Offense Chad Pennington - Pennington played really well today and showed us why he has the highest completion percentage of all time. He made precise and accurate throws. He didn't force anything which was a first in a long time. His completion percentage was 85% and the most incredible thing about it was that he threw 20 passes. It wasn't a low total. Two plays stood out to me from Pennington this afternoon. Deep slant to Camarillo for 33 yards was one of them. A really accurate throw, right on the money. Another one was about a 11-12 yard gain to Devone Bess. Bess ran a curl route to get free but Pennington eluded the pass rusher, Adalius Thomas, to make the throw. Overall, a good performance for Pennington that showed us why he was picked up. He also saved his job for a few more weeks. Ronnie Brown - Ronnie Brown ran the ball hard and threw it hard as well. He had four rushing (franchise record) and one passing touchdowns using one play. He was aggressive, looking for contact (i.e. looking to run over Hobbs after the TD). He ran through arm tackles and looked a lot like last year, pre-injury. The touchdown pass was bound after several runs out of the wild hog formation. Overall, a great day for Ronnie Brown and it was a pleasant sight. Ricky Williams - Williams was lost in the Brown spotlight, I even wrote Ricky Brown before fixing the title. Williams ran hard, running through tackles and pissing defenders off (ask Vrabel). Williams had 98 yards rushing today and played like he deserved the extension that he received from Bill Parcells and co. He reminded us that he is still one of the best talents to ever put on a Dolphins uniform. Pass Catchers (WR's, TE's) - Fasano once again displayed his good pass-catching hands. He hauled in 5 passes for 66 yards and took part in the run game. He often lined up on the right side of Vernon Carey, springing our RB's downfield for touchdowns. Camarillo once again ran crisp routes and caught balls all over the place. He owns Ellis Hobbs after once again, running a beautiful route to get open and leaving Hobbs behind. Fans hopefully will continue to have more faith in this player. Ted Ginn is alive. We finally found him in the offense after he had some screens set up for him. He had 49 yards on five catches, including one beautiful catch over the middle. He jumped high and brought it in between two defenders. David Martin only had one catch today but did a great job in blocking. He had a key-block on Ronnie's second touchdown. I was impressed with him. Offensive Line - Overall, a great job today. Ndukwe had one penalty but played really well. Vernon Carey and Jake Long opened up holes while Smiley and Satele worked on Wilfork and blitzers. Gave up no sacks, big positive after giving up an average of 3 in the first two weeks. Defense Defensive Line - The defensive line played exceptional today, both rushing the passer and stopping the running game. 3.95 yards per carry and had 4 sacks. Also had an interception credited to Randy Starks who had a good game. Holliday had a stupid roughing the passer penalty after a three and out but he was good the rest of the game. Linebackers - Ayodele showed up today, he only had 3 total tackles but made some plays that didn't show up on stat sheet. Crowder helped in the running game. I didn't get to see a lot of them as I was focused on the defensive line but from the little I saw, they were helpful in stopping the run. Porter had a couple sacks and backed up his talk for the first time in a while. Secondary - The secondary played pretty well. They allowed 6.8 yards per completion and it could have been more if it wasn't for Cassel not looking downfield. One specific play was at around the 14 minute mark in the fourth quarter. Cassel snapped the ball and scrambled, eventually fumbling. He had a Tight End WIDE open downfield that would have gone for six. Luckily, he didn't see it. Will Allen played very well against Randy Moss. He was physical with him, holding him to 4 grabs for a mediocre 25 yards. They allowed approximately 10 yards a catch to Welker but that was expected. I thought that Goodman looked ok out there. He dropped an interception when Cassel threw a pass over the middle to Randy Moss, who didn't even attempt to catch it after he saw a Safety across the middle. Overall All in all, a great performance by the Dolphins that will give positive talk for the next six days at the least. As the games go by, the team will gel more and will become a respectable team that could cost somebody a playoff spot. They play hard until the end. Looking Ahead 9/28 - Bye week. 10/5 - San Diego @ Miami Dolphins What To Watch For On 10/5 Dolphins Offensive Line VS Chargers Defensive Line - Satele struggles with bigger NT's as we all know and Jamal Williams is yet another big one. He can be a disruptive force that camps out in backfields at times. Smiley and Ndukwe will have to once again help out Satele against Williams. If they play good, the running game could have another big day. The Chargers are giving up 144 yards a game on the ground and that could win us the game if we open up holes. Dolphins Pass Game - The receivers are going to be facing arguably the best CB duo of their 16 week season and it could be a rough day. We will have to run a lot of short, quick routes against Cromartie and Jammer. Pennington can't force the ball or it will be an interception. You can't take chances with these two. Jammer dropped 7 interceptions last year and still had a good season while Cromartie had 10 interceptions. One key note is that the Chargers are 31st in pass defense. I believe they've given up the most 20 yard pass plays in the league. Chargers Defense - The Chargers defense has given up 65 points in the first two weeks of the season. They are having trouble getting to the QB's after they lost Merriman for the season. We have to run the ball to set up passing plays. Phillip Rivers - Rivers has had a good season and is quickly becoming one of the better QB's in the league if he wasn't already. We will have to pressure him to force him into throws he doesn't want to make. If he has time back there, he will pick apart a poor secondary. Chris Chambers - Chambers is back in Miami and will look to have a big day. He will face a good, tough player in Will Allen. This will be a matchup to watch. LaDainian Tomlinson - Tomlinson has battled a toe injury this season and it has slowed him down. Keep an eye on him.
I can't believe they didn't try us deep. I mean Arizona wrote a gameplan on how to beat us last week, and they didn't even look at it. Anyone else think their WRs are not playing for Cassell. Kinda reminded me of what our offense use to look like whenever another QB besides Fiedler was in during Wanny's days. Really good to see us have something to celebrate. I'm not gonna know how to act tomorrow after a win!!!!
I agree. I thought they would test us deep. However, I heard that Cassel doesn't throw a very accurate deep ball so that might be the case. As for the WR's not playing Cassel, I don't think that's the case. I'm guessing your thinking about Randy Moss' slant across the middle where he didn't even attempt to catch it. That's typical Randy. He's been doing that since he came into the league. He hates being hit and there's no way he's going to go across the middle. I think Renaldo Hill was going to hit him if he went after the ball so that explains that.
Nice writeup alen. Im still a bit disappointed in our WR's... TE ispretty solid IMO with Fasano doing a great job catching the ball and blocking, and Martin doing a great job blocking and catching. I remember you and I talking briefly in another thread about Camarillo, and how i couldnt figure out why everyone was so into this guy? After last years ONE play from him... but watching him out there today, and in this season so far im really starting to warm up to him. I would have liked to have seen more production from our WR's. Sure, we didnt need to pass much as well as we were running the ball. Nice to see us getting Ginn the ball, Im a bit disappointed with some of those plays. It would have been nice on those quick little passes at the line if Ginn could have made the first guy miss and use his speed to get down field. I too, am shocked they didnt try us deep. Moss however, didn't look like he was into this game at all. I was very impressed with the DL and our LB's though. Ayodele was great today. I agree, he was in on a lot of plays that won't show up on the stat sheet, but he was a big contributing factor. The last thing I have to say... Maybe we should line up starks at TE or something in a goalline formation, See the hands on that guy?!?!?!
Our WR's are clearly a weakness but I thought they played well today. Like you said, the staff tried to include Ginn into the gameplan and we saw him catch a few balls which was nice. The issue with Ginn is that no matter what he does, he can't get open. That's why I think we only saw him catch the ball off of those quick screen-type plays. The problem at that position right now is that we have several slot-receivers. Once we get a number one receiver on the outside, these players will be good complements. As for Camarillo, I think people will finally realize that he's a good player. He's not a great player but he does the things that you ask well. He has good hands and runs really good routes. Like I said in our brief talk a while ago, he was arguably the best route runner in San Diego and he was a practice squad player. Moss just doesn't care and that's been a problem with him ever since he started playing college ball. He does it how he wants and if you don't like it, oh well. Really impressed with the defensive line. Langford and Starks had nice days. I didn't watch much of the LB's like I mentioned previously so I can't really say how Crowder played. I saw him in on a few running plays. He's a good player on run downs but I still don't think he's progressed any since he came out of UF. He's a downhill type of player who can get after the QB and stop the run. He focuses in on one guy and that's it. We saw that last week against AZ. I don't know if he did it today. He did a good job of reading on that play. I liked what he did today.
Dude, its the freakin' NE Patriots, they are so arrogant they probably said we will win exactly the opposite of what AZ did. Yes they are that stuck-up ! And it caught up with them, THANK GOD !
Solid post, but I must say, that roughing the passer penalty against Vonnie Holliday was garbage. I don't think it was a dumb play on his part. He was simply pressuring the passer. Also, Ginn did have several grabs other than just the quick WR screens. His two downfield grabs both resulted in first down, so don't shortchange his performance. That said, he still has a long way to go in terms of being a legit No. 1 receiver.
I didn't agree with the call but Holliday did drive him into the ground which is probably why he got it. I saw about two grabs from the WR screen and then one in the middle of the defense as I said in the post. I must have missed the other two. I agree that he has a long way to go but as long as he's going somewhere lol.
I hear you on the Holliday play, but that's his job. This is football, and you should be allowed to drive the quarterback in the ground as long as you're in the act of pressuring a pass attempt. This is football after all. Here's Ginn's breakdown: - 15-yard gain on a medium out to the left side in the first quarter. He fumbled on the play, but the ball went out of bounds - 4-yard gain on a quick throw to the outside - 7-yard gain on a quick throw to the outside - 18-yard gain on a deep comeback in traffic - 6-yard gain on a short throw to the left Nothing to write home about, but then again, he secured the catch and gained yardage on every ball that came his way.
That's true. We should just put dresses and lipstick on QB's. Thanks man. On that first play, when he fumbled, I was about to explode lol.
In addition to my original post regarding the next game against the Chargers, I want to say that the Chargers better be prepared for Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams. I'm not just saying this after today's game but the Chargers rush defense is ranked 25th in the league, giving up approximately 144 yards a game. Also, despite their very good CB's, they're second worst in pass defense due to the lack of a pass rush. I wouldn't be surprised to see us pull out a win against San Diego with them struggling on defense and Tomlinson injured on offense.
A couple of quick points; the Fins ran hard over Jake Long more then a couple of times, Why did the Pats have Vince Wilfork line up over guard? Left a gaping hole. Hopefully, this game will be on NFL replay. I'd like to know what the Pats were thinking.
Was it over Ndukwe? Maybe they thought they could take advantage of him? I believe Satele had a lot of success against Wilfork last year so that may be the reason.
The other guy who was great was Renaldo Hill. He was all over the joint. He was making plays Crocker could only dream about. Hill could have had a better game if he came up with the pick but he let it go through his hands to Welker. He was so disappointed but you can't fault the guy for reading the play and jumping on the pass.
meh, im not impressed with san diego's secondary so far this season. they got big names but they havent dont **** so far this year
If it were a decent QB under center and less pressure, I think the passing game could've gotten a lot worse for our secondary. I would give our DL and Porter more props for limiting the WR's than our secondary (and they, not the CB's or S's were responsible for the lone int of the year). Cassel wasn't exactly lighting things up before our game and we still gave up an easy passing TD (tied for 2nd most in the NFL).
