1.Offensive line seems like we are heading in the right direction.I feel the line is playing amazing well without a preseason with 4 new starters with 2 promising rookies .
2 Wr core is average at best with Parker being our only consistent weapon but concerns about him staying on field are real.Williams has been a complete disappointment considering his strong training camp and grant is invisible.Ford has been decent but as a whole we need a serious upgrade for 2021!
3.Rb is another position we will need to upgrade.Gaskins has looked decent but that's only because Howard and Bredia have been major disappointments..
4.Te has been better than I thought if you include Geseki who is really a slot Wr.This is group is not screaming to me upgrade like Wr and Rb.
5.QB is NA until Tua plays.
Bottom line offence needs more playmakers!
6.DL is ****ing terrible!!!I don"t see one player that stands out.Nobody can take up blockers for the run game or pressure the Qb.
We need help everywhere!
7.I have to give the LBs a pass because the line flat out sucks!
8.We.will see how the secondary looks when we finally have jones in lineup but without him they have been terrible.I am not a fan of mcain at safety and this needs to be upgraded in 2021.
What our your thoughts on year 2 so far?
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Offensive line looks good. Defense can't make stops when we need them to. If we kick 10 field goals a game maybe we will be good. I think we have gone as far as we can with Fitz. One big difference from last year is we aren't getting hammered keeping the games relatively close.
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My biggest concern is whether we have the right HC, and I just don't know. I see both positives and negatives. Aside from that I'm waiting to see if Tua was the right pick. So in conclusion: don't know yet, but we HAVE to know by year 3.
texanphinatic and KeyFin like this. -
texanphinatic likes this.
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I’m a believer in Flores. Does he make head scratching decisions every now and then? Sure, but he’s only in his 2nd year as a Head Coach, so that’s going to happen. The team plays hard for him and we’ve kept games against 2 Top Five teams and another playoff contender all close.
Do I want Miami to win every? Of course, but I’m not going to ***** and moan with every loss and claim this rebuild isn’t working, especially since this team is competitive. Anyone remember the first few weeks of the season last year?
Also, it was always going to be a tough season with such a young team and a bunch of newcomers with a very abbreviated offseason. I’m just as optimistic today as I was when the Dolphins won at New England in Week 17 last year.Phil Hutchings, Puka-head, resnor and 1 other person like this. -
The team to me looks like a scrappy bunch of youngsters who come to play every week and give it their all, which is a testament to the coaching, but who are easily outplayed when opposing teams simply want to turn on the juice. And that indicates a significant talent deficit.
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I think it’s clear we need to draft for WR, RB, S and defensive front 7.
I’m seeing some progress with our OL, Gesicki and we have a lot of youth playing on both sides of the ball.
it’s also easy to forget that we’re going through our 2nd toughest 4 game stretch of the season. We faced 3 playoff teams and a lousy team. It’s really hard to gauge where this team is. This next 4 game stretch will be very telling. Catching SF with major injuries means we should be winning 2-3 games if we’re around a .500 team.
But honestly I had 0 expectations in year 2 besides progress and seeing our drafts start paying off. -
It's a slow and painful process that seems to have gone on for twenty years.Still need to find an identity and consistency.
xphinfanx and Alan in England like this. -
I'm not sold on Flores either. He has the team playing tough and I do realize everyone is super young. There hasn't been enough to say either way whether he's the one or not. Blown calls like the one above don't play into his favor though, and we've had at least one in every loss. -
I dont give us extra points for being so bad early on. The falls partly on coaching despite our talent issues.
I think Flores is a decent "get the guys to play hard" coach, but I've been underwhelmed with our game plans and strategy in his tenure.xphinfanx likes this. -
In other words, it wasn't specifically Flores fault for those early failures (especially with last minute trades), but I can't fully credit him for finally becoming competitive either. A lot of that was simply Fitzpatrick and the team coming together despite the talent gap....we saw the same thing the other night with the Miami Heat. It wasn't the strategy as much as it was a few guys really stepping up and playing on an entirely different level.
I also realize that we're early in season two and there was a huge roster churn...so I'm not handing out big-time pros and cons this season yet either. But going into week 5, I really need to start seeing some consistency in receivers getting open, rookie CB's not getting completely torched, etc....that stuff is 100% coaching. The line is a massive plus on the season and I have to give credit there, but it's hard to say it's been positive overall since Flores is supposed to be a defensive mastermind and we brought in several NE veterans to build the D around.
So I don't know- I'm still neutral on Flores but paying bigger attention to the little stuff I handed out automatic passes on last season. For me, the goal here is playoff team in year 3. I really don't have an expectation for this season other than guys playing hard & not quitting, which I'm already seeing. But I also expect to see some pass rush pressure this season, some 3 & outs by the D, establishing a running game and some clear separation by our receivers...stuff like that is what I'm judging by since they're all clear problems.
I see both positives and negatives in those areas, but I think I'm still critical of Flores overall because I haven't see enough upside YET.AGuyNamedAlex likes this. -
I'm not sure I buy that.. I think their defense is statistically average defensively when looking at points per game.... We still have a long way to go - Your statement may be true but I believe you are making an assumption that isn't true.resnor likes this. -
I dont know what you personally want to attribute that to but it is what happened at the end of the day. -
It also helped that their WR were dropping barely contested passes l, especially early on.xphinfanx likes this. -
However, after being adamant about how poor the defense has performed early on (Adam Gase level), I think we need to give them credit. NFL defenses this year look like arena-league level defenses, so you have to take that in to account.
You also have to look at the poor play of Noah, he alone has been a major liability and impediment to Miami beating Buffalo, Seattle or both. -
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If youre asking me if they made any plays defensively sure, but just about every time Seattle actually felt threatened in any way they basically had their way with us. -
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My thoughts right now is that Flores is not a good NFL head coach.
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They had an opportunity to put a dagger in us without actually losing anything of value in the long run because they trust their offense against a defense like ours.
If they were anticipating a low scoring affair where they would struggle with our defense they would have taken the three.
That play, in my opinion, had very little to no potentialnegative impact on their overall strategy.
Of course that is just my opinion which is why I prefaced it with the fact that we can disagree. -
In other words the Dolphins' scrappiness keeps them in games against good teams who are playing without any special effort. When those teams crank the juice and increase their effort, however, the Dolphins' scrappiness is easily overcome by the other team's increased emotional energy, due to the talent differential involved.
The one game that went differently this year was against Jacksonville -- another team with a talent deficit, and which played in an emotionally depleted state after having played a barn burner down the wire just four days prior. In that game the Dolphins' scrappiness was the difference. -
Once upon a time during training camp, defenses trained hard...lots of hits and as a results, points scored we’re pretty low. Enter the union.
Now defense during training camp is literally a joke. Can’t start in pads until x, can’t use this tackle, can’t use that tackle. Now points are higher than they used to be.
Now enter this Covid season...with no preseason, defenses are way behind the power curve.
That’s why some of these offensive stats that some here post, need to have an asterisk by them -
What I am going to say right now is not what I hope for, but what I am seeing. Flores isn't going to last. He was brought in to rebuild the defense and the team spent a buttload of money on that side of the ball and they suck even worse than last year. He's also hesitant to start Tua and since the D isn't going to help us win any games and we aren't going to the playoffs the way the D is underperforming, ownership is going to want to see Tua playing to gin up some enthusiasm for next season, when the owners can start making money from attendance again. If Flores doesn't start Tua by the halfway point, he's going to get pressure from the ownership and if he doesn't give into it, he's going to get fired.
I don't want this to happen because it's going to set us back a year and Flores deserves at least one more year to try to make his defensive system work, but there's very little patience in the NFL anymore.KeyFin likes this. -
Once Marino came, the NFL just had to change the rules. Every quarterback had to be a Marino. -
The league has gotten away from the pureness of the game if you will. Now granted, defenses don't need to be so brutal to the point they are injuring player week after week however, defenses have become so hamstrung anymore that games are becoming offensive scrimmages, which is a shame. The No-Name Defense, The Steel Curtain, The Fearsome Foursome, The Purple People Eaters, The Killer B's, The New York Sack Exchange...you'll never see defensive powerhouses again and it's a shame.
If the NFL hadn't handcuffed defenses put just as much emphasis on defensive performance as they have on offense, there wouldn't be the household quarterback names that there are today. If you were the modern day equivalent to a Staubach, Bradshaw, Marino, Elway, Montana...you would TRULY be something special. But alas, the NFL has turned into the WWE of football...every team has to have that STAR that shines and has rigged the game like Vince McMahon rigged wrestling. -
When you consider that last year was all about losing games and building up the draft stock and that we're barely a few months beyond the 1st draft I don't thing changes are coming anytime soon in Miami. Flores is safe, particularly given Covid and the fact the season may not even make it to January if teams can't isolate themselves and protect players from testing positive.
You're going to see Tua at some point this year. You're going to see Byron Jones sometime too most likely. You're probably going to see the same upward trend in overall cohesion that you did last season.
The team presently has the #2 and #11 picks in the next draft and while those almost certainly won't be as high come April, you're still going to see 4 talented players added to the roster within the top-50 picks which is pretty awesome. Couple that with another offseason and hopefully a preseason next year and I think we'll see the team be more competitive.
My biggest disappointment this year has really been Ryan Fitzpatrick. I expected him to play better than he has. He's only given us 1 good game and in that game the team rallied and dominated their opponent. But if he continues to play like crap and Tua's not ready to take over, then you're going to see a bunch of sub-par performances that result in losses.
But this is a joke of a season given what all has transpired. No one in the NFL is playing defense at all and the Dolphins' veteran QB is underperforming. -
I can understand those who have been frustrated or upset with the 1-3 start. I predicted a slow start thanks to the boatload of FAs and draft picks that we added. Especially with no preseason to evaluate and prepare. Don't forget we had two productive WRs opt out, which affected the entire unit. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, especially because of the fight we've shown.
This was never going to be a quick rebuild. Next season's draft is going to be very productive. I believe with a year observation/experience, Tua's going to play well in 2021 and he's going to probably have at least one of the top offensive weapons in the draft to help him out. I'm no less excited about the team than I was five weeks ago and I'm surely not discouraged about our future. -
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I’m not one who has hope after this team has let me down so often, but there is no way in good conscience I could let Flores go with the body of work he’s given us so far. He at the very least deserves 3 years. With a chance to earn more as this season goes forward. -
I don't know if we'll get to full isolation. Some have predicted December will be really bad overall, but others expect COVID to have faded out by then. There's no way to make an educated guess since we're not scientists and we're not looking at the data. What I can tell you is that Australia and other countries opposite us in the world had their lowest flu seasons EVER in their winter, simply because folks have been wearing masks and distancing.
I think I saw Australia had like 150 cases total...when they usually have tens of thousands? And their COVID numbers rapidly declined as well. Maybe that means nothing...maybe that means everything...all I'm saying is don't believe the hype since it's all politically motivated. Whatever happens will happen and we'll still play football if there's any possible way to do so. -
As of right now, today, I'm 100% team-Flores...even though I've seen some things that worry me. He has to have this year though to work thru the process and get our guys together on the same page. So I wouldn't say he "gets a pass" this year too....but I'm not going to be critical for another 6-8 weeks. I think that's where a lot are on this forum.
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