On one hand I agree with you....that's an awfully big hump to get over in the National Football League. At the same time though, we just DOMINATED the best team in the league. If that's not over the hump, then we'll never manage to get there.

 

did they win the SB w/o Gronk?

 

Part of me wants to use an excuse for the Patriots, they didn't have Gronk, defense was missing players. Yeah....we are dealing with similar losses as well and that comes with playing football. This wasn't just a fluke, they didn't look past us. We're talking about the most meticulously prepared team in probably all of sports, and we kicked their *** last night.
Now is this a turning point in the season? We're certainly playing like it is. We're going to head to Buffalo with a ton of confidence and I think we can go up and give them Hell as well.

 

We have bigger injuries then they do.

 

While we need to credit the dolphins for their execution i’m going to just say Brady had a bad game and was missing his #1 threat. Gronkowski is a sure fire 7 points a game and we match up horribly to him.

Great win but we’re not over any hump it was one game at home. we still have major issues and one game won’t solve them.

 

We were missing our QB, our MLB, starting corner and a starting guard.

 

Yea we were missing big players i get it credit the dolphins for the win. until i see consistent play like this we’re not over any hump

 

I'm not saying we're over the hump. I just don't think it is right to discredit this win by pointing out the players that are injured for the Pats and not acknowledging the more important players that are missing for the Dolphins.

 

Loved the game and obviously loved the outcome. Definitely need to work on our offense re: the constant three and outs in the 4th but we were playing the pats after all. Also, Grant can't catch. Besides those things was an awesome game. Hoping we can bring that level of play to Buffalo this weekend.

 

I think this was the offense we were supposed to see at the beginning of the year. Gase chewed out the offense for not getting in the playbook and I think that it's finally happening. I think you began to see it in the Oakland game but it hasn't really come to fruition until last week.

Kenyan Drake is so much more dangerous at tailback. While he won't be ripping 10-20 yard runs at the rate Ajayi was last year, his effect in the passing game and the homerun threat are noticeable for sure. It also helps that, when the blocking was there, he was getting us 3-4 yard runs and keeping us "on schedule".

That being said, this OL still needs to clean up blitz pickups, especially safety blitzes. I don't know if it's a QB thing or OL thing, but it's not great. Pouncey had a hold that killed a drive, Tunsil almost killed a touchdown, Davis and Young looked a little lost on the right side there. Overall though, much more dependable than we've had all year.

I really liked the gang-tackling attitude of the defense. I also though X shined last night because the refs were lax (in all the right ways). When you have refs that understand it's always a hand battle between corner and WRs instead of treating the offense with preferential treatment, we finally get to see why Howard was picked in the 2nd round. He's a nice press corner with EXCELLENT ball skills. He'll only get better, he hadn't even played corner super long (relatively speaking).

A couple bad defelections and drops from Parker.

Great game from Jakeem Grant, who really elevated for that TD and almost had another one. He should have laid out for that second one, but he looked sure in punt returns and was active in the pass game.

Good game from Andre Branch, ok game from Charles Harris. Harris forced Brady to step up into the Suh sack towards the end of the game, showed excellent bend on the play. Gotta finish the sack though, Suh won't be there every time. Best player on defense last night not named Howard was Jordan Phillips. Guy is an absolute bowling ball when he's at the top of his game.

Very happy with last night's performance. I think the defense playing with the lead is a completely different defense altogether. I can't wait to see this offense with Tannehill and a fresh makeover of the interior offensive line.

 

you could tell that they were primed to go deep, but they had no one to throw to. They were running well and finding crossing routes. However, if Grant can't catch the ball in stride and Parker is a short yardage guy that drops the ball, we really can't see the full potential. he seems to be off with Thomas too.

 

They waited way too long to make the defense play this aggressive style. Shouldve been this way since week 1

 

All I know is that is the team I expected to see all year. The play calling was better than its been in any game this season by a long way. The defense was able to apply pressure and harass Brady all game and Howard was lights out! Cutler had a great game and even the oline did a respectable job. While I'm handing out props how about Kenyan Drake! A killer last night! Even Jakeem Grant got into the act and damn near had a 2nd TD, really should have had.

The game wasn't without faults but a game rarely is. I'm just stoked that not only did we not get embarrassed again on a national stage, we actually played a great game for the win against one of the best teams in the league. Kudos to Gase and the rest of the team.

Now go kick the crap out of the Bills!

 

We were always nearly trailing :/

 

Even if we are trailing the thing you dont do is change your identity and play safe. You have to mark your identity. Last night from start to finish we were applying pressure. We havent done that all year.

 

You could be right, I'm really not sure. It'd be interesting compare our blitz % last night vs. every other game. It might have just been we we're actually getting home last night.

 

If we had not played press coverage we would have gotten roasted. The fact they finally chose to do that is encouraging.

 

there td drive in the 4th was because we stopped playing press man and went to a zone and brady picked it apart for a td I was not happy about this hopefully burke learned something from it.

 

exactly! I've been saying that ll year and even most of last year. You cannot play soft zone against any QB with this group of DB's.

 

nope the DB's were up tight in the face all night EXCEPT on the late easy TD drive by the Patriots.

 

Let's not forget the power of those uniforms too! Looked totally bad *** warrior uniforms.

 

I totally agree! I was like WTH is he doing going soft now. Burke shoulda learned if from last game. I believe he went soft 2 or 3 times on 3rd and long and they easily picked it up. It scares me he even thought about going soft in that situation.

 

a couple things I seen last night.
1 The defense can hang when they get proper help from the offense with scoring and time on the field just need to ad some LB help.
2. a little confidence goes a long way, IE. Xavien Howard and drake, i thought drake ran really well last night and he looked like a different back than we have seen in the past year.
3. Parker is absolutely useless, he is by far the biggest receiver we have and he is running cross routes? where are the seam passes and back shoulders?
4. cutler under throws too many people, he finally let one go with grant and it was perfect, but why do hi deep balls keep ending up dying and the receivers always have to come back and get the ball his arm is strong enough and hes been with these guys for long enough.
5. we continually get to the line with no time on the play clock and i feel a lot of plays are rushed by cutler, why are we in a no huddle and its taking so long to step to the line for cutler to get a read on pass rush etc.
6. however the win is great and by far made the year great in my eyes, that pats team is depleted, the best part is I hope Pitt seen what we did and does the same thing and put bell slotted out.
7. Finally Burke listened and sent a plethora of guys at brady and it worked.
8. we need to go back to the old logo it seems we play way better in them or maybe its just me be biased the old logo is 20 times better than the new one.

In all it was a great game and they looked good. i don't care if they win another game since the playoffs look slim and i don't think even if we win out we make it but this win makes the whole year worth watching the crappyness.

 

Man did you hit that on the head i said that, we seem to play better in the old logo i say we go back to it and scrap the new one lol .

 

I think #5 was based on milking the clock. he didn't seem agitated that the clock was down to less than 5 seconds, and snapped the ball with 1 sec it seemed all night.

 

a lot of stuff showed how young the coaching staff is last night, everyone I mean everyone saw what going soft on the pats does, and if they forgot they need to call ATL. I thought Gase play calling got a lil slack at one point late in the third and early 4th and the defense went into idle about then too. not something you can do especially against tom thank god it didn't come back to bite us in the @$$

 

ya i don't mind when its snapped i mean we should be at the line with about 16-12 seconds on the clock to get an accurate read on the defense, there was one time in the first half he came up to the line with 8 seconds and ran a pitch when 7 guys in the box and 2 coming from the strong side and i thought he could have checked it off but didn't and ran right into it for a 2 yard loss. its stuff like that which maybe gase doesn't want him doing but in that situations and a couple hand full of other plays he could have called off and switched plays.

 

Just under 200 yards rushing and receiving for Drake last night. He's turning into the Dolphin's version of Chris Thompson.

 

Speaking of injuries, how about Torry McTyer getting some playing time. He wasn't picked on. I wonder how he looked out there.

 

Drake has 334 scrimmage yards in the last 2 weeks now. That's best in the NFL last 2 weeks.

 

Drake > Ajayi and I don't think there's a good argument against that...

 

Remember back in the first month when we were on our world tour with a brand spanking new, really old QB and some folks here said that those missing practices really mattered? Well, they did. Our team has been sloppy because they just haven't been on the same page....they needed reps. And now you're seeing what those reps can accomplish.

 

yes it helps but im having a hard time how the heck cutler is still under throwing these guys, he made a coupld good deep throws last night the grant one was perfect, but he constantly is under throwing guys who have to stop and adjust to catch the balls, I think 2 or 3 throws last night would have been tds had he lead the guy.

 

Cutler's not a great QB. However.. the important thing right now is that he's playing much better than before. Early in the season it wasn't just throwing off target, it was throwing LATE to the target. That isn't happening right now. And Cutler also seems like he's more interested in actually winning compared to what some of that body language from earlier in the season suggested.

So you're right he still makes suboptimal throws, but the improvement in attitude, decision making and understanding of the offense do seem real.

 

Grant can't catch ...consistently. He showed amazing concentration and athleticism to high point and look it in over their #1 corner and then dropped the wide open TD that hit him right in the hands. Either way it was a great game for him and glad to see him getting involved.

 

I love what Drake has done and have high hopes, but sample size.

I didn't mind the trade at all though, ftr.

 

Ajayi does not have a huge sample size either.