I'm worried...can I get some reassurance?

Well...many times we worry because we have high expectations.

I suspect our secondary will have some struggles, but will play better as the season progresses.

My main concern with the team is health. If this squad stays healthy, like freakishly 2008 healthy, we will have a very good all around team.

Youth is also a concern. This team is pretty talented, and young. Is it too young? I don't think so, because a lot of our young players have seen significant game time.

Keep the faith, maybe temper some expectations and you'll be a little more sane.

Now if only I could follow my own advice.

I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for you bro. The Dolphins just suck. They just flat out suck. Don't even bother watching games 1-16 of the regular season. They just suck and the Jets will win the Superbowl.

"lmeister3 wrote:

I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for you bro. The Dolphins just suck. They just flat out suck. Don't even bother watching games 1-16 of the regular season. The just suck and the Jets will win the Superbowl.

Sounds like my buddies in my fantasy football draft last night.

First off, I'm not a Dolphins fan; I'm a Bills fan, but I have lived in Southwest Florida for the past 8 years. The Dolphins are always the televised game, so I see quite a bit of them when I'm not watching the Bills. As a football fan, it's impossible for me not to follow them with the coverage they get around here.

I think the Dolphins are about an 8-8 team this year. If the ball bounces their way, there is a remote chance at the playoffs. I do, however, think that the Phins are a bit overrated, but it's impossible to foretell the future without my crystal ball. I think some of your fears are valid. I think play-calling, game management, and QB play are your three major concerns. The pass rush and secondary play, especially the safeties and young CBs, are concerns as well.

Every team has weaknesses...some optimistic fans like to overlook them and pretend they don't exist. But, believe me, the Dolphins DO have weaknesses. The best teams know how to exploit other team's weaknesses. The Dolphins have to play some smart football to have a chance this year.

I'm worried...... can I get some reassurance?

:wontplay:

All I can do is supply you the rope; the rest is up to you my friend............ :hang:

Marshall will live up to expectations, he's way too solid a football player not to. 300 receptions in 3 years, you think hes just gonna stop wanting the ball? No way.

And that alone can immediately make Henne better. Once he knows how to use Marshall as both a weapon and a diversion, he'll be set. Henne only threw 1 pick in preseason. Some starters have thrown 3.

Not to mention, Ronnie looks good again, Ricky's still Ricky, and now Brandon Marshall will force defenses to back the **** up a little. We're going to be a running beast again just like we always are when we have these two healthy.

Dan Hennings playcalling isn't great, but it won't destroy us. It'll be annoying at times but he's not Mike Mularkey. He's not making it impossible for us to win the game. Henning just doesn't go big very often, and I wouldn't expect that from a running team. And that's what we are.

We will NOT drop the season opener. We haven't shown our blitz packages yet and the Bills Oline is suspect as it is. The bills will be an ugly smudge on the bottom of our cleats as we roll into Minnesota.

"lmeister3 wrote:

I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for you bro. The Dolphins just suck. They just flat out suck. Don't even bother watching games 1-16 of the regular season. The just suck and the Jets will win the Superbowl.

My thread was not meant to be doom and gloom. I hope it didn't come off that way. These are just things I worry about as a fan. I don't think our team sucks, far from it. I'm just worried that every bad thing that could happen, might happen.

"feldspar wrote:

First off, I'm not a Dolphins fan; I'm a Bills fan, but I have lived in Southwest Florida for the past 8 years. The Dolphins are always the televised game, so I see quite a bit of them when I'm not watching the Bills. As a football fan, it's impossible for me not to follow them with the coverage they get around here.

I think the Dolphins are about an 8-8 team this year. If the ball bounces their way, there is a remote chance at the playoffs. I do, however, think that the Phins are a bit overrated, but it's impossible to foretell the future without my crystal ball. I think some of your fears are valid. I think play-calling, game management, and QB play are your three major concerns. The pass rush and secondary play, especially the safeties and young CBs, are concerns as well.

Every team has weaknesses...some optimistic fans like to overlook them and pretend they don't exist. But, believe me, the Dolphins DO have weaknesses. The best teams know how to exploit other team's weaknesses. The Dolphins have to play some smart football to have a chance this year.

Honest question to you. (A simple yes or no will suffice) Do you feel the Saints had any weaknesses last year.... or the Steeler or Giants before that?

I doubt we win a game.

a Hurricane will blow down our stadium, and the team will re-locate to Los Angeles.

"MonstBlitz wrote:

My thread was not meant to be doom and gloom. I hope it didn't come off that way. These are just things I worry about as a fan. I don't think our team sucks, far from it. I'm just worried that every bad thing that could happen, might happen.

Not to alarm you...but there is definitely a possibility that you will be run over by a Bus today.

and if you don;t leave home, there is also a possibility that a lightning bolt will strike your house and you will burn to death.

there is also a possibility, however remote that something you drink today will be loaded with cyanide and you will die.

Just sayin'.

I'm going to expand further on something you briefly touched upon that doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention on these boards, but is a valid concern moving-forward: Sparano's in-game management.

Bottom-line, he needs to improve in this area as much as anyone in the organization needs to improve upon their duties. He has been borderline terrible in this aspect (not recognizing that the clock stops on a change of possession during the Saints game last year was only one instance of his short-comings).

Of course, he didn't inspire much confidence this preseason when, during the Falcons game, he refused to burn our last timeout prior to halftime, which ultimately resulted in Henne's pick.

As the talent on the roster continues to evolve, Sparano needs to improve dramatically in this regard, because presumably the games are only going to get bigger and eventually his short-comings will come back to bite us.

"ToddsPhins wrote:

Honest question to you. (A simple yes or no will suffice) Do you feel the Saints had any weaknesses last year.... or the Steeler or Giants before that?

Of course...that's a simple yes.

Winning the Super Bowl doesn't mean that your team doesn't have weaknesses. Especially the Giants...9 times out of 10, the Patriots would win that game. The 2007 Patriots would probably be the closest team to not having any weaknesses that I've ever seen...or at least equal to it. I'm a betting man, and the Patriots were covering 20-something point spreads every week. But they obviously had weaknesses in the end because they didn't win the Super Bowl, much to my glee.

Nobody's perfect, and the best team doesn't always win. It's all about match-ups.

The Saints had the 25th ranked defense (although they were 13th in scoring allowed), but had the offense to counter-act that. A lot of very good teams are only superior on one side of the ball. Look at the Jets - their biggest liability is Sanchez IMO. No matter what anybody says, he was pretty bad last year playing the most important position in the game, yet the Jets wiggled their way to the Conference Championship game.

"ToddsPhins wrote:

Honest question to you. (A simple yes or no will suffice) Do you feel the Saints had any weaknesses last year.... or the Steeler or Giants before that?

"feldspar wrote:

Of course...that's a simple yes.

Good, so what you're saying is we should win the SB. All I needed to know. Thanks. :wink2:

I loved how you prefaced this.....makes for a very good discussion!!!!

...we won't have a pass rush.

I know we will have a good pass rush....whether or not we have a game changing one, that remains to be seen. So much of our pass rush is going to be a result of game design and blitz calling by Nolan, not so much just flat out man beating man and getting to the QB. We didn't see anything close to resembling our regular season defensive playbook....so....one can only truly guess at this moment. After looking back at it...I think not showing our hand had multiple benefits for us....one obviously teams wont know at the beginning truly how we will attack them...but the other is that Nolan will have a much better idea of really how much our pressure needs to be a result of design...or whether we can get after it without having to be to exotic. It gives him some data on just how much he can risk by dialing up the heat. If for example, we were getting significant pressure without exotic blitz's...he can be more exotic with his coverage scheme. As we saw in pre season....that really wasnt the case, so I think you will see us get pretty exotic in our Blitzing, at least in the beginning.

...Our secondary will stink this year.

I think our secondary will be markedly better than last season....but probably still not where we want it to be. Im very confident that our two sophomore CB's will play very well...but they will still have some growing pains. The biggest question remains the play of our safeties, specifically the FS. If Clemons "feeds the wolf"...we will be very solid. Our secondary will also probably be the benefit of a more attacking style of defense...I think Nolan knows we have a young secondary...so he's not apt to give the QB time to tear us a new one. Which means we live by the sword and die by the sword...good QB's might make us pay for that. I also think the much improved coverage of the LB by Dansby...(man, did he blanket Gonzalez well the other night or what)...will be a plus.

...Chad Henne is in for a Sophomore slump. Or maybe simply isn't as good as I think he is.

Not worried at all about a sophomore slump from Henne. So much so...that I drafted him in the late rounds as my starting fantasy QB. Two reasons for this....1) His eagerness to get better and work ethic and 2) Chad Pennington. Enough cant be said about having Coach Pennington as a mentor for Chad Henne.

...Dan Henning's play calling will doom us.

I'm not a huge fan of how he uses the wildcat at times, in my opinion, he uses it in areas where it breaks the flow of the game. I'm also not huge on his 3rd and long play calling....but in all honesty, the man knows more about offensive football than just about anyone. It will be frustrating as hell at times....but he will be the OC for a very strong offensive attack this season...and he is probably the perfect OC for us. He is probably doin a heck of job showing coach Lee, who I think is the OC in waiting, the tricks of the trade. He's also one of the only guys who can needle Coach Parcells, and get away with it.

...Brandon Marshall will fail to live up to expectations.

It depends on how high you placed expectations for him. Realistically, in our offense, I think you need to look outside the stats to truly judge Brandon Marshall. Look at our offense as a whole...did the whole offense get to the point where we were dominating. If thats the case....Marshall lived up to expectations regardless of his personal stats. He had a huge hand in two TD's against Jacksonville that wont show up in his own personal stats.

...Sparano will make some suspect gametime coaching decisions again this year.

Im sure of it. Hes a second year head coach....but all in all...theres no other coach Id rather build this franchise around.

...The Bills are better than we give them credit for and we'll drop another season opener.

No way we drop the season opener. Not gonna happen....

Again...great format to open up discussion with.....

Thanks!!!

"ToddsPhins wrote:

Good, so what you're saying is we should win the SB. All I needed to know. Thanks. :wink2:

LOL. I suppose it's not out of the question, but with this logic, it's not out of the question for any team. Good luck, and I don't mean that.

"feldspar wrote:

First off, I'm not a Dolphins fan; I'm a Bills fan, but I have lived in Southwest Florida for the past 8 years. The Dolphins are always the televised game, so I see quite a bit of them when I'm not watching the Bills. As a football fan, it's impossible for me not to follow them with the coverage they get around here.

I think the Dolphins are about an 8-8 team this year. If the ball bounces their way, there is a remote chance at the playoffs. I do, however, think that the Phins are a bit overrated, but it's impossible to foretell the future without my crystal ball. I think some of your fears are valid. I think play-calling, game management, and QB play are your three major concerns. The pass rush and secondary play, especially the safeties and young CBs, are concerns as well.

Every team has weaknesses...some optimistic fans like to overlook them and pretend they don't exist. But, believe me, the Dolphins DO have weaknesses. The best teams know how to exploit other team's weaknesses. The Dolphins have to play some smart football to have a chance this year.

No offense.....but we are a much better football team then last season, and we finished 7-9. We also dominated in play against both Super Bowl teams last season. We were robbed against the Saints...(not using this as an excuse, but as an illustration to make a point)...and should have beaten the Colts.

Heres why we are better:

Not starting two rookie CB's.

Another year under the belt with Chad Henne, who had to rely on a very pedestrian WR core, the loss of David Martin, the loss of Ronnie Brown. This year we have who some consider is one of the best, if not the best WR in the AFC. We have a healthy David Martin who really makes our two TE sets with Anthony Fasano an offensive threat. We have a healthy Ronnie Brown.

Much improved defense in the middle of the field with Karlos Dansby which will make a dramatic improvement in TE coverage, something that ate us alive last season. You can say we lost Jason Taylor and Joey Porter, but both were aging players, so replacing the QB pressure you got from them, with what you will see with Cam Wake and Crew will not be out of the question. And probably the biggest reason our defense will be much better, is the hiring of Coach Nolan.

Our schedule last season was absolutely brutal....we had the hardest schedule last season based on 2008's records. This season we are tied for 16th....

So....while we have question marks....based on the evidence laid out in front of you, how can you reconcile an 8-8 record when we were 7-9 last season?

"vt_dolfan wrote:

I loved how you prefaced this.....makes for a very good discussion!!!!

...we won't have a pass rush.

I know we will have a good pass rush....whether or not we have a game changing one, that remains to be seen. So much of our pass rush is going to be a result of game design and blitz calling by Nolan, not so much just flat out man beating man and getting to the QB. We didn't see anything close to resembling our regular season defensive playbook....so....one can only truly guess at this moment. After looking back at it...I think not showing our hand had multiple benefits for us....one obviously teams wont know at the beginning truly how we will attack them...but the other is that Nolan will have a much better idea of really how much our pressure needs to be a result of design...or whether we can get after it without having to be to exotic. It gives him some data on just how much he can risk by dialing up the heat. If for example, we were getting significant pressure without exotic blitz's...he can be more exotic with his coverage scheme. As we saw in pre season....that really wasnt the case, so I think you will see us get pretty exotic in our Blitzing, at least in the beginning.

I hope you're right. One of the things that got me worrying about this is how good the Broncos pass rush looked in the bits and pieces of the preseason game I caught the other night. I started wondering if maybe McDaniels and personnel had more to do with the success of their defense than we thought. Maybe Nolan was getting too much credit.

I agree, or at least hope you are right about everything else, except -

...Sparano will make some suspect gametime coaching decisions again this year.

Im sure of it. Hes a second year head coach....but all in all...theres no other coach Id rather build this franchise around.

This is his third year. :lol:

Thanks for the reassurance!

"feldspar wrote:

LOL. I suppose it's not out of the question, but with this logic, it's not out of the question for any team. Good luck, and I don't mean that.

:lol:

Good luck to you too, and I don't mean that as well. I really hope you guys break a leg.......... that I do mean.

:knucks:

"vt_dolfan wrote:

No offense.....but we are a much better football team then last season, and we finished 7-9. We also dominated in play against both Super Bowl teams last season. We were robbed against the Saints...(not using this as an excuse, but as an illustration to make a point)...and should have beaten the Colts.

Heres why we are better:

Not starting two rookie CB's.

Another year under the belt with Chad Henne, who had to rely on a very pedestrian WR core, the loss of David Martin, the loss of Ronnie Brown. This year we have who some consider is one of the best, if not the best WR in the AFC. We have a healthy David Martin who really makes our two TE sets with Anthony Fasano an offensive threat. We have a healthy Ronnie Brown.

Much improved defense in the middle of the field with Karlos Dansby which will make a dramatic improvement in TE coverage, something that ate us alive last season. You can say we lost Jason Taylor and Joey Porter, but both were aging players, so replacing the QB pressure you got from them, with what you will see with Cam Wake and Crew will not be out of the question. And probably the biggest reason our defense will be much better, is the hiring of Coach Nolan.

Our schedule last season was absolutely brutal....we had the hardest schedule last season based on 2008's records. This season we are tied for 16th....

So....while we have question marks....based on the evidence laid out in front of you, how can you reconcile an 8-8 record when we were 7-9 last season?

You, my friend, are just like the rest of us...projecting things that will happen. If you weed out all the butt-plug "you suck and we rule" crowd, you'll see this kind of talk happening in every team's fanbase...just optimism.

I'd say that you are an improved team as well, but not everybody improves with experience. Some players actually get worse or get exposed for what they were all along. There are several starters on your team that can go either way. IMO, if Henne doesn't take a huge leap forward, the Dolphins will have problems. Marshall and Dansby automatically make you better, but there is a thing called chemistry, and either or both of these guys could get injured, God forbid.

IMO, the Bills improved as well, but a lot of the so-called experts project us as being among the worst teams in the league, if not the worst. We only lost one more game than the Dolphins last year, so the math doesn't add up...how could we improve and have a WAY worse record? How can you reconcile THAT? You can't. It's all projection at this point.

The Bills went into the fourth quarter against the Saints only down by 3 and did very well against Brees. We beat the Colts, but that's crap since it was basically the backups.

I'm worried before every game:sad:

Well technically Henne cant be in a sophomore slump seeing as this is his 3rd year in the league....

"feldspar wrote:

You, my friend, are just like the rest of us...projecting things that will happen. If you weed out all the butt-plug "you suck and we rule" crowd, you'll see this kind of talk happening in every team's fanbase...just optimism.

I'd say that you are an improved team as well, but not everybody improves with experience. Some players actually get worse or get exposed for what they were all along. There are several starters on your team that can go either way. IMO, if Henne doesn't take a huge leap forward, the Dolphins will have problems. Marshall and Dansby automatically make you better, but there is a thing called chemistry, and either or both of these guys could get injured, God forbid.

IMO, the Bills improved as well, but a lot of the so-called experts project us as being among the worst teams in the league, if not the worst. We only lost one more game than the Dolphins last year, so the math doesn't add up...how could we improve and have a WAY worse record? How can you reconcile THAT? You can't. It's all projection at this point.

The Bills went into the fourth quarter against the Saints only down by 3 and did very well against Brees. We beat the Colts, but that's crap since it was basically the backups.

I think part of the reason is that the Bills have a new coaching staff and generally teams with new coaching staffs take a step back.

You have to admit the Bills prospects are looking up at the moment, at least compared to last year.

But we don't know what they'll do (think Dolphins, 2008). We had just had the 1-15 season, everyone knew we'd be better, but by how much? I think Gailey is a brilliant football mind, but as a head coach? He was decent if not spectacular in Dallas, taking them from 10-6 down to 8-8. We'll see how he does in this tour - at least in Dallas he inherited a solid team that had experienced double-digit wins for 6 of the prior 7 years. I would argue that the Bills team Gailey inherited couldn't hold a candle to that 1998 Dallas squad.

it does seem like the bills put all their offensive eggs in the spiller basket, so hopefully he can stay healthy behind your o-line.

back to the phins - i think we took some giant steps forward in the offseason, but we're still not 100% there yet IMO. I need to see a lot more progression from Henne; thus far this preseason it seems to be more of the same from last year. Showing promise, but need more positive progression.

"MonstBlitz wrote:

I'm worried that...

...we won't have a pass rush.

...Our secondary will stink this year.

...Chad Henne is in for a Sophomore slump. Or maybe simply isn't as good as I think he is.

...Dan Henning's play calling will doom us.

...Brandon Marshall will fail to live up to expectations.

...Sparano will make some suspect gametime coaching decisions again this year.

...The Bills are better than we give them credit for and we'll drop another season opener.

I get this way at the beginning of every season. Sometimes they turn out to be valid fears, sometimes I'm worrying over nothing.

So the purpose of this thread is to ask the fellow phin fans on this board, which of my fears, if any, are rational? Am I worrying over nothing? Or is there some basis for my fears?

Thanks in advance!

This.....I think Miami will fall victim to yet more big time passing plays...All you have to do is take shots downfield against them, and you beat them...

Everything else I disagree with, well Sparano remains to be seen yet....I think it all depends what your expectations are you know.....If you expect 11-5 12-4, Marshall getting 100, and Henne throwing for 3500 + and 35 TD's then yeah come down a bit...