Dolphins @ Bills - Wildcard Round (01/15/‘23)

45-10

 

That's generous of you giving them a touchdown.

 

Garbage Td

 

I am still going to watch as I'm a glutton for punishment!

 

Let's all hope come.Monday afternoon Chris Grier is fired!

 

That would mean Ross has way more football intelligence than he's ever shown.

Is there a snowman on the surface of the sun?

 

Well I’m already conceding the loss on Sunday. I’m certain Thompson, although will give HIS best (though it won’t be good enough) just won’t be able to produce the quarterback play required at a playoff level.

I’m just hoping to see the Dolphins come in and give it a good fight. I want to see the offense get the ground game going. I want to see the defense step up. I want to see Thompson stretch the field and launch it.

I can’t imagine this wildcard loss being worse than Marino’s last game, the 62-7 shellacking in the ‘99 playoff loss to Jacksonville.

I think though every Dolphins fan should say a thank you to Tua though. If it weren’t for him and his phenomenal play this season, we wouldn’t even BE in the playoffs.

 

Grier has really outdone himself this year, what a roster.

 

How ?

 

I've got some thing to say. It's better to BURN OUT THAN FADE AWAY!!!






For all you Wilting Willows, Doubting Thomases, Negative Nancy's and Debra Downers out there...SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP!!!
Or not, you wanna run away? Give up? Suck your thumb and cry for your mammy? Fine. I get it. You don't have what it takes to be a FANATIC. So I've got some ideas for you to do on Sunday:

Tell your wife you're free. And you really want to help her organize the closet, maybe build her some shelves for her shoes.

You could volunteer at the local old folks home, help your elders trim their toenails

Start planning now for the Girl Scout cookie drive by going door to door and getting pre sales from the neighbors.

Stand on the corner soliciting donations...for whatever turns you on

Donate everything you own except clothing and basic hygiene products to charity and wander the streets as a beggar donating all the proceeds to charity

Suck a bag o donkey *****

I mean really the possibilities are endless now that your free butterfly, fly fly away, fly away!

PHINS UP MOTHER ****ERS!!!

 

That's the spirit homeboy!

 

You had me at Brian Cox!!

I used to wear his jersey to games at what was then known as Ralph Wilson stadium as a pre-teen punk. The jokes I would hear and the things thrown at me were unbelievable. Good times!

 

So....Thompson is officially going to get the start? I've changed my mind on him over the last few days. I personally think that he SHOULD get the start. The reason being, that I think he's got a future in the NFL. It's been hard at times and I've had to remind myself that he was a 7th round draft pick that made the team, but was never expected to actually play this season.

The circumstances have been less than ideal for him and yet here we are. He was very impressive in preseason, he must've done something to catch the eye of McDaniels because not only has he made the team, but he's also played (out of desperation). Kenny Pickett was taken in the first round and he really didn't start to hit his stride until the end of the season with Pittsburgh. In other words....It takes time on the field, in game experience. These guys need to throw a couple pick six's, maybe take a few hits in order to acclimate themselves. They need baptism by fire! I'm not saying that Pickett and Thompson are on the same trajectory in terms of impact/talent, but Skylar should at least know what he's looking at by now. He should know what to expect.

In conclusion, I'd rather see Thompson start over Bridgewater mainly because we really need to see all that he has to offer and what better way to conclude that by putting him out there in a playoff game? I hate the term...But YOLO is probably the best way to describe this situation. I think Thompson CAN improve as a quarterback. Again...7th rounder, lets give him a chance, lets see what he can do against the Bills. Given the uncertainty of the Tua situation, how awesome would it be to have Skylar go into Buffalo and at the very least, give an inspiring performance for us Dolphin fans?

We're not winning this game...No way...In fact, we may get blown off the field by halftime, but if there was ever going to be a silver lining, a moral victory come out of this, it would be that Thompson plays well and keeps the game competitive on offense for us. Again, I don't expect a win, but him throwing a couple TD passes and at least maybe scaring Buffalo would be good enough for me. It would ease a lot of the impending offseason suffering that we are about to endure.

 

NFL screwed Bengals, I'll not root for the Bills

 

A better question is why invest so much in a left tackle when you have a left handed quarterback?

 

I made that very same point during the off season. I would so get a kick out of the sports media who said Tua had Armstead to protect his blind side.

 

Yes! I love the idea of Thompson starting too. You never know what he can become unless he gets out there and plays. Brady only got his shot because Bledsoe got hurt so hey what the hell? We know Bridgewater has no future and if we lose then at least Thompson gets the experience.

 

If you watch the All-22, and then see his solid PFF rating, you'll understand he didn't really play as bad as you think. The team really screwed him on a couple drives that could have been scores. The bad snap and that terrible run from Mostert where they decided to not block anyone. And the Jets pass defense is so much better than Buffalo.

 

What you want to see from Thompson is steady improvement so McDaniel can gradually add to the playbook with him under center. He's improved with his performances to date, so at this point I think it comes down to whether he's confident enough to pull the trigger in games they way he does in practice. The missed opportunities to hit Hill against the Jests need to be decisive throws and completions against the Bills.

McDaniel has to call a perfect game that straddles being able to keep the ball out of Allen's hands while also making sure Buffalo's safeties are concerned enough to play off the line. We'll learn something about our coach and our backup on Sunday.

 

What I'm worried about is Thompson being hesitant to make the open throws. There were plenty in the Jets game. Teddy probably makes those. But I don't think Teddy really cares. He reminds me of Cutler, looks good on paper, not so much on the field.
We need to be able to run with Wilson and Ahmed. Thompson completes the easy makeable throws keeping the Bills honest. Allowing for more successful runs.
We can't have any mistakes. The defense has to keep us in the game. And in the 4th quarter who knows what can happen.
Go Phins!

 

In practice yesterday, Bridgewater still couldn't get any velocity on his throws from 15-20 yards out. Sounds like he wasn't an option to start at this point.

 

While you're probably right, you watch because you're a Dolphins fan and we all believe in 'any given Sunday'. Miami shouldn't win but when has that stopped us from rooting on our team?

 

I think this will be one of the very rare cases where I'll watch the start of the game, but if it looks like it's getting out of hand I'll switch it off. That's extremely rare for me. I generally don't mind watching blowouts just to see how the team plays, but there's not much to learn if Tua isn't out there. I really wanted to see some evidence Tua could prove he could play well in the playoffs, but.. I guess not.

 

Skylar has had to face the Jets twice. They have best pass defense in the AFC. 3rd best in the league. Buffalo is 15th by comparison. Wouldn't be surprised to see him put up some really nice numbers..

 

Bills have the 4th best passer rating allowed. Top defenses nowadays are usually top pass defenses because that's what matters most in today's game. Also, Jets have the 2nd best passer rating allowed, but Cinci is #1 (regarding the AFC claim).
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/opp.htm

 

Depends on what stat you use. For you, passer rating is everything. We get it.

 

The knock on Thompson in college was that he couldn't "throw" his receivers open...He plays it safe, he makes sure they are open. Great quarterbacks can anticipate and throw their guys open (as weird as that sounds), and that's once difference between game manager and good-great quarterback in my book.
Guys are going to have to get open, Hill is going to have to beat his man and we're going to have to give Thompson time to get the ball down the field. I want to see him take some shots, we have nothing to lose at this point.

 

We've all seen too many ridiculous upsets in the NFL to say Miami has no shot in this game, but it's very hard to imagine given the injuries. That said, I've given it some thought today and here's the scenarios:

1. The first situation we can probably rule out and that's weather. If there was sever snow and/or wind, that would help to be an equalizer at QB. We can forget about that as it looks like it's going to be 31 and Sunny as of right now.
2. Buffalo as a team gets a little nervous about a game they are 100% expected to win and plays tight with some mistakes.
3. Turnovers and some balls bounce Miami's way and nothing bounces Buffalo's way.
4. Skylar plays out of his ***.
5. Josh Allen has an uncharacteristically bad game.
6. Miami gets lucky with a special teams play; e.g. blocked punt, kick return, etc.
7. Miami has a huge day running the ball.

Sure there are other scenarios but I think these are the big ones. With 1 off the table, I think it's going to take a mix of 2-7. I don't think just one of them alone gets it done.

Edited To add - I think the most important scenario for unlikely victory is #4, and unfortunately I think it's also the least likely. Not a knock on Skylar, but to expect a 7th round rookie to go into Buffalo and win a playoff game in January is about as unreasonable an expectation as it gets. It's something even Marino struggled to do.

 

Passer rating isn't everything. But it's transparent. We know what it measures. You previously championed DVOA, which no one knows what's in that thing (except the people who built it), and PFF which is subjective.

So based on a metric that we actually understand, Bills pass defense is one of the best. Based on some black box approach where you can put in whatever subjective assumptions you want, well.. you can come up with whatever conclusions you want.

 

Except when Tua plays them. That's when their injuries matter all of a sudden.

 

You gave me a flashback to Marino's last game with this post...

I typically get home from church at ~1:20 PM. My biggest worry is that I'll listen to the game on the car radio and find out we're down 14-0 before I even turn the key to get inside. We really need our defense to give the offense a chance to *not lose the game* and unfortunately, our defense has allowed the Bills to get early leads in the past few years. Buffalo's only going to need 24 points and they're going to try to get them in the first 15 minutes of the game.

 

Hey, Skyler as bad as he's been is actually our best pick of the 2022 draft, at least he's playing. All the other Grier picks this year turned out to be complete scrubs, as usual.

No wonder he completely gave up on drafting and traded away all our future picks.

 

That game was a nightmare.

Marino INT, Marino fumble.. guy returns it for a TD. Actually, the guy returning it was just celebrating thinking the play was dead until someone apparently told him the play wasn't dead and he gets into the endzone afterwards. Blocked punt. Defense can't tackle worse than anything we've witnessed last few years, one tackle missed after another after another for a long TD run by the Jags, and also a long TD pass by Fiedler. Oh yeah.. Fiedler playing like Marino. wth!?! Oh yes, and another Marino INT..

And it was Marino's last game. Not the way a legend should have gone out.

As bad as this next game might be, it won't come close to that tragedy against the Jags.

 

Yeah, that one still hurts. The worst thing was that it kept getting worse. The entire team quit that day.