Great win, but we have some serious problems on defense.

Rivers is a really good quarterback.

Agreed.

Also, the Branch contract is horrible. He wasnt good last year and he's not improved. Rivers is a great QB and i trust Wake and Suh to get more pressure on the QB, but i'd prefer Hayes to be out there significantly more than Branch. Hayes was such an underrated addition. such an improvement with him out there against the run.

I also really wish we either went LB in the draft or went harder after better LB's in free agency. We have pretty much the exact same LB unit from last year on a team that had a terrible LB core.

And maybe its just me because a lot of people seem to be really high on Howard and it takes time for Cb's to get used to the NFL, but i just dont see it with him. Next year we need to go hard in the draft on faster LB's and cover corners because it has been our weakness for years now.

Defense wasn't all bad. Our run defense, which was absolutely horrendous last year, held the Chargers to only 44 total rushing yards. Have to give them credit too. But yeah pass defense was bad. At least we get the Jets to help iron out some things before facing the Saints.

we lack talent on the 2nd and 3rd levels. The talent is upfront and we need to figure out a way to rush the passer to help the entire unit

Yeah, this D is in trouble.

I'd like to see how bad the LB's and DB's are if we can just get a "decent" pass rush in

"dirtylandry wrote:

I'd like to see how bad the LB's and DB's are if we can just get a "decent" pass rush in

I agree that that will definitely help a lot, but I think those LB's especially are gonna be that bad no matter what with that personnel.

"phins18 wrote:

I agree that that will definitely help a lot, but I think those LB's especially are gonna be that bad no matter what with that personnel.

Timmons back helps and Maulauga (spelling) is an upgrade potentially. We cant have those Lbs in coverage with zero pass rush

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This was first game of the year, on the west coast, and coming out of a hurricane. Hopefully they will settle into a Grove and play better ball going forward, but yes the D was cringe worthy yesterday. I wasn't overall impressed in with our O either but again first game on the road and all of that. We came away with a W and chargers are a solid team. It was ugly but it was a good win.

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"dirtylandry wrote:

Timmons back helps and Maulauga (spelling) is an upgrade potentially. We cant have those Lbs in coverage with zero pass rush

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I completely forgot about Maualuga coming back too. He's very average but even an average starting LB would be a huge upgrade. I'd really like to see how our LB's perform if we go with Rey, Alonso, and Timmons. You could do worse than that.

Defend the run and they did that. Sure it wasn't perfect but look at what they had to overcome. Asking more is just being unrealistic.

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I am worried about present and future pass rush.Wake is 35 and sooner or later father time is going to say it's over for him.
If it's this year who do we turn to for pass rush.Branch was a WTF signing to me. Love Haynes but he's a run stuffer and Charles Harris has shown nothing since the pads came on.
I am thinking when we get to the tough part of the schedule it's going to be like the old marino days.Need to score 30 to win.
At least with this offence it will be fun to watch.

Here we go again.

"Conuficus wrote:

Here we go again.

I truly believe if we came out of the gate at peak form, people would be freaking out that we're going to run out of gas before the season is over.

We had trouble practicing, we had emotional issues: which definitively affects you from a physical performance standpoint. Also typically your first game is when you have more conditioning issues and we did.

The defense had energy early on but it waned.

Basically we did just fine considering everything. I think the team shows better this coming week as we are back to somewhat normal routine. There comes a point in life where one doesn't react to everything. It's a nice feeling.

"Conuficus wrote:

We had trouble practicing, we had emotional issues: which definitively affects you from a physical performance standpoint. Also typically your first game is when you have more conditioning issues and we did.

The defense had energy early on but it waned.

Basically we did just fine considering everything. I think the team shows better this coming week as we are back to somewhat normal routine. There comes a point in life where one doesn't react to everything. It's a nice feeling.

Well I am happy for the win and I am heading to metlife with the family to see 2-0!

We played that game with 4 LB's. One of whom is a starter, the other three should be playing ST's and waiting for their chance, Mike Hull played a pretty good game. Chase Allen in his first game played a pretty good game. It's amazing San Diego didn't just line up w/ 2 TE's and blow us off the ball every play. Credit Suh and Phillips for that.

"phins18 wrote:

Agreed.

Also, the Branch contract is horrible. He wasnt good last year and he's not improved. Rivers is a great QB and i trust Wake and Suh to get more pressure on the QB, but i'd prefer Hayes to be out there significantly more than Branch. Hayes was such an underrated addition. such an improvement with him out there against the run.

I also really wish we either went LB in the draft or went harder after better LB's in free agency. We have pretty much the exact same LB unit from last year on a team that had a terrible LB core.

And maybe its just me because a lot of people seem to be really high on Howard and it takes time for Cb's to get used to the NFL, but i just dont see it with him. Next year we need to go hard in the draft on faster LB's and cover corners because it has been our weakness for years now.

2nd round pick was the best LB on the board and one of the top 3 in the draft. Timmons was the best available FA LB. They were both supposed to be starters. The depth from last year is the same, if you mean Hull. New crew otherwise except for Kiko. I think they addressed LB needs pretty well actually.

I was also disappointed in howard.On 13 targets he gave up 10 receptions for 87 yards.I kept hearing he looks like he is going to be a shutdown corner this year by the south flordia media.Hopefully he will improve as season goes along.

"dirtylandry wrote:

I'd like to see how bad the LB's and DB's are if we can just get a "decent" pass rush in

I really want to see that too, a strong pass rush can cover a lot of holes. But I'm not sure our LBs are good enough to let our ends push up. Its really a double edged sword for us. If our D-line pushes too hard they will create holes, and our LB's either step up, or get exposed in the run game. Being down 3 LB for the first game of the season had us looking really bad.

"Puka-head wrote:

2nd round pick was the best LB on the board and one of the top 3 in the draft. Timmons was the best available FA LB. They were both supposed to be starters. The depth from last year is the same, if you mean Hull. New crew otherwise except for Kiko. I think they addressed LB needs pretty well actually.

Timmons wasnt the best FA LB available. And i didnt like the Kiko Alonso contract because I think he i way overrated by dolphins fans relative to his actual skillset.

"pumpdogs wrote:

I was also disappointed in howard.On 13 targets he gave up 10 receptions for 87 yards.I kept hearing he looks like he is going to be a shutdown corner this year by the south flordia media.Hopefully he will improve as season goes along.

Not sure that is really true... all the LBs were terrible in coverage and Rivers was getting the ball fast as to negate our pass rush. Not sure how anyone determined that Howard was "targeted" 13 times. He kept having to come up or over to make tackles or funnel ball carriers. Just because he was making the stops or the pass play was happening on his side, did not mean he was being targeted.

For all of River's completions, he only threw 1 TD and that was to Gates against safety Allen, I think. Against the Broncos, he threw 3 TDs. We still held them to 17 points and 1 TD. TMM, that means Howard was doing his job.

"cuchulainn wrote:

Not sure that is really true... all the LBs were terrible in coverage and Rivers was getting the ball fast as to negate our pass rush. Not sure how anyone determined that Howard was "targeted" 13 times. He kept having to come up or over to make tackles or funnel ball carriers. Just because he was making the stops or the pass play was happening on his side, did not mean he was being targeted.

For all of River's completions, he only threw 1 TD and that was to Gates against safety Allen, I think. Against the Broncos, he threw 3 TDs. We still held them to 17 points and 1 TD. TMM, that means Howard was doing his job.

If Rivers was getting the ball out fast to negate our pass rush and our CB's and LB's were still getting torched, that is even more worrisome.

And your last sentence is just completely wrong. No need to even go into why that is so wrong.

"hitman8 wrote:

So happy we got the win, but being honest we were lucky to get it.

Offense was great other than bad play calling by gase in the first half and a very bad game for laremy tunsil in pass pro.

The real problems are on defense. Xavian howard was terrible, byron maxwell was only marginally better, mike hull was absolutely horrendous in coverage, and our starting safties both played bad as well.

Kiko played ok but he continues his previous bad habit of taking bad angles to the ball carrier and picking the wrong holes.

Rivers completed 31 or 39 passes.

Our d line aside from hayes and suh couldn't creat any pressure whatsoever.

The bright spots on defense were suh, william hayes and chase allen. Everybody else was either mediocre or downright horrible.

You're so wrong on so many things.

Tunsil had one play where he looked like he spaced, but otherwise he played well. I do agree that he can play better though.

Howard was above average.

Maxwell sucked and saying he was better than anyone on defense is a joke.

Hull was actually decent in coverage. It seems you don't know what to look for and/or the reasons it may have LOOKED as if he was in coverage and wasn't.

Jones looked rusty.

Kiko played really well.

Suh dominated. Wake was held on every play (as usual). Harris created a few hurries and made some good tackles.

Overall the defense gets a B. Not many teams are going to stop Rivers. Especially when their offense is fully healthy. However, how many yards rushing did they have? Rivers is a HoF QB who put up 21 points on Denver's defense. The Dolphins held them to 17.