We are in trouble. Not in the season is over but in the we better get our act together quick before the season slips away. Lets be thankful that this was an NFC opponenent and not a divisional rival. The Jets defense and the Patriots offense are for real. We are facing two teams in our division that will be no worse than 8-8 and we can't putz around and lose to teams we should beat. And yes we should have beat the Falcons. Our defense, though it gave up 19 points, was generally able to shut down one of the more high powered offenses in the NFL. That is a good sign and will get better as our secondary learns to play with each other. The only real weakness was the safeties but that will improve as the season wears on. We should be able to stifle most defense to less than 20 points. Its only the better ones that may give us trouble if they can exploit our safeties. However, our offense facing a defense that we should have had a field day with, blew chunks in one stinker of a performance. We couldnt run against a defense that quite frankly we should have gained more than 130 yards rushing against. Our passing game was non existent against a secondary that was modeled after swiss cheese. Our blocking was based on the Spanish matador model. Its not the end of the world but we have to improve because today we saw how ervyone is going to play us. Crowd the box and flood the short zone and make Penny beat you deep. We need to have our line open holes in the run game even when the box is crowded and they know we're running. Until that happens we will not be effective. This is what Parcells tried to build and the oline better get to that point. If not we have to seriously consider putting Henne in sometime this season. If we cant run and we cant pass in the short game we will need an arm that can stretch the field. Penny cant do it Henne can. If it comes to it we will have to trade Henne's inexperience and the mistakes that come with it for his arm which will open up the run game and short passing game by forcing defenses to play us honestly Our special teams still suck and I honestly dont see any hope. Maybe they improve but I dont see the light at the end of the tunnell Anyways, here are some player observations. Vontae Davis will be the better CB over Sean Smith. Vontae is pro bowl material someday. He does it all. His burst is phenomenal and for a CB that is the most important quality IMO. Smith will have troubles with smaller faster quicker receivers but his long wingspan allows him to catch up with them and break up passes and save. Timing passers will give him trouble Merling will overtake Langford as our best DE. I dont know what it is with the guy and playing in preseason but he's clearly the kind of player that kicks it up when games count. Ferguson has regressed. Age is catching up. He can still make plays occasionally but now needs to be spelled more. Soliai has arrived and we should make a seemless transition Smiley isnt back 100% percent. I hope we can cover for him until he is. I hope he comes back. Jake Long is going to have a long year if he doesnt improve. His horrible technique has to be worked on because he wont be able to get away with relying on his freakish body this year to bail him out. He needs to work on his feet. He gets caught off balance too much. He needs to have a smoother back step one in which he maintains his balance The receivers werent getting open short due to the defense playing the short game. Ginn was getting open deep but thats like showing a Van Gogh to a blind man, since Penny never saw a deep pass he didnt second guess in favor of a dumpoff Fasano shouldnt be blamed too much for that. He had one of those plays where you misjudge the distance between you and the defender and thought he could run for more yards rather than lowering the shoulder. He got jacked up and lost the ball but it happens. Pat White better calm down because we could get ronnie brown to overthrow a wide open receiver Pennington did his best impression of John Beck. Stop getting so rattled or you're going to be benched. And it wasnt all the offensive line. There were far too many plays where Penny had time but instead panicked and looked to dump off a short pass Henne, hit the films and study and practice your butt off because you will be getting some starts this year. Sparano wasnt joking. Penny is not turning Peyton Manning this year Overall our defense is good enough that we will be in every game but if the offensive line and Penny dont improve we wont be able to take advantage. There is no chance that Penny is resigned next year. This is Henne's team. Penny's just holding the reigns until Henne is ready
we are going 0-16 and the sky is falling..thats my impresssion i expect sparano fired by tuesday and if not im rioting
We'll beat the Colts for sure. I expect a huge game for a our defense and a nice rebound for Pennington.
I agree will almost all of that post. Nice work. I would argue our secondary wasn't so hot that game ( as expected ). Front 7 played GREAT. But Matt Ryan missed 3 wide open TD throws. Manning will not miss those. Unless our O comes to play I fear we will get blown out against the colts. BTW, who is our special teams coach? Our kickoff returns were terrible. We really need to get that fixed.
I put blame on Penny and the O-Line. He was contantly pressured, even when not being sacked. This game looked exactly like the Arizona and Baltimore games last year in that when a team doesn't respect your vertical passing game, they pin their ears back and have a go at the passer. What really bugged me, was that we were HORRIBLE on screens yesterday. I realize Atlanta was not afraid of it, but there were still a few times we should've exectued for 8-10 yards and got nothing.
i was gonna do a post on my impressions on the game since i was on the 50 yard line 35 rows back from the field and i saw it all! But what's the point of doing that when you did it for me. i agree with you 100% one thing i want to add. throughout the game, specially the first half, i kept being an optimist and thinking if it wasn't for a couple of unfortunate turnovers we were in the game b/c we moved the ball well for 2 or 3 drives until we turned it over. But the more i think about it, the more i was wrong. the falcons missed 2 field goals and 1 extra point. Any other team would have made those field goals. So the game wasn't remotely close at all. the falcons should of had at least 7 more points. Turnovers killed us! And i was very disappointed when we didn't put Henne in for the end of the 4th quarter. specially after we pretty much gave up by kicking the extra point after our TD when we had over 3 minutes left. We've got to play to win the freaking game. You never know what can happen in 3 minutes. we've all seen the Bills score 3 times on us in 3 minutes!! I hated that game with a passion! We needed 2 touchdowns with 2 point conversions and a field goal. And we threw in the towel by kicking the extra point. So i was thinking, okay if we're gonna give up; lets at least see some Henne. But it never happened! it doesn't make any sense to me! Let me add a couple of more observations: Ricky played a whole lot better than Ronnie! Bess is our #1 WR and he wasn't even drafted! And i'm very disappointed in Pennington. Enough said!
thanks. that's reminds me of something else i was wanting to talk about. I wonder how pissed off Henne is that he's been here longer and he's suppose to be our future, then pat white comes in and gets playing time before he does. Hopefully he's not pissed about it. Hopefully he knows we're just using pat white for our wild cat threat. But it kind of sucks to be Henne right now.
Agree on just about all points. Although, the turnovers, IMHO, helped to amplify each of the weaknesses you've accurately pointed out. We had the same weaknesses last year but they weren't exploited as much because we rarely turned the ball over and we made enough plays to win. It's no coincidence the last two games played have been by far the worst two games played by these new Dolphins, and both involved an unacceptable amount of turnovers. If Fasano holds on to that first ball (tough hit, I know, but they are professionals), I feel pretty confident we score 7 there. Offense had found a rhythm, but then lost it in one fell swoop. Penny did look jittery in the pocket, but does he shake that if a couple things start going the right way? If we tie the game up before half time do we see the same disturbing trend of premature dumpoffs? I don't know for sure, but I tend to think no. Although I do get frustrated when my TV screen never has to pan downfield when he's making throws....he needs to be more aggressive with the deep middle. Long was getting abused. And not just by the great John Abraham. He was getting whipped by guys I've never heard of. The turnovers had nothing to do with his play, but if they don't happen, we probably would all have a little harder time *****ing about Jake's poor play if we're sitting here 1-0 after a tough start on the road vs. a playoff team. Erase the turnovers and you erase alot of other perceived problems.
here's another impression i had: $7 is too much for a beer $8 is too much for a BBQ sandwich and a pickle $9 is too much for nacho's
As ridiculous as it sounds for week 2 I feel like this is a must win if anything is going to happen this season. Either the Indy or San Diego games are must wins anyway. 1-2 you can work with but 0-3 is a huge hole to crawl out of with a tough schedule.
I'm about 100% in agreeance with the OP. This loss sure feels alot worse than either of the first 2 last year. Even more than the Cardinals game, which made us look worse than the 08 Lions. Posted via Mobile Device
The difference between this year and last is that we weren't expecting much last year after the previous 1-15 season. This year with a tougher schedule and improved teams in the division if we start out 0-2 we are in a deep hole. There is no way to candy coat this loss. We expected more and we weren't just disappointed we were embarrased that the team got a whopping and the offense was inept.
Those are all fair points. But the upside is everyone in our division plays a really tough schedule. So they are going to have to walk the gauntlet as well. Plus the Patriots, the predetermined kings of the AFC East, didn't look so hot on either side of the ball against Buffalo. But you are right, when you are trying to win the division every game is important.
I think our secondary was weak also, yes they will get better, but Ryan missed some pretty open WR's for big plays early.
The right side of the secondary makes me very nervous, especially with QB's like Peyton and Rivers coming up. Don't forget that they're both rookies, and even though they've come a long way they are still rookies...and that scares me a bit.
I think as the season progresses, QB's will be targeting Will Allen's side of the field more than the rook. IMO, Allen is over rated and very average in coverage.
he definitely had a horrible game. he's been pretty reliable in the past couple of years. i'll have to watch him closer before i'm ready to hang him. But i know what you're saying. if our secondary is gonna struggle, i'd rather have vontae and sean smith playing together so they can get over the learning curve.
