In the Land of the Tuna the One Eyed Dolphin Is King - Week 2 reflections

Well I was going to give you a unit by unit breakdown of how our Dolphins looked against the Cardinals but unfortunately my notes on the game are covered in puke and I’m unable to read what I wrote. That wouldn’t be so bad since I could just go off of my memories except my brain seems to be blocking out the game. Guess I’m suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. Now I could find a stream and watch the game on computer but my body starts to shake and I go into convulsions when I attempt to do so.

So with that being the case, I’ll just spend the time taking a bigger picture look at where we are as a team and where I think we’re going.

The Front Office: You can complain about anything and everything but I think it becomes really tough to argue with our off season. Jason Ferguson, Justin Smiley, Phillip Merling, Kendall Langford, Chad Henne were A+ pickups.

Jake Long as a number 1 overall is a bit dicey but looks like he will develop into a good left tackle. Good not great. What we need from him is to become a top 10 left tackle. I would love it if he became a top 5 but I don’t see it just yet. His feet will probably prevent him from going there. Still, when you look at who we could’ve got with the number one, the consensus is the other options were Chris Long, Gholston, Dorsey, Ellis and Matt Ryan. Getting Henne makes passing on Ryan more acceptable. Chris Long and Vernon Gholston are lost out there at this stage of their careers. Yeah Chris got a sack but anyone who watched the Giants game saw a guy who cant disengage from a block on 95% of the plays run. Dorsey up to now hasn’t done anything worthy of mentioning although he was double teamed frequently against the Raiders so its hard to tell just how good or bad he is. Ellis is the only one of the top board that has played better than Jake at this stage of the season. And since we got Ferguson, that made the position less necessary for us. So, bottom line is that we made the best choice possible after taking into account Henne and Ferguson. So good job there with arguably the most important decision of the off season.

Add to that mix players like Donald Thomas, Anthony Fasano, Carpenter and Randy Starks who have each contributed positively at some point and the list of players who are positive additions is pretty huge. That doesnt even take into account players like Shawn Muprhy, Devonne Bess, Reggie Torbor, Ernest Wilford, Charlie Anderson who may contribute more as the season progresses.

So when evaluating the front office understand that they added anywhere from 5 to 15 legitimate players depending on your own personal evaluations to their worth. Even if you are the most critical of evaluators 5 pickups per year will get you into a championship game in 4 years.

The front office, in terms of player evaluations gets an A+. Now in terms of hiring coaches its too early to determine. What seems evident to me is that the coaching staff is having more success with coaching players in fundamentals then game planning right now. The speedy progress of our rookies is testament to the ability of this coaching staff to coach up players. However, in terms of game planning to hide our weaknesses and play to our strengths, there seems to be a huge question mark at this point in the season.

And part of that comes from the players that they are choosing to start and those that they are benching. Why are Chris Crocker and Akin Ayodele starting over Jason Allen and Reggie Torbor? Is Crocker calling out the coverages? Is that why he’s starting over Allen? Is Ayodele making defensive calls? Is that why he’s starting? Why is Lehan sitting in favor of Goodman? Is Lehan still recovering? Why is Ernest Wilford sitting when on paper he is the best receiver we have? Why is Bess returning kicks and not Ginn? These are five critical player decisions that the coaching staff initially made and as of today the returns are less than favorable. The reason its important that this coaching staff is making the right player decisions here is because the players involved are part of our two biggest weaknesses, receivers and defensive backs. Now the reason I will hold to for now is that the coaching staff is still learning who they have in the personnel department. If that’s the case we will see some, if not all of these players replaced at some point soon. If that’s the case I’m willing to give them a pass. New coaching staffs need time to figure out their personnel. It doesn’t happen as quickly expect.

Now the second part of the coaching equation is the play calling which up to now has seemed frustratingly bad. From an offensive standpoint, I’ll give them a pass. Our offensive line isn’t where it needs to be just yet. That is leading to poor run blocking which is killing our entire offense since the scheme is predicated on having a strong running game. We’re not set up to be a pass first team yet because we left the acquisition of receivers for next year. So the only thing we can do right now is wait for the offensive line to improve. If the process takes too long we may be forced to start Henne, since his arm will allow us to pass more effectively by stretching the field. This would in turn opening up the running game. Now why won’t we do that now? Because it’s more important that we learn how to run even if the opposition knows we’re going to run. This will serve us well in the long run. A championship team can run in the 4th quarter to protect a lead and pass in the 4th quarter to come from behind. That and Pennington understands the scheme better which in turn speeds up the learning process for the rest of the team.

On defense however, the coaching so far has been questionable at best. For some reason, it doesn’t seem to understand how poor our secondary is and is allowing them to be forced into one on one match ups that inevitably result in big plays. This is the area where not having Lehan and Allen playing is a head scratcher. Maybe Allen is prone to giving up the big play more than the coaching staff is accustomed too but Crocker has been a virtual Santa Claus in the secondary so far giving up Christmas presents to the opposing offenses on a far too regular basis. At least Allen has the physical gifts to develop into a good player whereas Crocker simply doesn’t have any upside. Hopefully Lehan will replace Goodman soon. Its not much of an upgrade but enough in my opinion that warrants the move.

Having watched Parcells from square one rebuild the Jets and Giants defenses, I know his defense is predicated on having playmaking linebackers. Right now we don’t have one. Maybe Merling will eventually be one but it seems another instance of Dolphin fans having to be patient and understanding that the defense that we are building isn’t even close to being here yet. We’re simply going to have to make do with an average pass rush and a poor secondary.

Now as to the team itself.

QB - Henne is our future and the results up to now hold promise
RB - Ricky and Ronnie are a very good combination. Who starts doesn’t really matter at this point because the line isn’t opening up enough holes for either. For the Ronnie fans, yes its true that Ronnie has more jukes but Ricky hits the hole immediately. Parcells isn’t crazy about Rbs that dance behind the line. See the hole, hit the hole. For those wondering, that’s my take on why Ricky is starting over Ronnie.
FB- Who knows? We are probably drafting one next year unless someone becomes available in free agency.
OT - Jake Long is going through his learning pains. He’s certainly going to be good but how good is the question. The book is still out on whether he will justify being number one overall. The bigger question is going to be Carey for our future. Do we resign him? Is he going to demand too much? If he is allowed to walk, do we come back and draft Oher or some other Tackle prospect?
OG - Smiley is arguably our MVP on offense so far. Losing Thomas was a blow for us this year. Ndkuwe should be replaced next week by Mathis.
C- Satele simply has trouble against monster Nose Tackles. He simply isn’t big enough to handle them
DE- We’re fine here, The foundation has been laid
NT - Ferguson is playing well for us
LB- We have four average Linebackers. We can get away with having two of these types but we need playmakers back here. George Selvie or Rey Maualaga and Phillip Merling would be an intriguing mix next year. Until we get some linebackers, we will not see the defenses Parcells is famous for
CB - Will Allen is the defensive MVP. Great, great production so far for what he’s surrounded by. Goodman actually isn’t the worst most of the time but he’s just too susceptible to the big play. Bell has played very good for the most part. Crocker just flat out sucks
P- Fields blows. Man I miss Donnie Jones. Huge mistake by Cameron
K- Carpenter. Seems ok so far

Well anyway, that’s my take for where we are and as tiresome as it sounds we need to have patience and wait just one more year for Parcells to bring in the playmaking Linebackers he needs to make his defense dominate. Without linebackers we don’t have a Parcells defense. We have a shell of a defense. Obviously we need a CB but I do want to see how Lehan plays finally. Hopefully they make the move soon. On offense we have to wait for the line to improve. By week 8 we should know what we have. Henne is our future, Pennington is not. Whether its this year or next get ready for our first genuine shot at having a franchise QB. With Ginn, Wilford, Bess and Camarillo we have the possibility of having an acceptable corps to work with if we can add a genuine playmaker to the mix. We have roleplayers now we need a home run hitter. Crabtree is an option next year but my guess is we’ll try to find one in the 2nd round.

Anyways, now I get to put away my puke covered notes and get ready for a rebound against the Patriots. Lol, don’t laugh, I expect us to fight a lot harder and just in case I will have a full supply of PeptoBismol on hand

 

Well not in terms of knowing for sure but rather we finally have a legitimate prospect back there. It means we can finally have an offseason where we dont need to address the QB position

 

I agree. I think they overestimated the talent in a few key players on defense and are paying the price for it right now. To me I want to see a benching of Crocker, Ayodele and Goodman. Crocker is a must however. If the coaches want the other two to be given a couple more games fine but Crocker is horrendous. The only explanation I can have for him starting right now is if he's the one making the secondary audibles and they dont feel comfortable with anyone else. Even so, considering how poor our secondary has played and the miscommunications we are having back there its time to bench Crocker.

We probably are 0-4. Still after the Chargers the schedule gets pretty soft. By then we should be a better team considering how many new players we have playing for the first time together. I wouldnt be surprised if we go 6-6 the rest of the way which would certainly have people feeling better about this team. Looking at the schedule though, If we dont win more than 3 or 4 games we underperformed again

Yeah I would love to know who blew the coverages also