Cliff Notes: Dolphins @ Chiefs

I just got back home from the stadium and thought that I would share some of my observations from the game first hand. Mrs. VO and I left Manhattan at around 8:00a, getting to Arrowhead shortly after 10:00a. Parking was slightly nightmarish, but after about 20 minutes we finally were able to get set up. We had a brief tailgating session in the parking lot, grilling some KC Strips since we were in KC, before getting to our seats just as the game kicked off.

The game itself was a lot of fun, obviously, and it was nice to see Miami win. Let me just say it’s very easy to Suck for Luck when you’re not actually at the game – but it’s near on impossible to root against the Dolphins in person. I was very impressed with the show of support from the Dolphins fans – I saw a Miami jersey for every one out of six fans or so – not bad for a team coming in winless.

Now on to the game specifics:

• Man, Arrowhead stadium is LOUD. Before the Dolphins snapped the ball on the opening drive I thought the stadium was going to collapse. Great atmosphere and people aren’t kidding when they call Arrowhead the loudest stadium in the NFL.
• Brandon Marshall had a couple of drops early, including one on the sideline that he probably should have had. He also had one down the field. It looked to me like the first one got in his head a little bit.
• Speaking of Marshall, that dude is big, a lot bigger in person than what you see on television. He’s easily 6’5, and built like a tight end really.
• We had a great run on that first drive wiped out by a stupid holding penalty. Kind of a microcosm of the problems this team has faced this year.
• Interestingly enough, Tony McDaniel relieved Kendall Langford at the start of the second series. My wife noticed McDaniel because of his size and the hair.
• Soliai is the size of a small house. Seriously, the guy has to be in the 340-360 range.
• Same goes for Carey, but obviously his weight is all around the midsection.
• Early on I thought that the referees were going to have an impact on the game. Matt Cassel got away with what looked like an intentional grounding to me.
• Matt Moore had a great day and I can’t take that away from him. But the guy completely locks on to his primary reads. The only time he looks off is if someone flashes open underneath the primary route.
• We ran a screen play! Wow!
• Great play action / max protect on the first TD to Fasano. Even I thought that we were running the ball up behind Big Jake.
• Jake, by the way, is probably the biggest guy on the team. It was hard not to notice how he towered over everyone else during the huddle.
• Paul Soliai plays special teams, too. We had him lined up at RG for all our PAT attempts. I had never noticed that before.
• This defense still misses too many tackles for my liking. That said, I thought Dansby had a great day. He was all over the field, making plays, chasing down backs, just in on all the action.
• The Chiefs LB, Derrick Johnson, was not. He was basically invisible all day.
• Speaking of invisible, Tamba Hali. Sure, the line gave up some pressures, but Hali didn’t make any plays at all, at least none that I witnessed.
• The cheerleader in my section had to be at least 5’10. With red hair. HOT.
• Our secondary did okay. Jimmy Wilson is not quite ready for prime time. Nor is Rashad Jones. Sean Smith made some stupid errors.
• Charles Clay played a very active role in the game today. Nice to see him getting used more. I have some more on that later.
• Fasano was WIDE OPEN on that second TD. Again, I have to credit Daboll for a really nice play call. Everything rolled to the right, and it looks like Moore improvised, going against the grain and hitting Fasano on what had to be a 30 yard pass from sideline to sideline.
• After the second TD, my notes say “Screw SfL. We are going to win this game.”
• We really did a good job using the 2 TE set today, as both Fasano and Clay had complete games. They helped open things up for Marshall, especially on underneath patterns.
• Moore has a really nice touch to some of his passes, especially deeper throws.
• I didn’t like the punt on 4[SUP]th[/SUP] and 2.
• Brandon Fields is our team MVP and should go to the Pro Bowl. What a great job pinning KC deep.
• Cam Wake and company had a pretty good day, as we generated a solid pass rush, especially in the second half, where the game opened up a bit and we started to mix in blitzes from the secondary, which really started to confuse the Chiefs.
• Jackie Battle is a LOAD to bring down. But he’s also not very good as seeing the openings. He’s what I would call a “plodder” – he’s going to get you 3 to 5 yards, but not much else. KC really misses Jamaal Charles. They tried to use McCluster, but he’s just too small and not quite quick enough to get to the corners.
• Pouncey is responsible for the line calls and protection. I noticed him calling things out at the start of the second half. My guess is part of the reason we imploded against the Giants last week was due to his injury midway through the third quarter.
• What was up with that fake field goal? It looked like there were supposed to be receivers going down the field but there was nothing. Awful.
• As I mentioned, Marshall really stepped it up in the second half. Great job with the TD – I can’t believe that was only his second of the season.
• Boo birds in Arrowhead stadium. The natives are restless.
• I think one of the reasons for the thrashing was that KC was coming off a very emotional OT win on Monday Night against a division rival. They just didn’t have anything left for today, and were probably guilty of looking past a winless Miami Dolphins team. This is what most folks would call a “trap game.”
• The Bush TD was just fantastic. He ran directly at our section, and I had a pristine view of the entire play. Well executed by Bush of course, but Charles Clay deserves a hat tip for a terrific block that sprung the play.
• Bush is still a little to shifty some times for my tastes, but this was a nice game by him. Daniel Thomas really didn’t get a lot of action until late in the game, when it was already over, and we were just looking to chew clock.
• There was a mass exodus after the Bush TD. That place emptied out fast.
• Our secondary did a nice job not allowing Dwayne Bowe to do a Brandon Marshall impression. I could be wrong, but I believe his first catches came late in the game, after it was 28-3 and there wasn’t much hope left.
• I thought that Yeremiah Bell got a little chippy at the end with the penalties. On the McCluster one (where he rode him out of bounds), it was funny, as by that time it was mostly Miami Dolphins fans left in the stadium and they cheered the play and booed the call.
• “Let’s Go Dolphins!” chants started breaking out shortly thereafter, and when KC was on offense there was a “Defense” chant. As I mentioned in the game day thread, that was just surreal, and something I’ll take away long after the game has ended.

That's all I've got for now. I may add some more later.

We obviously had a great time, and it was nice to see Miami finally get a win, especially in person. Everyone we interacted with in the stadium and parking lot was super nice, though I suspect that they pitied us a little bit for being fans of such a crappy team. Chiefs fans may have the last laugh, as this most likely drops us down and possibly out of the Andrew Luck Sweepstakes. That said, I did not see an 0-7 team out on the field today, and despite Tony Sparano’s lame duck status, the man had his team ready to play today, and they really left it all out on the field.

This team isn’t perfect, but there’s talent there, still. Get us a good QB, solve the O-Line issues, and add another pass rusher and we can make some noise quickly. Lots of youth and potential.