Meant to ask you Deej:

I compared Wake to Terrel Suggs, you sort of were not buying it, still of the same mind?

Have to think Nolan is loving all of the toys he has to work with on the Defense, in Denver he had Bailey and Dumervil and that was about it, in Miami two young and up and coming Cb's, and keep an eye on N Carroll as they had little problem sticking him at boundary Cb, Starks, Langford, Soliai, Odrick and Merling coming back, Misi moving into yr #2, keep an eye on Koa as that cat can run sideline to sideline and he has a knack of picking up the fumbles Wake Creates. Christmas came early for DC Nolan.

per our very own PhinsRock:

[video=youtube;pYzfXPXOOFU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYzfXPXOOFU[/video]

 

I miss Al Harris.

 

BADASS To The Bone DJ. Misi, Smith, Starks, and Langford are not far behind Fab Four projections.

Need to sign Solia to a new contract and exted Wake past 2012. They were talking before the lockout but, were not close to a new deal for Wake. He's only getting $400 and $500 K this and next year.

 

That video makes me miss football. This part of the year sucks and the lockout ain't helping.

 

I hope the team is as pissed off as Dolphins fans are, man this past yr just sucked, we started out 2-0 and had a good shot at the playoffs and the wheels came off, the D folded like a napkin v the pats, just left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

I think the one thing they lack Deej is the will to dominate an opponent, that is something the Ravens and Steelers have that this unit does not have, could be due to all of the youth but I never got the sense that the unit as a whole really wanted to be "great" they were more or less happy to be there and playing football.

IMHO.

 

To me, what we lack is that sort of ultra physical ILB who fires everyone up.

 

The thing I like is that most of those guys are our guys. Dansby is honorary. They're going to be here for a while tearing it up.

 

That is kind of the thing Deej, consider Bart Scott in NY, he is sort of the leader of the Lb Corps, but in Baltimore he was the 3rd guy on the group.

 

Definitely looking forward to our defense next year. Especially with getting back Odrick and Edds, should be fun.

I'd also like to see more reps for Reshad Jones. He showed some serious ballhawking ability!

 

Does anyone stop to realize that everyone could have been having a career year last year, and that we can't count on the defense being as good or better next year ? People on this board just automatically assume we'll be better. Everyone assumed our offense would be better last year too, and look at what happened. That is why I feel such gloom & doom about the future. I am not convinced that our defense will automatically be as good or better, and I certainly don't see any promise in what they have done with the offense.

 

Nah, for a couple of reasons:

-every starter was under 30 save for YB
-we led the NFL in dropped interceptions
-Nolan can install more complex stuff now that they have a yr in his system.

Hmm, no player set "career" highs in any category in 2010, maybe Soliai in games started and Wake has had 17 and 22 sacks in the CFL so that is debatable and Dansby did not play all 16 games, and we get Odrick, Edds and Merling back at 100% health, that is two #1 picks and a #4 pick and Will Allen is back in the mix and also 100% healthy.

Whenever Nolan has been a DC two yrs in a row the Defense has improved going back to his Ravens days.

 

Well as far as I am concerned we'll need to have the best defense in the league, because our offense could be the worst. I wonder if that would be an NFL 1st ? Best in one category and worst in the other.

 

#1 and #32?

Not sure, do know SD was #1 in D, and #1 in O, and 32nd in ST though.

As for the offense, to be honest I do not know what to expect, which is good as when "we" know what to expect so does everyone else.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing which, if any, specific areas of disparity are revealed early on, that possibly point to Hennings oversight, or lack thereof.

...and here's hoping they at least don't multiply.

 

Our defense is very young, talented and capable of being a dominant defense for years to come no doubt. The only problem to me is the lack of timely, big plays/turnovers and that swagger dominant defenses have. We don't seem to hold onto INTs at crucial times and we don't seem to put teams away like the great defenses do, we still seem to give up big plays at heart breaking times as well. This defense is close, I think its just a matter of keeping this core group together and some of the really young guys to come into their own. They are going to be a fun unit to watch, we should be right up there with the best Defenses in the league next year if our guys stay healthy. Getting something out of last year's first round pick would help out too...

 

IMO we have five still young players (Dansby, Wake, Soliai and Davis and Smith as a tandem) who could all reasonably be top 5 at their respective position. I don't buy the gloom and doom angle simply b/c it is unlikely that all of those guys have peaked given their age and experience levels.

 

I didn't say peaked, but that many of them had the best year to date (career years so to speak) they have had. Can they all repeat that next year ? That is the big question on D. We should be solid, but will we be a really great defense again ? Those guys will have to play at that level or better for this team not to regress from 7 wins. I think we have to get lucky for that to happen, because I forsee our offense as worse than it was last year. We have the OC from a team that had, believe it or not, a worse offense than ours last year. Bill Belicheck didn't see enough in him to keep him, and Mike Holmgren didn't want him around. I think their indictment of his abilities says a lot to me. He just was not good enough for them. So why should we have to settle with him..........oh yeah........its because we couldn't attract anyone else, because of our coach & owners little problem at then end of last season. :headwall:

 

That is decently normal when it comes to younger players.

 

But can they get better than that ? Maybe, but then again, a lot of guys regress after a really good season. Careers are often up and down, with the middle years they average the best. But that is just it, they AVERAGE that, its no guarantee that they will get better or even stay the same for next year. As I have already stated I think they will have to do that, in order for us to even maintain the 7 win level next year.

 

We will find out. Generally players do not peak in year 3 or 4. Sometimes people do regress after a really good season. However if you look at their careers they did look like a general progression. it was not like they were crappy and then became great for one year. I tend to think players that show a steady rate of improvement will at least level off, if not keep on getting better.

 

I'd say about




this good.

 

Wow. do you ever stop to realize that you seem extremely pessimistic and negative by nature? That's gotta be stressful.

how many monthly trips do you make to the gastroenterologist's office? :lol:

 

All those players are very young. We wouldn't have to be lucky for them to play as well or better. We would have to be unlucky for them not to get better.

 

That's what I was thinking, too, Deej. If we can keep these cornerstones locked up for a while and have someone talented grooming behind Wake, then I could see us being consistently great for a pretty long time.

Ireland seems to have an eye for defensive talent, so that should help keep the rotation of guys at a high quality level so that we can effectively plug in the missing pieces when we need to (or hopefully begin doing it in advance based on anticipation so that there's little recourse during any positional transition).

 

Where has our luck usually lain this past decade ? I'll believe it when I see it. The Dolphins lack of success has made me bitter & completely cynical when it comes to their success. The refusal to address the franchise QB situation has compounded that rather gloomy outlook I have. The only way it changes is when I see real change in the way things are done in Davie, and when real wins happen over elite QB driven teams. Until then we are just fooling ourselves into believing the Dolphins can once again become the once proud franchise they were when I was growing up (the Super Bowl teams) and when I was in my 20's & 30's (1980's & 90's) during the Marino era. The last decade has been sickening to watch our franchise sink into becoming one of "those" teams - the ones that other fans around the NFL chuckle at when we are mentioned.

 

I know what you mean on this one. I'm from that same generation, and have been a fan since the first day Dolphin players ever stepped on the field. But even back then the cyclical nature of the league was apparent, and I always wondered when the downturn would be. It's here now and has been for the past several years. I think this FO needs at least a couple more years because our low point was really low (2007), and it takes time to recover from all the damage that was done from the beginning of the 2000's. Also teams playing musical regimes do not have much success. The teams with stable management are the most successful ones.

 

Well my age is making me impatient :wink2: I am already nearly 51, and it gets me p.o.'d to think I have to wait a few more years to get to an AFC Championship, let alone a SB, or god please a SB win. I've been waiting longer than a lot of these posters have been alive. I'm tired and crotchety, and big time ornery for a real Dolphins team.

 

We were lucky the year with Pennington and unlucky last year. I think over time things balance out. So coming off of an unlucky year it's easy to forget that there are times when things do go our way. You still need to have the players so we haven't been both lucky and good for a while, but I'm not going to pretend that our luck is always bad. I'm also not going to pretend that all our players are bad. We most likely don't have the franchise QB and that is the easiest way to win a championship, but it's not the only way. I'm not expecting a championship, but with the level of talent we do have being competitive (playoff contender/participant) is a very reasonable expectation. I think fans often get focused on the one position (QB) and then call everything bad. I don't see those doom and gloom predictions as reasonable expectations. They're possibilities of course, but far less likely than many other outcomes.

 

I'm glad you get it DJ. Some here don't and actually think I hate the Dolphins. Oh boy could they be more wrong on that one. I am one of the most passionate guys ever on gameday. But I am old enough to also look at life with more realism and don't have time anymore to ignore things I just don't like. I call it like I see it, and I have been disappointed so many times over the last 38 years, you tend to get cynical and bitter. I hope I am wrong about this season & the future of this regime. I want to be more than wrong, but you know I have to be honest with myself 1st, and that honesty tells me we are going to lose more games than we win this year. I just don't think we are good enough.

 

I can respect your PoV Raffy, but all I ask is people like ToddPhins (who I have put on ignore because of his constant trolling of me) to respect my views as well, and not make fun of them. I feel I have legitimate gripes and reasons to feel the way I do. I have experienced hundreds of Dolphins games, over the last 46 years. Of the 690+ games in Dolphins history + playoffs, I can't think that I have missed more than 10 entire games (no TV or radio). As a matter of fact its probably fewer than 7. I know I missed one game in 1990 when I was hospitalized and slept during it because I had had my emergency surgery earlier that morning, and I also missed one game in 1977 because I was in the band at High School and we had to march in a small Thanksgiving Day parade in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, and that is the day that Bob Griese threw a record 6 TD's in the game in St. Louis aginst the Cardinals. And of course I missed it :tantrum:. But I guess there are a couple of more but still all in all, I have either witnessed in person (season tickets 1976-88), on TV or on radio just about every Dolphins game. I think I should get some cred for that !