Rivers is a really good quarterback.

 

Agreed.

Also, the Branch contract is horrible. He wasnt good last year and he's not improved. Rivers is a great QB and i trust Wake and Suh to get more pressure on the QB, but i'd prefer Hayes to be out there significantly more than Branch. Hayes was such an underrated addition. such an improvement with him out there against the run.

I also really wish we either went LB in the draft or went harder after better LB's in free agency. We have pretty much the exact same LB unit from last year on a team that had a terrible LB core.

And maybe its just me because a lot of people seem to be really high on Howard and it takes time for Cb's to get used to the NFL, but i just dont see it with him. Next year we need to go hard in the draft on faster LB's and cover corners because it has been our weakness for years now.

 

Defense wasn't all bad. Our run defense, which was absolutely horrendous last year, held the Chargers to only 44 total rushing yards. Have to give them credit too. But yeah pass defense was bad. At least we get the Jets to help iron out some things before facing the Saints.

 

we lack talent on the 2nd and 3rd levels. The talent is upfront and we need to figure out a way to rush the passer to help the entire unit

 

Yeah, this D is in trouble.

 

I'd like to see how bad the LB's and DB's are if we can just get a "decent" pass rush in

 

I agree that that will definitely help a lot, but I think those LB's especially are gonna be that bad no matter what with that personnel.

 

Timmons back helps and Maulauga (spelling) is an upgrade potentially. We cant have those Lbs in coverage with zero pass rush


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This was first game of the year, on the west coast, and coming out of a hurricane. Hopefully they will settle into a Grove and play better ball going forward, but yes the D was cringe worthy yesterday. I wasn't overall impressed in with our O either but again first game on the road and all of that. We came away with a W and chargers are a solid team. It was ugly but it was a good win.

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I completely forgot about Maualuga coming back too. He's very average but even an average starting LB would be a huge upgrade. I'd really like to see how our LB's perform if we go with Rey, Alonso, and Timmons. You could do worse than that.

 

Defend the run and they did that. Sure it wasn't perfect but look at what they had to overcome. Asking more is just being unrealistic.


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I am worried about present and future pass rush.Wake is 35 and sooner or later father time is going to say it's over for him.
If it's this year who do we turn to for pass rush.Branch was a WTF signing to me. Love Haynes but he's a run stuffer and Charles Harris has shown nothing since the pads came on.
I am thinking when we get to the tough part of the schedule it's going to be like the old marino days.Need to score 30 to win.
At least with this offence it will be fun to watch.

 

Here we go again.

 

I truly believe if we came out of the gate at peak form, people would be freaking out that we're going to run out of gas before the season is over.

 

We had trouble practicing, we had emotional issues: which definitively affects you from a physical performance standpoint. Also typically your first game is when you have more conditioning issues and we did.

The defense had energy early on but it waned.

Basically we did just fine considering everything. I think the team shows better this coming week as we are back to somewhat normal routine. There comes a point in life where one doesn't react to everything. It's a nice feeling.

 

Well I am happy for the win and I am heading to metlife with the family to see 2-0!

 

We played that game with 4 LB's. One of whom is a starter, the other three should be playing ST's and waiting for their chance, Mike Hull played a pretty good game. Chase Allen in his first game played a pretty good game. It's amazing San Diego didn't just line up w/ 2 TE's and blow us off the ball every play. Credit Suh and Phillips for that.

 

2nd round pick was the best LB on the board and one of the top 3 in the draft. Timmons was the best available FA LB. They were both supposed to be starters. The depth from last year is the same, if you mean Hull. New crew otherwise except for Kiko. I think they addressed LB needs pretty well actually.

 

I was also disappointed in howard.On 13 targets he gave up 10 receptions for 87 yards.I kept hearing he looks like he is going to be a shutdown corner this year by the south flordia media.Hopefully he will improve as season goes along.

 

I really want to see that too, a strong pass rush can cover a lot of holes. But I'm not sure our LBs are good enough to let our ends push up. Its really a double edged sword for us. If our D-line pushes too hard they will create holes, and our LB's either step up, or get exposed in the run game. Being down 3 LB for the first game of the season had us looking really bad.

 

Timmons wasnt the best FA LB available. And i didnt like the Kiko Alonso contract because I think he i way overrated by dolphins fans relative to his actual skillset.

 

Not sure that is really true... all the LBs were terrible in coverage and Rivers was getting the ball fast as to negate our pass rush. Not sure how anyone determined that Howard was "targeted" 13 times. He kept having to come up or over to make tackles or funnel ball carriers. Just because he was making the stops or the pass play was happening on his side, did not mean he was being targeted.

For all of River's completions, he only threw 1 TD and that was to Gates against safety Allen, I think. Against the Broncos, he threw 3 TDs. We still held them to 17 points and 1 TD. TMM, that means Howard was doing his job.

 

If Rivers was getting the ball out fast to negate our pass rush and our CB's and LB's were still getting torched, that is even more worrisome.

And your last sentence is just completely wrong. No need to even go into why that is so wrong.

 

You're so wrong on so many things.

Tunsil had one play where he looked like he spaced, but otherwise he played well. I do agree that he can play better though.

Howard was above average.

Maxwell sucked and saying he was better than anyone on defense is a joke.

Hull was actually decent in coverage. It seems you don't know what to look for and/or the reasons it may have LOOKED as if he was in coverage and wasn't.

Jones looked rusty.

Kiko played really well.

Suh dominated. Wake was held on every play (as usual). Harris created a few hurries and made some good tackles.

Overall the defense gets a B. Not many teams are going to stop Rivers. Especially when their offense is fully healthy. However, how many yards rushing did they have? Rivers is a HoF QB who put up 21 points on Denver's defense. The Dolphins held them to 17.

 

Cuch is 100% right in everything he wrote except the part about the LB'ers being "horrible" in coverage.

 

Enlighten me. If you're going to dog Howard, then break it down. He gave up zero TDs and I'm not buying that he was "targeted" 13 times for 87 yards without some proof of that. Allen, Henry, and Gordon out of the backfield were exploiting our lack of LB speed and the LB's inability to cover.

 

Exactly. I think most of these stats are from PFF and PFF doesn't know who was supposed to be covering who and ASSUME a lot. Howard was decent.

 

Yes... agree with you on Howard.

I like PFF for post game review and mid to end of season stats, but their "in-game" assessments before tape review is completely bogus. There is no way that they can make snap judgments on plays and assign responsibility and grades accurately.

 

The thing that got me with the defense was it was pretty clear that SD was doing whatever they could to get the ball out quick for fear of our DL breaking Rivers into several pieces. Yet we still gave up far too much cushion I thought which allowed them to really get the ball out quick and easy. Now the D did it's job keeping the play in front of them, and getting guys to the ground, but I would have liked to see us get a bit more aggressive trying to disrupt that quick passing that was negating the pass rush IMO. Maybe they were afraid of getting burnt deep, I don't know. Maybe it was as simple as thinking their tackling would be good enough and if they kept it in front of them, they'd be fine. I think they also expected we'd score more points on offense and it wouldn't be as close so you can approach the D that way. I don't know for certain.

To me, there's cause for some concern in the secondary IMO. Communication, and coverage wasn't good enough. It was our first live game though.

I'm not concerned by the pass rush because it seemed like SD gameplanned to take them out of the game with quick passes, but that's where you need to tackle well, and we did that, but as I said I'd have liked to see us be more aggressive at the line with our DB's on their WR's. The pass rush got some pressure when they had the time to get home when SD tried going downfield more. The shoulda been INT by Allen was pressured by Harris, Hayes was effective, Branch too, Wake got mugged a lot I felt, but that's normal now unfortunately.

I'm not concerned with the interior DL. They showed they were ready, and we stopped the run well. Hull wasn't as bad as I thought he'd be, and Alonso was effective for the most part.

Ultimately, it's just to early to be this concerned IMO. It's one game, our first, their second with a week of odd circumstances. There's some things to clean up, no doubt, but I'm not going to panic yet. I don't think this unit will be top 10, maybe not even top 15 in the league, and they're going to get beat by some of the better passing attacks in the league I think, but they're young, maybe they'll grow into it as the season goes on. That being said, I think they're going to hold their own and do enough to win us games just like last year.

 

How about we concede that holding Rivers and Gordon to under 20 points is pretty good.

The Red Zone offence could be more of a concern.

 

While I do think our defense needs to get better, all things considered (away game on the west coast, Hurricane worries, Timmons AWOL on eve of game, playing against a good QB in Rivers, etc) they did not play a terrible game.

And, by the way, I think this Chargers team is very good, don't let their 0-2 record fool you. They are a good kicker away from probably being 2-0 instead of 0-2. They'll be fighting for one of the wildcard spots by week 14, IMO.

 

I too, think the freaking out about this game is a little much...buuuuuuutttttt...we really held them to 23 pts. They put themselves in easy FG range and their kicker blew it twice.

 

Holding them to 23 points is still ok, IMO. Last season they averaged 25,6 points/game, I'm thinking they get at least close to that number again this season.

 

Oh yeah, I'm not worried about this game at all. I don't really think how our team played or how our staff called the game is indicative of anything other than we've probably had the worst offseason in the NFL this year.

I just think you have to count "kicker to blame" missed field goals as points the defense allowed.

 

For what its worth pro football focus.

The rumors continue to swirl that Miami has had extensive talks with the Seahawks about cornerback Richard Sherman. The Dolphins’ secondary struggled mightily vs LA, in particular, the play of second-year cornerback Xavien Howard.

CB Xavien Howard was targeted a league-high 13 times in Week 2 and allowed 10 receptions for 87 yards on the afternoon (also a league-high). His overall grade of 46.8 ranked 62nd of all CBs in Week 2.

 

I don't think Burke's coverage calls necessarily put the DBs in the best position to shine. Vance Joseph seems to bring the best out of DBs in a way that Burke does not. But it's early and we have not seen much of Burke yet. Maybe that evolves and improves. Maybe it's just a case of the DBs learning the new things Burke may have installed.

 

Yeah, I know that came from PFF, but it's BS without any context.

Rivers completed 31 passes. They are claiming that 13 of 31 (42%) were against Howard. I'm not buying that.

 

I think it was more of the Chargers' receivers finding the right spots in the zone. I believe the goal was to get Rivers to throw a bad ball to the boundary through safety and linebacker blitzes, but this is all anecdotal memory. The blitzes weren't really getting there, and the throws were usually in the seam or in between zones. This is what probably hurt Howard's PFF rating. I remember Mike Hull and Byron Maxwell making more mistakes than Xavien Howard. If, however, the team is planning on making the opposition one-dimensional, then we really DO need to tighten up our pass rush.

They had way too many first downs (roughly 80% of their first downs were through the air), a high per-play passing average, and we couldn't create any turnovers through our pass rush. We were in nickel a whole lot, mind you! The biggest mistake they made, I believe, was abandoning their run game. They averaged 3.1 yards a rush, .4 yards less than us, both not stellar. The difference? We ran the ball 32 times, and they ran it 14. 14! It's hard to tell whether or not we forced their hand in throwing it through the air, or it was just too damn easy to throw it on Sunday that they didn't bother running it at all. It was probably a little bit of both. Gase is great at remaining patient and calling a balanced attack.

So yeah, I think this defense can be great if we keep other teams one-dimensional. For that to fully happen, though, we need to start getting QBs into bad throws with our pass rush, schemed blitzes or 4-man, doesn't matter. Then, passer rating on our cornerbacks won't really matter if they're getting a ton of interceptions!

 

It's not true. lol..it's as if PFF just assigns coverage responsibility by proximity instead of the actual coverage.