I know it ended up not mattering because Ronnie eventually had 20+ carries by the end of the game but we completely ignored him in the first half. His first touch came with 8:07 left in the first quarter and then he didn't touch the ball again until 12:14 in the 2nd quarter. That is ridiculous. For some reason we would either pass or hand off to Ricky. Ricky had 10 touches to Ronnie's 5 in the first half, which is backwards at least in my opinion. I actually thought Ronnie was hurt because he wasn't out on the field. Was anyone else wondering where Ronnie was?
When you ultimately end up with 250 yards rushing in the game, I don't see the big deal. I also don't see the big deal that RW initially had more carries than Ronnie. We don't miss a beat with RW and, IMO, Ricky is a better runner in our conventional offense. The early passing was likely just something to somewhat loosen up the Bills defense a bit before we started gashing them on the ground.
So you wanted 270 yards instead of 250? It has to be a good week if this is what we are discussing So glad we won, and in that manner.
I'm glad we won but think about it. Ronnie is our best offensive player and he touched the ball twice in the first 22 minutes of the game. That shouldn't happen.
He was used more as a decoy early on in play action...eventually the bills played a little softer because they saw we were willing to throw...which helped in our running game later... I thought the coaches nailed it this week...
Yep, exactly. The difference from Ronnie to Ricky is not that large, and I agree Ricky is better out of the conventional set. I think it was brilliant gameplan myself, loosen them up, loosen them up some more then "WHAM" hit em hard with Ronnie. I expect to see a very very similar tactic against the Patriots.
Buffalo stacked the box. They wanted Henne to throw the ball. We took what the defense gave us and ran sweeps and the wildcat. We're bot good enough to impose our will and grind it out from start to finish. Yet. Posted via Mobile Device
I think Sparano is a numbers guy and if you look at Ronnie's numbers historically his ypc go up in the second half esp. the third quarter. Is this the reason, who knows, just a guess on my part.
We ran Ronnie little in the first half, because the Bills were expecting us to run Ronnie a lot in the first half.
I also think Ricky is a bit stronger early in games. He hits the holes harder and wears down the defense more.
Lets face it, if i were to start up a team, i would pick Ricky over Ronnie any second of the day. Ricky is the better all around back IMO and ESPECIALLY when we run conventional plays. What people dont observe is how many times ronnie brown misses his block assignments and our QB gets sacked. But anyway OP, if we were 4-0 then maybe we can worry about small stats here and there but we're not so we should be happy for the "W".
You wouldn't last long as a GM. Ricky is a nice complimentary back, but couldn't handle 30+ carries a game like Ronnie. That's like saying you'd rather start a team with Tomlinson than Peterson. Age matters. Either way it's a silly debate asking which one is better because it doesn't really matter. They both play for the Phins, and both are playing well.
Yeah, I'm a big Ronnie fan and wish that didn't happen either... And I would love to see him added as maybe the #2 WR in some regular package as well. He has the best hands on the team too! But, my wife still likes Ricky better so she was happy at least... LOL! They may both reach 1K this year!
Its funny how this evolved into a Ricky Vs Ronnie thread. I am glad they are both Dolphins. We already think they are, but considering our schedule this year they may be known league wide as the best running back tandem in the NFL at seasons end. Its good they have different styles because its hard to game plan for two different backs. If they were just alike in style defenses would just have to game plan and prepare for one back. Good job Sparano!
I believe the thread topic was questioning the wisdom of the game plan. I think you look at the score and the way we dominated the game and I don't see much reason to criticize the strategy.
Exactly. To me this is a 'I have a personal axe to grind with this staff and I am going to grind it even if it doesn't apply this week' type of thread.
The whole reason for the way the carries ended up was not in spite of the game plan, but because the game plan worked so well. I could be wrong, but I believed Sparano actually talked about this in his PC today. In the first half our intent was to loosen things up around the edges and keep the defense off balance. That's why you saw a lot of Jet Sweep, the end around, draws, etc. The plan in the second half was to start attacking the middle because the DTs and LBs would be tired from chasing folks down in the first half. That's exactly what we saw. As the defense tired out, that's when we started gashing the Bills up the middle ... and why you saw Brown's carries increase exponentially in the second half. You'll also notice the big rips of yardage (outside the end around) came later in the game. I personally thought it was great strategy by our team ... especially considering how many yards we ended up running for.
Wow...we really do find ways to complain about anything, don't we? We haven't seen a win this dominating since the debut of the Wildcat and we are still criticizing? I would let it go. The gameplan obviously was correct. Even with five carries in the first half, it didn't seem off to me. Ronnie having more carries is nice, but ultimately, we need our RUNNING GAME to get the carries, and by my math, we had 15 carries in the first half, which is a good number. Actually, it was more than that, only Ricky and Ronnie got 15. Besides, don't you think that the Bills were preparing to key in on Ronnie, especially with a first time starting QB, and suspect receivers? Miami's gameplan to come out throwing right away probably helped soften the defense just enough to let Ronnie be successful as he was when he did get the rock.
I actually like this post and was thinking the same thing during the first half. Yes, i know we won the game big but if we had not been up at halftime i dont think we would have had the option of running it as much in the second half. I think ronnie should have been involved a bit more in the first half. It always seems that if ronnie has a bad game its because he isnt given an opportunity, not because he performs poorly.
you're kidding me right? you already know the majority of the time Ronnie runs the ball when the Wildcat package is called and our only offense up until the Bills game was, "wildcat wildcat". I live off fact and not speculation and the fact is Ricky rushed for almost 1900 yards in a season, 12th most in NFL HISTORY, while Ronnie barely broke 1000yds in a season and did it only once in his 4 year career. By Ricky's 5th year, he already hit the 1,000yrd mark 4times. But at the end of the day, as long as the Fins win.
But we were. So the gameplan for this game worked, but yet you are going to criticize it regardless. So when the coaching staff gets is wrong they get criticized, when they get it INSANELY right.. they still get criticized. AWESOME! It amazes me. We have the #3 rushing offense in the league. We have run the ball on every team we have faced except Atlanta. Everybody was calling for more running this year. Get the ball into the hands RB and RW. We are doing that and people are still complaining. We have two good backs. They BOTH should get the ball. It's called playing to your strengths. Why have RW if you are going to give RB the ball all the time? Our offense put up 31 points, btw.
they run in Tandem second half is usually strongest for the ground game Ricky is a Beast having said that: what matters is winning games, not show-casing someones' man-crush should not forget Cobbs & Polite in this equation the #1 Running Stable in the NFL. & the Orca-5 opening holes for theTandem from Hell! GoFish!
