B/c our defense didnt play with any more intensity against the Jets than it did against the Colts. I dont see how intensity was the problem. The first game we were playing a QB who can't make plays and a WR corps who is terrible and can't get open. The 2nd game was the opposite, and it showed. We've been ranked near the bottom of the league all year in pass defense. Where was the leadership in those previous games where our secondary sucked? That's all there is to it...
up until the game all my posts had me scared as sh&& of Luck, it was obvious he was playing a lot better than what people were reporting, and I think because of RGs flashes People forgot for a second how great this dude already is.. Let me ask you this, if we were playing Brady, Rodgers, Manning, Roth, or Bree's at their house,and we knew they would have a great game, would you give us any chance? I saw the defense in the first half trying desperately to get to the Qb, and he always avoided their ability to make a play, after a while that becomes a major problem, receivers have to be covered longer, and your expending much more energy on the front and back ends. Luck was the xxx factor.
B/c the front 7 was working their *** off to get to the QB. B/c we still stuffed the run as strong as ever up until they got gassed at the very end b/c Luck kept making plays to convert 3rd downs. B/c out DBs and LBs were jumping routes and putting themselves in position to make plays. B/c the difference between Sean Smith catching and dropping that INT has nothing to do with leadership. What's your basis for your assertion that they didn't play with that intensity? B/c they dropped INTs that that they caught the previous week?
The tackling was poorer, which I think is a huge reflection of intensity and inspiration, and there were far fewer plays made by far fewer players. The difference between catching an interception and dropping one can be intensity and inspiration. Sometimes the quality of your physical play is driven by your emotional state.
nah he spoke before the game as well, they said it on Monday night football an also Bruce Arian said how good it was for him to speak to the team before and after.
Agree. This was typical let down game, and I don't think it was leadership as much as a physical letdown. Now if we lose to titans this week then perhaps we arent as good as we thought. Whether that is leadership, coaching or talent or a combination is anyone's guess.
What kind of percentage do you put on winning in this league is about the ability for a group of men to collectively get on the same page and and who have the ability to stay motivated on a consistent level..?
Well if we're that far apart philosophically, you probably should've been done from the beginning, when you read the original post. My lord, if you don't think a person's physical behavior can be driven by his emotional state, we're in different galaxies here.
I think that sort of thing is responsible for overcoming all the "humps" known in the league, i.e., the hump from bad to mediocore, the hump from mediocre to good, the hump from good to great, the hump from great to Super Bowl, and the hump from Super Bowl to dynasty. All of those levels of development require greater degrees of coming together as a team, which IMO is fueled by player leadership. Of course you need physical talent as well to pull all that off, but physical talent won't get you past "good" without the leadership and the team culture IMO. That's why this game against the Colts was so important IMO. We were sitting there on the hump between mediocre and good. Now we've slid back down it a bit.
And that's entirely possible, but 16-game NFL seasons are full of potential physical letdowns. It's leadership among the players IMO that props a team up and keeps it playing at a high level when it would normally be let down. This team needed to recognize the huge stride it could've made against Indy, despite that it may have been let down after shooting its wad somewhat against the Jets, and it needed its leaders to inspire that recognition and the drive to play well that should've come with it.
That's not true. Heading into the game, we were ranked highly in pass defense through passer rating and PFF's coverage rating.
We are always talking about how the Qb wins games in this league, in Philbins presser he talks about how he threw everything at Luck, with no success.. I see your point and I agree to an extent you must have things you speak to become a champion, and there are levels that need to be achieved through a tough, bonded mentality, but when you have an elite Qb,playing at an elite level,at home, doesn't it overpower what you can do collectively. I really don't see a Qb playing better than that, and we barely lost, so I lean to the side of an individual performance that was so good, by the most important position, too good to overcome.
To an extent, like hustle or giving up on a play or something... sure. But implying that the reason why Sean Smith dropped the INT wasn't b/c he was trying to get up and run with the ball and make a play (which is exactly the type of intensity and inspired game changing play you are talking about)... but instead it was b/c he wasn't inspired enough, is illogical and silly IMO. But to each his own man... Like I said in my second post in this thread... you and I disagree on the core beliefs that you base this stuff on.
Where was the pass rush up the middle? Where were Randy Starks and Jared Odrick in passing situations? Why not better tackling? Where were Karlos Dansby and Kevin Burnett in the pass rush and the pass defense? Where was Sean Smith's head on the INT he could've had in the end zone that was instead a touchdown? Why did we allow such a better running game by the Colts in the second half? Why not just one dropped interception, but so many? When there is that massive a degree of "absenteeism," something is up IMO.
And that's fine and perfectly acceptable, but just realize that neither your beliefs nor mine are inherently invalid. Notice the first line of the entire thread was this:
I think arguably the best rookie Qb performance of all time did us in..he was too fast and deep in his drops, too good in maneuvering the pocket to offset our strength. If we can keep it that close with that kind of performance, on the road, we should be able to finish strong.
Well, you said I countered the point in the original post with generalities with which no one can disagree, and with nothing specific to this team, which IYO is weak and unconvincing response. So I tried to give a more detailed and convincing one...
I still think there is some validity in the concern for all the pending free agent contracts..it's a lot of core players in limbo.
And I suspect that if that goes down in history as the best rookie QB performance of all time, those Dolphins defensive players won't want to be associated with that, and they'll believe they should have, and could have, played better. The team isn't far away from a leadership standpoint IMO. But this issue of taking ownership of the team and capitalizing on opportunities to turn the corner is something that needs to happen at some point for this team to reach a high level. Think of the ownership Tom Brady has over the New England Patriots and Ray Lewis has over the Baltimore Ravens. That sort of thing needs to happen here with some player or group of players.
Right. Jake Long, Brian Hartline, Reggie Bush, Anthony Fasano, Randy Starks, Sean Smith. I think they need to extend at least one of these guys to send the message that this team is committed to its own and plans to build with the players it has who deserve to stick around.
I humbly suggest this is still a problem. I suspect that Jeff Ireland and Joe Philbin are using year one of Joe Philbin's tenure to assess who on the roster fits with Philbin's plans long-term. At that point, long-term contracts will be offered to them, and this team will start to put together the leadership needed at the player level to start building something long-term and eventually avoid these sorts of major dips in seasons.
I've been thinking about this since the op. It seems to me that Coach Philbin is doing everything he can to make this season as mentally challenging as possible for his new team. While, at the same time, making it as physically comfortable as possible. I've heard plenty of player interviews where the guys are praising the new locker room, the amount of time they have to rest/recover and how vets get special treatment like getting to ride 1st class on team flights. But, on the mental side, it seems quite a bit different. Agreeing to Hard Knocks placed these guys directly in the cross hairs of of some pretty brutal scrutiny. Running dual reps during camp gave every attendee a legit opportunity to snipe a spot on one of the 53/8 rosters. The decision to go with weekly team captains and not resign any of the pending FA put everyone on notice. I'm very interested to see who rises to the top and who folds under the pressure.
It looks to me as if they were not mentally prepared when they took the field this week and that failure belongs to Philbin. I was disappointed that he did not take more personal responsibility for this failure during his post game presser. Its pretty clear he fieled an unprepared team sunday and he got his hat handed to him as a result of that. They were at least competetive against the Colts.
I think when you turn the ball over repeatedly and it leads to big points, the game tends to look that way, regardless of how prepared you really were. The problem as I see it comes from being a team that's .500 or worse that's favored by a significant margin at home. That gives the home team the impression it's supposed to skate, while insulting the opposing team. In that situation you need this kind of ownership of the team among the players to counteract the complacency that can ensue. No coach has the ability to "program" the players mentally sufficiently to counteract that IMO.
Respectfully, I disagree Turnovers are mental errors. Mental errors can be (not always) indications of poor preperation. I dont want to come off as this as me saying Philbin is a bad coach. I am frankly undecided on that question as of to date. I am saying this loss hangs around him. Facts are that offensivily we were unable to move the ball and for the second week in a row we were unable to get off the field on defense when we had them in 3rd and long situations. Im not saying they didnt catch some bad breaks but I will say they didnt fight back to overcome those bad breaks.
The problem on the Patriots' last drive today: One team's leadership made it run the ball well, even though it hadn't run the ball particularly well all day, because it mattered, and the other team's lack of leadership couldn't make it stop the run when it mattered, even though that's been its strength all season. Those are the times in games when leadership makes everything "physical" go out the window.
Maybe it's because of the awful game today but.... what? I didn't get that. I think NE just outplayed us at the end and tired out our D.
