I mentioned the lethargic start earlier, but really, "coming out flat" has to be laid at the feet of the O-line. Maybe some to Lamar Miller. Maybe some more to Mike Sherman. We start the game with a nine yard pass to Wallace. Nothing lethargic about that. That's pretty good. Then, we can't make 2nd and 3rd with less than a half yard. And again, we forego a QB sneak on either play that might have gotten a drive started. Next drive was the INT that was overturned. Then, on 2nd and 10, Lamar Miller cannot run for more than a yard. A third and long, which results in our first sack right up the middle past John Jerry. No chance for Tannehill. So, both plays on 2nd and 3rd down... O-line or RB. Then, we have the next drive, where Pouncey hikes the shotgun snap high, and Tannehill cannot snag it. All of a sudden, it's 2nd and 28, which is next to impossible. Meanwhile, the defense gave up a big play here and there to keep the Ravens' offense on the field. They only scored a FG early, but they did have drives while we had three-and-outs. That pretty much wasted a lot of the first quarter. We did get the fumble, and then had a five-yard pass to Thigpen, another run for no gain, this time to Thomas, and then a pass that Wallace didn't come up with on 3rd-and-five. To me, thinking back now, it wasn't so much coming out flat as it was our line not run-blocking, our back, despite the blocking, not able to pick up a half yard (or the OC not electing to run a QB sneak to keep a drive alive), and then a bad snap. Almost all of that contributed to what was a "flat" start. We pick up a half yard on the first drive... not such a flat start. Don't have the bad hike, that play is definitely different as are the next ones. We don't give up a sack or get some running yards... maybe the 2nd or fourth drives net more points than 3. But really, I'm not so sure it was a flat start, because those things that went wrong there didn't get all that much better (except no more bad snaps). Their D-line just kept exposing our poor O-line (or bad play-calling, however you want to have it, maybe both).
I hope that Turner and Mosley have extreme difficulty sitting! The performance of the offensive line was as bad as I have seen it on a Miami Dolphins team.
The performance of the defense was certainly secondary to the O-line and drops, but this is also an area that needs to be cleaned up. I realize we have had our share of injuries. But there have also been too many mistakes to just write off, and I don't think Coyle has put this defense in the best position to succeed at times. There were too many big plays allowed yesterday, and the Ravens took it to us for most of the 2nd half. It's one thing if you're short-handed against Drew Brees. But that was a Ravens team was forced to start Tandon Doss, had a banged up Ray Rice and an offensive line that's had their share of issues also. Right now their saving grace is that they've been able to make some plays when they've had to. But while not as disappointing as the offensive line and receivers, they've been underachieving also.
I dunno. Blaming penalties for losses leaves a REAL bad taste in my mouth. Especially since as I reviewed the penalties, I came out mostly understanding what exactly it was that the officials saw. 1. First there's the no-call on Brandon Gibson in the end zone. I said this on twitter at the time, but that was a correct no-call. The officials are NEVER going to call that because the defender was looking back for the football and reaching his hands out to try and swat it. He didn't grab hold of the player or anything like that. The contact was really incidental. 2. The big one on Nolan Carroll I felt shouldn't have been called. However, our camera view from the sky was better than the officials' view of the play. We could see that Carroll's grab did not really interfere with Deonte Thompson's ability to catch the football. The official from his angle had a different view. About two drives later the broadcast played a montage of plays Flacco had made on that drive, and one of them was a ground-level view from the end zone that showed pretty much the same view the official that threw the flag had. I have to admit when I saw that view I probably would have thrown the flag as well. Carroll clearly draped his right arm around the back of Thompson. Did it affect him? It was hard to tell by that view, but the officials are absolutely keyed in on players when they do that and it becomes a subjective call on whether they think the grab around the shoulders/waist affected the offensive player or not. As a defensive player, you HAVE to know that if you put your arm around a guy like that you're going to get flagged a certain percentage of the time whether you turned him or not. You subject yourSELF to that risk by taking that tact. 3. The Brent Grimes pass interference was purely a good call. There's not even any question here. Grimes CLEARLY stuck his right arm and elbow out into Torrey Smith's pads and executed an arm-bar to cut him off. It's clear as day. There are rules that literally say you can't do that. It's about as clear-cut a pass interference penalty as you get outside of just straight up tackling the guy. On the other hand there was a neutral zone infraction they called against Miami's defense on another touchdown drive by the Ravens that was just ridiculous. The officials are absolutely allowed to determine when an offensive player jumps extremely late in response to a neutral zone infraction, indicating that he only jumped to try and manipulate the officials into throwing a flag. Just last weekend or maybe the weekend before I saw officials make that ruling. That is CLEARLY what Michael Oher was doing on that play. It was like a full second and a half before he jumped in "response" to the neutral zone infraction.
There's so many reasons why we lost and so many reasons we nearly won. Mike Wallace did not have a good game. He had 7 catches for 105 yards but it took 16 targets to get that production, and those are bad averages. It's the details you need to pay attention to. 1. He had a play in the end zone where Tannehill threw the ball to him and he NEVER even looked for the ball. Mike Wallace thought that play call was a run or a screen. He had no idea what play he was even running. Incredible. That's a rookie mistake from a $60 million veteran. 2. On an early drop, most people once again pay attention to Tannehill throwing the ball behind him but fail to notice for the second straight week the problem was Wallace not getting his head around quickly during his break to look for the ball and see what the quarterback is trying to do to him. Tannehill is TASKED with throwing his receivers open. It's his job. He's supposed to throttle a guy down when he's heading for trouble, and the receiver is supposed to be LOOKING for the ball so they can respond and adjust to their quarterback's throws. You can't do that if you don't get your head around. Sure enough ball comes in behind Wallace and he drops it and everyone is like "oooh Tannehill, your accuracy sucks". I call BS. The accuracy was what it needed to be. 3. Another in-breaking route on the final drive, Wallace just ran a purely bad route. Not even a question here. He's breaking inward toward a linebacker's zone with the corner to Wallace's side in a deep zone. I'm no coach but I know enough to know he's supposed to tag that route by stopping and working back to the outside underneath the corner's deep zone since that's where the open space is. Rich Gannon knew it. He made the smart observation during the game broadcast. Tannehill threw exactly where he was supposed to throw. Wallace was not exactly where he needed to be. 4. Of course, he dropped another ball that was dead center between the numbers. So there's that. 5. Then there's Mike Wallace's failure to catch that back shoulder pass and get both feet down in-bounds. You're paid $60 million to make that catch and get that toe tap. Don't understand why so many people were confused by the ruling. His heel came down out of bounds. The heel is part of the foot. You don't need to get your heel down to have gotten a foot down in-bounds, but if it DOES come down, it damn well needs to be down in-bounds because it's part of the foot. The heel of the foot is not suddenly not part of the foot just because you conveniently don't want it to be part of the foot. I see it brought up that Tannehill needs to hit him in stride. Yeah I've got no issue with two out of the three deep throws that went toward Wallace. The one that was complete, Tannehill did a fantastic job looking left, pump faking, checking off and throwing the ball from a collapsing pocket while being contacted like 60 yards through the air right into Wallace's hands? And you guys are going to complete about whether he should have led him by another 36 inches or so? Give me a break. Another throw he threw a line drive and the ball could have led Wallace by a little more. But then, Wallace also could have caught it. He had as much position on it as the defensive back did. The third throw, that was a bad under throw. That one I'll hand Wallace. He had a step or two and Tannehill just under threw it. Quarterbacks ARE allowed to throw inaccurately from time to time though. Especially deep. I counted four...that's right four throws on 40 attempts...where Tannehill just had a poor throw or poor decision. Everything else was a spike, tipped at the line, dropped, receiver miscommunication, or an on-target pass broken up by a guy who was being covered well in single coverage. So let's not pick on Ryan Tannehill's accuracy in this game. Also the problem on that pass to Gibson in the end zone wasn't that the DB interfered with Gibson. It was that Gibson's just not a great athlete. He had the alignment and coverage advantage on the route and the ball was where it needed to be. If Gibson has better wheels that's probably a catch or a pass interference call. That lack of overall athleticism showed up on the 4th & 10 play. I don't have a problem with Gibson jumping for the ball because Tannehill did lead him a bit. What I don't like is he just crumpled straight to the ground instead of landing on his feet and keeping on running. Then again I guess I should be more specific by what i mean with "what I don't like". For a number three receiver, that was a hell of a play. For a number one receiver, you want to see that game-breaking effort given the opportunity. Nobody except Brandon Gibson has probably ever argued Brandon Gibson is a number one receiver, though.
The Brandon Gibson call was a blown one, no doubt about it. You can't hold either arm of the wide receiver, hand on top of the bicep or forearm, whether you're looking for the ball or not. Although I agree that you can't depend on the refs to win games.
The way I saw the neutral zone infraction on that drive was that the Miami player jumped into the neutral zone, but jumped back before Oher even moved. That was a delayed reaction and was an intentional response rather than a reaction to the neutral zone infraction. That was so obvious and should have been picked up by the officials. Our offensive line is terrible and has to be the worst or one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. It seems to be getting progressively worse year by year. I think it was probably a unanimous opinion how bad Columbo was on our line but this whole line except Pouncey seems to be on the same level. It could conceivably get worse as teams watch game film and see where the weakness is and game plan for it. Without any running game what so ever, teams can just concentrate on the pass rush and with a half way decent secondary they can plan all kinds of schemes to pressure the quarterback. I know people don't like to hear this, but I wish we could have in some way kept Reggie Bush. It probably couldn't have been any worse, last year we had some running game, this year we have none.
First of all, blaming the ref's for those calls is BS. I have seen PI called on similar plays a hundred times. Just because you don't like the calls doesn't make the calls wrong. The reason the Dolphins lost the game is very simple. They couldn't make the plays on offense at the end of the game and the defense gave up too many plays throughout the entire game. The Dolphins have no decent RB's and the OL remains one of the worst OL's in the entire NFL. Except for a very good play by Jordan when he hit Flacco's arm and caused the interception Jones returned for a TD. The Ravens had been totally outplaying the Dolphins the entire second half. In fact except for this score by the defense, the Dolphins offense was outscored 20-3 by the Ravens offense in the second half. The Dolphins had zero rushing first downs in the game and the Ravens out gained the Dolphins offense by 90 yards in the game. They also had 20 first downs to 10 for the Dolphins. The Dolphins lost because they were beat by a better team. It is as simple as that. Every stat was in the favor of the Ravens and the fact that the Dolphins even had a chance to tie the game at the end was actually a miracle. The Ravens lost a lot of players after winning the SB last year. They are basically in a rebuilding mode and yet the Dolphins still were outplayed by them at home. That says a lot more about the lack of talent on the Dolphins than it does about a very mediocre Ravens teams. Especially a Ravens team that lost to the Buffalo Bills a week earlier.
I was joking. LOL No sugar coating. This was a DISASTROUS loss for tie breakers. We damn near gotta sweep our Non-DIV AFC opponents now to take the tie breakers.
I think it depends. I could see the AFC North beating each other up to 8-8 records like you seen with the AFC West pre-Manning. I think our schedule is pretty favorable once November hits at least.
Im wondering.... Is there any historical data to show an OL that started its season looking as bad as ours.....and through adjustments or one or two in season personell changes....at least gets back to adequate line play? God I hope so.....otherwise its gonna be a long season.....
We lost because...... Hideous O-Line play, zero running game, dropped passes at critical times and the 2 PI calls that pretty much "gave the Ravens 7 points"
Need to beat Cincy and hope Ravens win the division. KC is going to run away with the other wild card. I think we will beat SD and Pitt is a toss up in December.
I also noticed the the RG for the ravens seemed to false start almost every play and I never saw a flag thrown. I'm thinking particularly in the 4th quarter on two 3rd down conversions I noticed it. one of which a flag was thrown, but turned out to be against the fins instead.
I don't blame Ryan or the drops or the pass protection, well I don't blame them completely.. The lack of a running game has hurt us badly.. Becoming a one dimensional team and the passing game isn't our strength due to poor pass protection... Wh have to run the ball 30 times a game to make defenses honest... Then we can see some some cleaner pockets.. Ryan has the talent and the weapons but if the defense knows we are throwing it every down we aren't going to win many games..
O-Line. Until that seriously major, point scoring manufacturer and work engine that is the heart and soul of any major Offense that wants to win games by winning, running the ball or protecting our QB gets sorted by implimenting decent players by Draft or Free Agency then we won't do squat but WE ALL KNOW THIS yes? We did last year as well and most probably the yr before and...etc etc. Its becoming pretty boring, lame and repetitive. Someone in the Dolphins coaching staff and Front Office needs a light bulb suddenly getting lit up.
and you can add "confused" and "hurried with reactions" with that O-Line. Its not fair on him. He deserves better protection to do his job and progress.
Is it really disastrous? Ravens still favorites to win that division, no? We beat the Browns and haven't played the Bengals yet. We get a chance to play the Titans too. Wouldn't that mean destiny is still firmly in our hands?
Yes. Any win we let slip away that we could have had is pretty much always disastrous given our history.
Ryan Tannehill had the second highest passer rating off play-action last year. This year he's fallen a bit but only to 10th with a 109 rating (versus 121 a year ago). Some other QBs have temporarily high numbers that will likely come down. Despite this, only 6 other qualified QBs have thrown off play-action less often than Ryan Tannehill.
Gotta run it to actually utilize play action. We've got 95 attempts on the year (28th in the league), and one of the teams worse than us may pass us as they play tonight (Atlanta).
You know Greg Cosell is a guy that I've heard harping about this and it stuck with me because it runs so contrary to conventional wisdom...but he says time and again on tape it's clear that there's virtually no correlation between success off play action and success running the football. It's something I plan on researching later.
Sherman must think more creatively (Do Not Watch) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ&sns=em
I wish they tried the QB option run a bit more. It seems they try something and it works and then it goes back on the shelf.
I hate that such a good player like Pouncey is being hidden by such a steaming pile of horse s--t around him.
Heck, on third and less than a yard, I would actually like us to run behind our best lineman via a sneak or straight gut run. Twice in two weeks, we've forgone that play on third and a foot, and we've let drives die. I get that there's little chance for a big play on a sneak, but running behind our best lineman would probably keep drives alive.
I'm still not clear about the rules on the out of bounds reversal for Wallace's catch. He caught it and the second foot went in bounds toe first then heal went out of bounds. He didn't drag the foot but still Toe touched in bounds before heal touched out of bounds. That's a catch right?
Yeah, Me too. It is kind of shocking that Sherman couldn't understand that point. No, instead run a sweep around Clabo? Martin? Strange.
The only way to save Tannehill is to cut him - tomorrow. Maybe he will land somewhere where the linemen can hold a block for close to 3 seconds.
I get a kick out of people saying we have an easy schedule ...this.....or that. IF we don't get the OL fixed, there is no easy game to play. Every team out there would look forward to playing us in the shape we are in.
To elaborate on Stitches response - the Receiver has to demonstrate purposely tapping the toe. Merely stepping back, toe down followed by heel, is a natural step that results in being OOB. If Wallace had demonstrated tapping the toe at all it would have counted. As it was, he showed very poor awareness of where he was in relation to the sideline, and no thought process to toe tap or look where he was stepping. Hartline needs to school him.
