Good, Bad and UGLY for preseason week 3 vs the Bucs.

Perhaps but complaining the offense is too conservative is not them saying they should throw all caution to the wind. I do not think anyone expects Henne to heave a hail mary from his own endzone on a 4th n 1. I think we would expect them to generally punt in those circumstances unless it was the last play of the game.

Personaly I have always felt Carpenters leg strength is an issue and I would like to see us have a kicker that can drive the ball through the back of the endzone when there is a dangerous return guy standing in the backfield. Maybe you catch him in the backfield with a deep kick or maybe he runs it back for a TD against you. I say let them start at the 20 and let our Defense do its job. JMO

 

Nice run down Paul. Henne was going through his progressions, was very accurate, great stats, and even changed a few calls at the LOS. Just as importantly, he has shown confidence and command of our O. He may actually have become a for real NFL QB.

I would add Fasano to the good, and have to include Fields, who is giving our D an extra 10 yards+ to defend. All things considered, Will Allen was also pretty good, and I hope he stays. JT also showed that he has some gas left in the tank.

The OL was "offensive." Big Jake will obviously be a HUGE help, and maybe Murtha at RT will also help. Cog is very solid but, I don't know what we are to do at RG. Carey looks like he's playing hurt, as he did last year, to his credit. As MC mentioned, Berger is not a bad option, based on production, not perspective.

The D was good, not great. Aside from QB's, TB could not run, a VG thing. Our secondary had a few breakdowns, no big deal. I'm not concerned on QB sacks and pressures. Nolan will have that in high gear by MNF.

The running game was bad but, I think LJ showed more than I thought he would.

Livas did not do anything bad. He also did not do anything good but, did not have the opportunity to do so.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I dont know why people are criticizing Daniel Thomas when he had ZERO holes to run through.

 

Good: HEALTH...no injuries....can pay off big time

Bad: JT, you are vet, you know better

Ugly: 1st and Goal package. I figure they didnt ask LJ to attempt a carry then and there to either prove to themselves as coaches they indeed need help, or teach a lesson to the OL and Thomas & Bush, an addition is necessary.

But also for the 2nd straight week, no PA or even straight up Spread Pass formation. Same ol', same ol' power formation. found it interesting that on Tampa's Goal-to-Go they went Spread Delay/Draw to create space and power it in.

 

This coaching staff also like its secrets. They may be trying some new things in the preseason, but they're not going to scheme and plan for a preseason game like they will in the regular season. I look at how the offense can move it down the field more so than look at the score. That 1st and goal, IMO, would have been played differently in the regular season.

 

Good point Marine. The preseason is to work on things, and take a look at others. Our D, passing game, and ST's have improved. The OL and running game are still a work in progress. My jury is still out, waiting to see what else Ireland may have left in making a few moves.

 

Maybe its time for Sparano to turn the decisions and for coaching the offensive line over to someone else? He's been here too long working on the offensive line for there to be so many questions and the OL still to be so unsettled. Maybe they could have brought in someone better than Columbo to help strengthen the line. Surely Jake Long's return will help but he can't play all of the positions nor solve all of the questions.

 

We can't run at the goal line if the O-Line gets blown up as soon as our RBs touch the ball. It's so hard to get a feel for the RB's not named Bush when they have no room to run or holes. Notice for both Bush and Thomas when they've taken short passes from Henne they've been able to do something with the ball. Just like Ricky and Ronnie were not at fault last year, the o-line sucked and we didn't even give them that many touches to begin with.

 

My biggest problem is with the o-line. 2009 we had a great o-line. 2010 Sparano tinkered with it over and over. By the team the season started he was still mixing and matching parts. He kept tinkering with the o-line and never let it gel.

Ricky Williams claimed that Sparano was too much of a micro-manager and I think what he did with the o-line bears Ricky out. Sparano keeps mixing and matching and never letting the o-line develop chemistry. I think we need a separate o-line coach who knows his stuff and knows when to stop.

 

1. We do have a separate o-line coach.

2. We lost Smiley and Grove after 2009 I believe, which is why we had to resort to mixing and matching in 2010. We also lost Garner due to injury and I'm pretty sure Donald Thomas dropped off in performance as well.

3. There has been no mixing and matching with the 1st OL this season, so that's hardly a valid complaint at the moment IMO.

 

I would like to add Gates to the bad list. I understand he is a a rookie but watching him play last night, I thought he is gonna take a lot of work to get him ready to play. Two plays that stick out in my mind is that whiff on his so called block and that dropped pass. I havent had time to rewatch the game but I think right now the only thing he has going for him is speed. IMO Moore and Wallace want to play more than Gates does.

 

I disagree that Henne threw that dropped screen pass to Bush too hard. During the Denver telecast, which is the one I saw, they showed a replay and Bush clearly took his eyes off the ball. Even the announcer pointed it out. My initial instinct was to blame Henne for lack of touch, but on the replay it didn't look like the ball was coming in hot at all. Other than maybe a taking a couple of sacks, I can't find much to complain about with Henne. I'm not even sure if he could have avoided those. And obviously Henne had many made positive plays as well.

I love seeing the connection between Henne and Marshall develop, both the big plays and the PI call. That's what a #1 WR provides that we have lacked for so long. Obviously the fumble was disturbing, but clearly there was more good than bad with Marshall.

Brandon Fields was very good as well.

Like everybody else, the OL in general and the run blocking in particular tops my list of concerns. I don't put the blame on the backs for this one. I didn't see many holes out there for them.

The other thing that bothered me was all the penalties. Although I'm not sure if the teams were that much more sloppy or if the refs just called it tighter. I watched the Sea/Den game and that one seemed to be raining yellow as well. Maybe the league was sending some kind of message.

 

If it's any consolation about the negatives that came out of last night, I got a feeling from all of the Bucs fans that were there, and hearing from them afterward, that they're just as down on what their team showed (for the most part).

I saw the game live and it's still blacked out on NFL Preseason Live, so I haven't been able to run through a second viewing. Therefore, I don't really have much to offer that others haven't said. But coming out of the stadium, Dolphins fans were all pissed...and so were Bucs fans. It was odd.

 

Yeah, that's what I gathered from the ESPN comments from Bucs fans as well. "Our O-Line sucks" was the main line of thought, but I actually thought we brought a lot of creative blitzes to create pressure (Wake being unblockable granted).

Hopefully, you've got a thread in waiting where you give us your thoughts (please).

 

As Shula Gut stated in the subssequent post, when you kick it out of the endzone you take the long return out of the equation. Since we have not had good kickoff coverage the past few years, I'd be happy with the touchback every time. I would feel pretty certain that the teams whose kickers have the highest percent of touchbacks will also have the best opposing teams starting field position stat as well.

 

Agreed.

 

I was watching the Tampa feed on nfl.com and they never showed the illegal contact that JT was flagged for, negating the safety. Did the Miami feed show it? Was it a legit call? Some calls weren't. They called us for 6 men on the LOS once, I thought was a bad call, wiped out about a ten yd Hartline catch. They called Carey for moving before the snap and I watched that play over a few times and sure could not see his head or body move. So, it would not surprise me if the illegal contact was another of their phantom calls.
They missed legit calls, like on Tampa's first series, when Winslow got a headlock and take down, when pass blocking one of our guys, maybe Misi, but no call. Gawd that one pissed me off. I was screaming at my computer on that one.

 

We have a separate OL coach. http://www.miamidolphins.com/content/dave-deguglielmo

 

It was a good call against JT

 

[video=youtube;QQly3eoMxOk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQly3eoMxOk&feature=related[/video]

 

Now we have our own Little Jimmy to cheer for!