he didn't look tonight.
4. The pocket collapsed too much on the poor kid. Hard to ask too much of him when he's running for his life.

The team looked like they gave up at one point, but Tannehill went back out there and drove the field for a beautiful TD to clay.

All things consisted it could have been worse. I think we might have our guy.

"padre31 wrote:

John Jerry really should be benched, he's literally a menace on the field, if Turner cannot see how crappy he is playing, and has played, then he should look to draw a paycheck elsewhere b/c his lines performance is pure garbage.

I think THill trusts the OL, and hold the ball b/c of it

Think Wheeler and Ellerbe are good players in general but are more pieces then answers, they are not the types who can do it all.

Thought Sherman lost his balls

Could someone please explain to me how Thigpen has 1 touch, and a 50 yd gain, then never touches the ball on offense again, how does that happen.

Think Tannehill has to realize that it is on him, the D can only do so much, he has to internalize that when we play a high scoring offense he simply cannot play as sloppily as he did tonight.

Basically, he has to put on his big boy pants, he does not understand it yet, he's trying, he's not doing, he needs to own this one.

Propped you for the Thigpen comment alone. That makes zero sense.

Wheeler and Ellerbe are good players that depend on Wake. Can't explain how much us not having him out there hurts this team.

Tannehill needs to pick his spots better. I put a lot of that on our OL and it's lack of consistency to be fair.

Good luck the rest of the year guys. I'd like to see you at the end but I think Denver and Seattle are going to be tough. We definitely need to find a way to run the ball and stop the run if we want to get there this year.

Hard to explain Dafins, think of it this way, when Tyson fought a scrub boxer, he boxed down to his opponent, when he fought Lennox Lewis he had his A game on.

THill has to realize he has to bring his A game, no mistakes, he has not quite discovered his higher game yet.

"Saint Greg wrote:

Good luck the rest of the year guys. I'd like to see you at the end but I think Denver and Seattle are going to be tough. We definitely need to find a way to run the ball and stop the run if we want to get there this year.

You need to keep the RB screens up and you'll be fine.

We got SEA covered, DEN is a problem.

"Saint Greg wrote:

Good luck the rest of the year guys. I'd like to see you at the end but I think Denver and Seattle are going to be tough. We definitely need to find a way to run the ball and stop the run if we want to get there this year.

Helluva game by you guys man. People here are crapping themselves by how "bad" we played but IMO it was just Nawlins playing a damn good game, gotta give credit where it;s due. Good luck on the rest of the season.

If I have one gripe I thought Payton was trying to run up the score late. Kind of a douche move there but whatever, if we played better it wouldn't have been an issue.

"slickj101 wrote:

Propped you for the Thigpen comment alone. That makes zero sense.

Wheeler and Ellerbe are good players that depend on Wake. Can't explain how much us not having him out there hurts this team.

Tannehill needs to pick his spots better. I put a lot of that on our OL and it's lack of consistency to be fair.

Missing Kraken should not have made the D dysfunctional, yet Brees pretty much did whatever he wanted to against them, to me, not a fan of Nolan Carroll.

Hopefully Dimitri Patterson comes back to us, we miss his playmaking ability.

NC is Jason Allen w/o the ability to create turnovers

That play call on 3rd and a centimeter was just awful and IMO, changed the whole tone of the game.

"padre31 wrote:

Missing Kraken should not have made the D dysfunctional, yet Brees pretty much did whatever he wanted to against them, to me, not a fan of Nolan Carroll.

Hopefully Dimitri Patterson comes back to us, we miss his playmaking ability.

NC is Jason Allen w/o the ability to create turnovers

Sure it does. Takes away the best pass rusher in the league and we can't replace it.

Nolan Carroll is all or nothing and it's ******ed. That 3rd and 11 that he sold out to jump for a pick 6 and missed was just stupid.

"Finfangirl wrote:

That play call on 3rd and a centimeter was just awful and IMO, changed the whole tone of the game.

Lamar Miller could of taken that outside in either direction. Daniel Thomas had no chance. Poor coaching decision.

"padre31 wrote:

Hard to explain Dafins, think of it this way, when Tyson fought a scrub boxer, he boxed down to his opponent, when he fought Lennox Lewis he had his A game on.

THill has to realize he has to bring his A game, no mistakes, he has not quite discovered his higher game yet.

And when Tyson fought a guy he dodged for years he bit his ear off. You make no sense at all. Then he lost again to Evander again.
You are using that as an angle at Tannehill. It is way past your bedtime.

"Finfangirl wrote:

That play call on 3rd and a centimeter was just awful and IMO, changed the whole tone of the game.

Dial up a QB sneak. It was open. Sherman was pulling a Dan Henning on that call.

"WhiteIbanez wrote:

Dial up a QB sneak. It was open. Sherman was pulling a Dan Henning on that call.

Agreed, if our 6'4" qb couldn't get one inch, there's a problem. Or run the fd dive. Or if you must use DT, use his strength' bullying people at the line. Or better yet run Play action and roll RT out.... so many options.

"Finfangirl wrote:

Agreed, if our 6'4" qb couldn't get one inch, there's a problem. Or run the fd dive. Or if you must use DT, use his strength' bullying people at the line. Or better yet run Play action and roll RT out.... so many options.

On third and inches you never hand the ball off in the backfield or get cute with a rollout. You use a QB sneak and get the first down. That was the crux. You won't beat that team kicking FG's even with Sturgis.