Notable Week One Stats

After Week One, Dolphans should be flying high after our team looked elite in all three phases of the game. First, the coaching staff deserves their props. The time management was great, and the second half adjustments were spot on, especially after dealing with lots of injuries to the starters. Their game plan was spot on (here's a good espn article about their "inside zone rushing attack plan": http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4767685/inside-zone-hurts-over-hyped-pats-d ) Its also becoming a staple of the Philbin Dolphins to be one of the least penalized teams in the NFL, and with only four penalties yesterday (one declined), that looks to continue. In the game of hidden yardage, Miami netted 74 yards in the battle of penalties yesterday. Furthermore, our average starting position at the 35.7 yard line was best in the league.

Our Special Teams may have also been best in the NFL yesterday with a blocked punt, Sturgis going 4 for 4, Fields averaging 50 yards a punt, and our return game averaging in the top ten for both punts and kickoffs.

On offense, the stat that really sticks out is the 33 points, #6 in the NFL. It feels good to say that. We ran 71 offensive plays (#5 in NFL), and were #7 in most first downs. Our 11 first downs rushing the football were only bettered by the Seahawks. We were an awesome 7/13 on third down. We scored on 50% of our drives (only SEA, NO and ATL were better). And I'd say our rushing game knocked everyone's socks off, led by he NFL's leading rusher, Knowshon Moreno. (And our longest rush was only 15 yards, showing consistency.) We did all of this despite up and down QB play, drops (in the endzone!), a penalty that turns Miller's TD into a FG, and 3 turnovers. If we clean those things up, we could be looking at an offense capable of 40+ points a game.

(And we did it against the Pats, who many were claiming were a top five defense coming into the season. If I were NE, I would be worried if the Oline and DLine are truly going to be weaknesses this year. The Dolphins, Bills and Jets all ranked in the top four for rushing offense this week, and in the top ten for rushing defense. The Jets were actually #1 in both categories by a large margin. And the three teams combined for 8 sacks, while giving up only 4. This could be a long season in Patriotsland.)

That brings us to our defense, which really played lights out. That second half really was the best performance by any defense yesterday. Our pass defense picked up right where it left off last year and should be in the conversation as the league's best: #1 in completetion percentage, #4 in QBR (70.0), #1 ypa (4.5), #4 ypc (8.7), #4 TD% (1.8%), and we did it against Tom Brady. Our total defense was #6 in yards, and only allowed 3.9 ypp (#2), and allowed only 5/17 third down conversion, which I'd guess is near the tops as well.

(Another interesting stat is that Chris McCain only played 15 snaps, and had two huge plays. My boy Jarvis Landry on the other hand had a rough day, with a drop, a questionable return decision late, and a brain fart on where to line up on another play. It's ironic that he played best in his role as a blocker, which is where he got the most grief this preseason. However, he had 31 total snaps to Rishard Matthews' 8 and Gibson's 36.) Props to Satele, Albert, Wilson, Wake and Mitchell, who all received PFF's Team of the Week honors. My game ball this week has to go to Dennis Hickey who brought three of those guys in this offseason, along with Moreno, James, Delmas, Finnegan, McCain and the guards, who all had solid to spectacular games; the attitude of this team has notably toughened up.

It used to be that to beat the Patriots, you had to play mistake free football. However, we saw yesterday that we can shoot ourselves in the foot a bunch of times and still have the talent and temperament to whoop anyone. After one game, it looks likes our trenches are as good as anyone, and there's no reason to think we can't continue this pace of being top ten in all three phases of the game. Heck, if our offense cleans up its mistakes, Dolphans can be thinking about being top five across the board.

(*** These stats were taken from pro football reference, and obviously don't include tonight's upcoming games.)

 

If I had to predict, I'd say the stat most likely to stay the same would be the excellent pass defense because last year's numbers were very very similar. The least likely to persist would be the field position game; that seems pretty iffy unless Wake can have two strip sacks every game.

(Last year we allowed 59.3% completion. We allowed TD 2.9% of the time (#2 in NfL), and allowed a QBR of 77.3 (#5). So considering the staff made what they thought were improvements to the secondary, improvement seems likely in their eyes.)

 

Lol your passing defense was probably your highlight if you had one. However allowing 10 first downs on 18 completions is pretty awful. Not to mention, allowing a TD on 6.3% of passes was 6th worst in the NFL. Obviously when a team is running up and down on you, they don't need to throw 50+ times, especially if they are getting the job done with first downs and touchdowns when they do.

 

Actually last year we snagged 18 INTs, and were one of only three teams with more INTs than Passing TDs allowed. We actually had more trouble with the the line creating turnovers. Hopefully we can even that out this year. And hopefully Will Davis can take his preseason ball skills and make up for losing Dmitri Patterson's 4 INTs from last year.