1-15. Remember that? You should it was only last season that we went 1-15. 16-0 teams don't make mistakes. So at the end of the day you have nothing to complain about. But a team, a season away from 1-15, makes a ton of mistakes, mistakes that are going to cost you the game. This team is going to give you a lot of opportunities to sit in your armchair saying shoulda woulda coulda. We run the wildcat because we lack talent in other areas and we have to accommodate for those weaknesses. That's smart, but you need talent and schemes to reliably win games. We got two wins against traditionally tough teams (though Pats got throttled by S.Diego last night...so I don't know) And in the final three games we have been competitive to the very end. Not just close scores, like last year, but actually looked like a football team out there. Look at this team last year. If you forgot what that looked like, watch a St. Louis game this year (they might be slightly better then we were last year) And be thankful that we are measurably better then we were and heading in the right direction. That's what this season is about. Everyone knew we were going to make a lot of mistakes and lose some games... otherwise we'd be 16-0 and our Coach a god.
whatever. i dont believe in this 'its ok to lose because we sucked last year' crap. yesterday we won the turnover battle 4-1, and lost. thats because of poor coaching and lack of talent in the secondary. its not shocking that we lost the the texans. its just frustrating because of how it happened. nobody expects us to be perfect. but its completely different to justify making huge mental errors that cost you the game. If we dont give up that punt return, then there is no way that Houston wins that game. and the thing that angers me the most from this whole thing, is the final drive. twice i found myself screaming and cheering with my brother on the phone because i thought we had the game winning turnover. then i see houston lining up for another play on offense, and i want to vomit. im sure houston fans felt the same way after the INT/FUMBLE play on the previous possesion. that last 2 minutes was absolute torture though.
We run the wildcat to get more talent on the field at once. There is nothing wrong with the Miami offense. They scored four touchdowns against Houston. That should have been enough.
I'll say it here like I said it elsewhere. We lost the game on offense as much as we did on defense. There were a lot of "If the offense" or "if the defense" does this or did that then we wouldn't be in this situation. I think we run the wildcat because we can. Not every team can pull it off. There have been a few teams that have tried to do it that haven't been as successful in the NFL as the Dolphins. We threw another wrinkle into it yesterday and Penny proved to all the nay sayers that he can throw a deep ball. I think they may have said that was the longest of his career but whatever. It was deep. It was on the money. And Cobbs was gone.
But with a better offense we keep the ball in our hands longer, and change the game fundamentaly. We may not have had to score 4 times if we had a better offense and defense.....its a very esoteric concept, I don't know if some here can grasp. The lack of a vertical passing game has forced us into running a trick offense that will only fool the NFL defenses for so long. There are such gaping holes in our offense it creates a game plan that has to use trickeration just to compete at all. That is not sound football, and eventually catches up to you.
losses are always a team effort. You can point the finger at one guy or one group but in the end they lose as a team and they win as a team.
While I disagree with your stance on the Wildcat, I think that you make some valid points. The Dolphins are much better than they were a year ago, especially in terms of our offensive and defensive lines, and I'm sure that we will upgrade at key positions (secondary, wide receivers, special teams) in 2009.
Hugo, special teams was supposedly upgraded this year.....now you see why I think this is more than a 2 year job to get the team staightened out ?
I'm not saying it's okay to lose, I'm saying we are going to lose so expect it. It's going to happen, a lot. And the reason we are going to lose this season is because of last years 1-15 team, and a decade of poor decisions before it. But when you look at this board and see folks reacting like this, like they expect to see this team perform better or not lose the close game. Every lose is due to cumulative effect of errors. They add up until you lose the game. The "it's the way we lost" argument is weak. Of course we screwed up, of course players should have done this, and coaches should have done that.... if they did those things we wouldn't have made any mistakes and we'd have won the game. No duh. The point of this thread is basically a "hallelujah" we at least can narrow down what we need to improve. A far cry from last years team where every position was a weakness.
IMO, coaching errors cant be justified using the 'rebuilding' scapegoat. It doesnt take a genius to figure out that you need to protect the middle of the field on 4th and 2 when the game is on the line. Every single one of us saw what was coming, yet our coaching staff didn't give the alert to the defense to change the alignment. And there is absolutely no excuse to be left with a timeout after that TD run. That comes off as either very arrogant or very inexperienced from a defensive perspective, perhaps both. On offense we did enough to win. On defense we did enough to win. It was our lack of special teams that killed us. Our returns were pitiful, while theirs were back breaking. This is a weakness, and can be expected to reoccur. But the coaching errors are what makes this loss unbearable.
I think we lost it on not going for anything on 4th and inches. I can't believe we punted on the last one.
It was a close game, unfortunately the telling tale was our Defense against the pass. As Kevin eluded to, perhaps our Offense shouldve made better use of its opportunities, but I look at Matt Shaub throwing for almost 400 yards, and even worse, throws 42 passes and is only sacked 1 time? Are you kidding me? This is EXACTLY what set up the winning play. On the bright side, we are 2-3, but have been in every game except for the Cardinals debcle. Folks, the talent level on this team is still seriously lacking (Especially at Defensive Back and WR). It is going to get better. We are just one season removed from being 1-15. Anybody that really had us doing any better than .500 this season should seriously re-assees after taking off the homer-glasses.
i dont agree with blaming the defense either. maybe on the last play, but not previous to that. You cant just man up and expect to stop houstons offense. you have to do a lot of guessing and gambling with your play calling. that means bend but dont break. our defense was willing to give up some moderate gains for the chance to guess right and get a turnover. the more you bend, the higher your chances of guessing right the next time. its a sounds defensive strategy. and would have been even more successful if we still have a 14-6 lead coming outr of the half. our special teams put our defense in a situation they should have never been in. if not for that punt return, houston would have surely been down by more than one score in the last 2 minutes of the game. instead our defense was forced to make another big play. they made two, had them overturned, and we ended up losing. but chalk it up to the lack of special teams, and ridiculously poor coaching.
We can want the Dolphins to win every game and we can find reasons for every win and every loss. We can feel better by blaming coaches and certain players but it wont change the fact that this team is closer to an expansion team than a playoff team. We have many new starters and we have a rookie head coach and a first time GM, Parcels is in a position he has never had before. Mistakes will be made by players and coaches. Are these excuses for losing? No, but it is a fact and we might as well accept it. We are still several players away from being a good team and we all recognize that, but I am sure the coaches and management recognize that as well but there is only so much that can be done in one year. Wins make me feel good and look positive toward the future and things to come. Losses bring on negative feelings and I feel bad and causes me to think back to past times and frustraitions. Its obvious things have improved from last year but we must have patience because it will take time and some more players to give us what we want.
I'm sorry guys but I'm in total agreement with gi§h® on this one. The lack of aggressiviness on the part of the offense, as called by the OC, in this game plus the 10 points given up by Special teams is why we sit at 2-3 rather than 3-2 today. Will we win every game this year, no of course not, but to get the kind of play calling and time management we got yesterday was unprofessional. I expect more from a Bill Parcells team. You can holler about the bad defense all you want but it was that same defense that gave our offense 3 of the 4 turnovers in this game. Just how many times have we seen that from our team lately?? No, I say the defense, of the three units that make up this team held up its end and the loss is squarely on the OC, the offense, and ST.
I blame the defense. The offense goes down the field scores the go ahead touchdown with under 2 minutes left and the defense allows Houston to go right down the field to win the game. The its okay to lose because we are rebuliding excuse is crap and getting old. They lost a game they should have won yesterday.
I think this game goes on the defense, ST's and in the trenches. We have a poor secondary and we faced a very good WR. In the trenches, as AZ said, we only had one sack. One key coming into the game was to have Schaub on his backside and that didn't happen. On ST's, we tackled poorly. Its one game in which the ball didn't bounce our way. These games happen to even the best. That makes no sense to me.
Joint liability. It's a team game. If your teammate slacks it up, it's now up to you to make it up. That's how I view it. Now, if your offense did everything 100% correct and the defnese just gave up more points, well it's mostly on the defense. But if your offense didn't do some sensible things, like convert short 3 rd downs, go more than 3 and out on a turnover, etc. their blame proportion goes up a little.
Alen, if the offense had been able to convert more 3rd downs, and kept the Texans off the field more, we wouldn't have had to score as many points. The defense would have played less, and been exposed less to those long plays by the Texans, and would have been fresher in the 4th qtr. I think part of the problem in the last drive was they were exhausted on D. Make more sense ?
While your points of this year compared to last year are valid, we don't run the Wildcat because of lack of WR talent or any other talent...we run the Wildcat because we have the right personnel to make it work. Now, I think we all would have and do agree that it can't be the main formation on offense and it isn't indefensible, but it works somewhat for us because we have the right personnel to make it work... We lost to the Texans because our D slipped and couldn't stop Kubiaks offense, not because our offense didn't get the the job done...
If you have a team with a decent offensive line and 2 decent running back you can make the wildcat work. (Though the talent of Ronnie Brown is undeniably making the play explosive with his ability to improvise) This defines most teams in the NFL. The difference with the Miami Dolphins is that we rely on it a little more heavily. There is nothing wrong with this. Now I agree we are playing to our strengths, but we are also trying to fool the defense and outsmart them. A parcels team typically doesn't outsmart anyone, they run successfully even though the defense knows it's going up the middle. Further, if we had a wr and a QB who can deliver strikes (like the Browns were doing last night), we'd be replacing some of our wildcat formations with strikes down the field. But its not just the lack of QB and WR talent we are masking. Our entire team is brand new to the dolphins and young. The oline and dline need time to mesh, qb has to develop timing with his wr corps. It's a combination of growing pains and lack of talent that makes the wildcat more a necessity then a trick play you toss in every now and again. If you don't think so, watch the first two games again. There is a reason we suddenly started playing competitive football after unveiling the Wildcat. I don't think it's coincidence.
Ah, I understand what your saying. I do agree with you on that but I also think that 28 points should be more than enough to win a game. Thanks for the explanation Kevin.
We were outplayed this game, we were lucky to be in it at the end. That being said, we are MUCH improved from last year. In Tuna We Trust!
