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Thoughts on the Dolphins Broncos Game

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by KeyFin, Dec 3, 2017.

  1. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    First off, I suffered through watching my kid's high school lose in the state championship game yesterday, and then watched our Hurricanes get slaughtered last night. I figured that we'd win today but after two brutal games, I just couldn't get hyped up today like I usually do. So I'm going to keep this one short and try to keep my complaints to a minimum.

    With that said, how about them Dolphins and that ferocious defense? Good Lord what a difference it makes when we are ahead and can really turn up the pressure....today was a beautiful thing to watch. I couldn't imagine what the hit count on Semien was overall- they just kept knocking the dog poo out of him.

    And how about that 12th man in Miami this afternoon? Denver players were sucking wind in the first quarter and couldn't handle the up-tempo even a little bit. That let Cutler sit back and fire rockets while the line easily kept him protected, and I have a feeling that we will see that again next week when the Cheats come to town. Lucky us, they are calling it "The Game of the Week" and bumping it to a later starting time. It's funny how that always seems to happen when it benefits the Pats....

    Now, I know a lot of you are under the impression that Denver sucks- but their defense was rated top five against the pass and the run. That's not what we saw today though with very good protection, crisp passes and beautiful runs by Drake. Cutler did throw a couple of dumb balls but I thought that he was really good on the day and playing with a lot of confidence.

    What made me mad was the number of missed opportunities, and I'm not talking about Landry being held in the red zone either (although that was BS...how could they not see that?) I saw at least three punches thrown by Dolphins today that the refs missed...people should have been ejected on both sides on that on-side kick. But we also had the typical unsportsman-like penalties on both sides of the ball that killed or extended drives and gave Denver too many chances. Turnovers are also still a huge problem. Now, I realize it was a blowout where we dominated every aspect of the game, but still- the goal is to win five more games this season. Our players seemed like they didn't care that the flags were flying in their direction and that needs to stop.

    Also, Stills deserves a lot of credit that he usually doesn't receive...the guy is just grinding and playing hard every down. Whether it's a block, a touch catch or simply smoking a defender, he just delivers. Those who say Stills has been "meh" really aren't paying attention.

    Overall though, you have to take your hat off to Miami- a blocked punt, a pick six, stripped balls, two safeties, too many hits/sacks to count....it was a bloodbath. Some folks here love saying how Miami sucks but I'm sorry, a sucky team can't lay that kind of whipping on anyone. We dominated everywhere and probably left 20+ on the field.

    I love this game because it's the perfect stepping stone for next week and spanking New England at home- mark it on your calendar! The streak (however brief, lol) has started!
     
  2. canesz06

    canesz06 Well-Known Member

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    The Hurricanes game last night hurts my soul
     
  3. ExplosionsInDaSky

    ExplosionsInDaSky Well-Known Member

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    I doubt we spank New England next week. I think today was just a situation where a bad team beat another bad team. Denver may actually be in tank mode at this point. It's clear they don't have any semblance of a quarterback on their roster. Elway may be going for Josh Rosen, who knows.
    With that said, it's always nice to get a win. I will never root for losses just to improve draft status. In fact, I'm crazy enough to believe in this team until they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. I certainly hope this is a stepping stone for this team. Kenyan Drake is making me a believer at this point, Landry and Stills are showing consistency at this point. I just want the football players to separate themselves from the guys that aren't on this team. I want to believe next week we can give the Pats a game and beat them, but I don't know....I just don't see it happening.
     
  4. Galant

    Galant Love - Unity - Sacrifice - Eternity

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  5. Galant

    Galant Love - Unity - Sacrifice - Eternity

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  6. vt_dolfan

    vt_dolfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

    We gonna make Brady black and blue next Monday night...this team is gonna be jacked for that game.
     
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  7. Kud_II

    Kud_II Realist Division

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    Thoughts "Dang why did the Donkos have to be on our schedule" they're in worse shape than us and that says a lot.
     
  8. Galant

    Galant Love - Unity - Sacrifice - Eternity

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  9. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    I'm just happy we didn't embarrass ourselves by playing bad and losing to the Broncos today. I would have turned on Gase had today been a terrible performance.

    But the opposite happened, at least for the defense. Players were playing hard and there was no sign of quitting, which is a good sign for the coach. Anyway, I doubt we'll do that well going forward, but I want at least one more win from this group before the season is over. Otherwise that would mean we'd end 1-9 lol and that doesn't look good!
     
  10. finsfandan

    finsfandan Well-Known Member

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    I was there, boys. I was shocked how well we did with the exception of a couple of turnovers. Special teams was damn good, great field position all day. Drake was going off.

    But the most telling thing was how ****ty the Broncos were, in my humble opinion. Their offense was straight doo doo. I was not concerned at all and that’s saying quite a bit.
     
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  11. Dorfdad

    Dorfdad Well-Known Member

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    a ****ty team beat another ****ty team at home. i know this comes across as a troll but what was gained by that win? nothing except we hurt our draft slot. This season is over period to me. I am already in draft and free agency also looking at who we could get for defensive coordinator and possible OC. Ryan isn’t going magically become brady and fix all our woes. Glad they feel good about a win it just doesn’t help this franchise going forward IMHO.

    our defense practices against our offense which is crap so they play at that level in games. The broncos are a bad team and our defense could play them and we looked good. I fully expect the defense to tank against the final 4 games.
     
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  12. ChrisKo

    ChrisKo Season Ticket Holder

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    I agree with you on Kenny Stills. He might not double digits passes every game, but he's willing to the little things that help the team. He'll run 15 go routes and not ***** of he gets 0 targets on them because he understands his role is to take the top off. And by doing it the same way every snap, he helps his teammates underneath.
     
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  13. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    What comes if it is we know the team is still playing hard, which is a good sign for the coach.
     
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  14. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    The one thing we gain by winning going forward is information about how good/bad Gase is, and that's pretty valuable information IMO. So I don't mind having some "meaningless" wins if it means we do so with a never-die attitude and see problems earlier in the season fixed (which I admit is VERY slow in coming!).

    Other than that though I agree.. near impossible odds to make the playoffs and good draft position next year is important if we want some ammo to get good QB competition for Tannehill.
     
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  15. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    The Broncos offense was in shambles and they did start two new linemen today, which did give us some favorable match-ups. But at the same time, you have to give it to the Dolphins pass rush owning Denver's backfield....I thought Semian (or whatever his name is) actually did pretty good for the amount of abuse he absorbed. Add to that Denver's two biggest playmakers had zero catches before garbage time and it's not hard to say we COMPLETELY shut them down- that doesn't happen very often in the NFL these days.

    Even in our worst losses this year we still scraped together a few hundred yards- I haven't seen the stats but I'm doubting Denver hit the 150 mark.
     
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  16. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Let's play devil's advocate here and say the #1 priority in the last 4 games is draft positioning.

    Next week we play New England, and you saw from the press conference that Gase was mad as hell after one of our best performances of the year. Special teams played awesome, the pass rush was awesome, our corners were awesome, Drake was awesome, the line....well, they were very good (I want to say awesome there but I can't bring myself to). And the coach is still mad as hell. That tells me that he wants to beat New England badly at home.

    So who do we root for? Miami or New England? Even if it was for the #1 pick in the draft, I think most would struggle for being a Pats fan for the week....which means we root for Miami. And if we lose, sure....let's talk about draft picks. But what if we win? I really think we will.

    For ****s and giggles, let's say Miami wins. Now we're 6 and 7, squarely in the playoff race and picking around the 8-12 mark if we lose out. But if we win out, the 6th seed is firmly in our sights since there's really nobody left to challenge us for it. The Bills would be out of the picture- maybe the Jets get hot? I just don't see it. At 9-7, we're in.

    So fast forward two weeks. We're 6-7....do you root for the Dolphins or the Bills? Can you ever root for Buffalo over Miami?

    In theory, it's easy to say, "I hope we lose em all." But I'm still seeing us finishing at 8-8 and possibly squeaking into that 6th spot if we sweep the Bills. And if we beat the Pats next week, then I don't know how anyone in their right mind could not want to see wins in the last three games.
     
  17. finsfandan

    finsfandan Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I guess it is hard to judge how Siemian did in that case. But man, he didn’t help himself. The smartest play he made all day was tossing the ball out of the end zone to take a safety over a possible defensive touchdown lol
     
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  18. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    That was smart- you can see on the replay on TV he definitely did it on purpose with his eyes about 3 feet wide. I'm pretty sure it saved his team 4 points because we had a swarm approaching him.
     
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  19. muskrat21

    muskrat21 Well-Known Member

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    Fede got a PF for when the punter ran into him after the block and running to the recovery... these refs were god awful, but bad teams get the bad rated refs....
     
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  20. Not So Fast

    Not So Fast Well-Known Member

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    Denver had 283 yds total.
     
  21. Phin McCool

    Phin McCool Well-Known Member

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    This. All in all, a hollow victory methinks.

    I couldn't believe how bad the Broncos were. When that snap sailed over the QB's head for the safety, it made me all suspicious that maybe Denver were just focusing on the draft and doing everything they could to ensure they had as high a pick as possible. Probably not but you can't blame me for wondering. I mean, come on.... we are a poor side but they were the pits.
     
  22. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Oh man.. don't even want to think of that!

    But here's the thing. I definitely do NOT want NE to win the SB. They generally do poorly without a bye, but I just don't see them not getting the bye in the first place, so that's out the door IMO. And I just posted this:
    https://thephins.com/threads/mnf-mia-vs-ne.92397/#post-3010294

    as you posted your post. Basically.. quickly took a look at our playoff chances even if we win out. We have near zero chances for making the playoffs even if we win out as far as I can tell.

    So IF (this is a big IF) the #1 priority was draft position, in this particular case I'd be fine rooting for us to lose because if NE is going to fail in their bid for a 6th SB, it won't be because of anything we do, most likely.
     
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  23. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    I'll take a look at the calculators tonight- I don't think any of us have done the math for obvious reasons. I know we were talking a few weeks ago that 9 wins + sweeping the Bills was a locked path, but that may have changed with some other AFC team hitting their stride.
     
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  24. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Wow, I would not have expected that! Did they give them the pick 6 as offensive yards maybe? LOL I stopped watching with about 3 minutes left....did they end it with a decent drive? 283 just doesn't seem possible.
     
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  25. The Finest

    The Finest Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Great game all around. Everything was rolling for us today and we also got every bounce and every call in our favor. Probably one of the most enjoyable games to watch in a long time.

    Also does anyone else notice certain posters are nowhere to be found?
     
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  26. TheHighExhaulted

    TheHighExhaulted Well-Known Member

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    I'm glad Parker showed up today.

    1 catch. 5 yards.
     
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  27. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    I think a few of them got mod-approved timeouts. Then again, I also think a few of them were all the same guy...so there's that.
     
  28. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, but he ALMOST caught a deep pass....it's important to keep that streak alive as well.
     
  29. pumpdogs

    pumpdogs Well-Known Member

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    Not sure if anybody noticed but tyrod Taylor got.carted off today in 4th quater.The backup started against chargers a coupLe of weeks ago and threw 5 picks in 1 half.I was thinking bills sweep us but now not so sure.
     
  30. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Your not sure that we sweep because peterman instead of Taylor is starting ?
     
  31. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah.. worth noting what the averages are in the NFL for 2017 after 11 games (so not including this week) to get some context because I don't think people have much intuition for total passing or rushing yards in a game (things add up slowly and you might remember a big pass or run etc.. it's often hard to keep track of the total).

    Average passing yards per game: 228.3
    Average rushing yards per game: 109.2
    Average total yards per game: 337.5

    Also.. the standard deviations are useful (average +- the standard deviation encompasses about 2/3 of all cases):

    Standard deviation for passing YPG: 33.2
    Standard deviation for rushing YPG: 21.2
    Standard deviation for total YPG: 36.9

    Today, the Dolphins had 222 passing yards (note that sacks are subtracted to get this number) and 145 rushing yards, so we were average in passing (by yards) and well above average in rushing. Denver had 167 passing yards and 103 rushing yards, so below average in passing but average in rushing.
     
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  32. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Well, that's the defensive performance we've been waiting to see!

    In all honesty, that game got out of hand and the D just kept feeding like sharks. The secondary could play as aggressively as they wanted with how bad Trevor Seimian was. Wow, now that's one hell of a QB problem. Reminds me of when Dan Orlovsky was starting for the Lions. What can a coach do in that situation? Seimien was checking it down and still only managed to complete roughly 45% of his passes for a 30 rating.

    And there weren't really a ton of excuses either. CJ Anderson ran effectively and the Broncos have weapons on the outside. Seimian just straight up sucks. That kind of showing demonstrate how much difference there really is between good QBs and bad.

    That said, it was good to the see the offense do a little something. Still a lot of sloppy, off-target throws by Cutler. He displayed terrible touch early on. All things considered it was a good day though. Cutler sharpened it up near the end. His last 2 big ones to Stills were perfect.

    Still not a GD thing from Parker, which means he's fallen behind even Julius Thomas over the last month:

    Last 4 games:
    Stills: 20 rec, 392 yds, 2 TDs
    Landry: 24 rec, 269 yds, 3 TDs
    Thomas: 14 rec, 110 yds, 1 TDs
    Parker: 12 rec, 102 yds

    Parker is now on pace to total less than 550 yards this season which sounds like bust territory to me.



    What a game though. We needed this one. All of us did.
     
  33. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    No he's saying he thought Buffalo would sweep us with Taylor.. now he's not so sure lol. Frankly the way they're playing we have a chance to sweep them.
     
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  34. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Parker has an excuse...

    His girl broke up with him..

    Kid needs to get his act together real quick.
     
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  35. Dolphin North

    Dolphin North Well-Known Member

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    I watched a few Denver games this year. Vance Joseph's team is melting down around him. He cannot coach, no matter how much people like him. He may be one and done. It'll be interesting to see how Elway handles this. I think that onside kick in the 4th was kind of stupid, I agree with the mentality of playing hard and burying them, but that is just asking for things to get dirty and you risk your players getting hurt by borderline or cheap shots, as shown on the very next play. Anyway, we beat a bad team. We have beaten other bad teams. The problem is we can't beat good teams. Beat a playoff team and I'll be much happier. We are what we have been for years; a little below average. I'm glad we won a game we should win. You couldn't take that for granted before Gase came along.
    I agree Keith, Stills' effort is not noticed as much as a guy like Landry, but he does play hard all the time. I see that Parker has lost Cutler's trust and rightfully so. He has not gone after the ball as aggressively lately as he did early this year.
    Somebody told me Drake broke the most tackles in the league the week he started for the first time. I don't know if that was an anomaly or what, but I wish he would fall forward when he does get tackled. He just looks light to me. But he hits the home run fairly often so I guess you trade one for the other. He played well today though, as long as we don't play that game we sometimes play here with stats, where we take away a player's 2 best plays and average the rest to make him a 3 YPC guy.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2017
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  36. Dolphin Dundee

    Dolphin Dundee Well-Known Member

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    Yeh i'm not sure how the hell Vance Joseph's a head coach in this league. The Broncos are really scraping the barrel. I can't say i'm sold on Game yet but he seems light years better than Vance. It sure makes me wish i studied how to be an NFL coach when i was younger I might of had a shot if this is the best the NFL has to offer.
     
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  37. Dolphin North

    Dolphin North Well-Known Member

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    As for Thomas's "ride the bronco / hump the football" TD celebration, some may never want to see him do that to the ball again, but if he scores one next week I'd love to see him grab brady or belichick on the sidelines and hump their faces. So I guess he needs to score twice.
    [​IMG]
     
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  38. pumpdogs

    pumpdogs Well-Known Member

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    No I was expecting to get swept with taylor.
    Not that he is great or anything but I feel the bills have a better team than us.Peterman might even the odds.This will just push us farther down the draftboard.
     
  39. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Yeah we should sweep that team with peterman.
     
  40. jw3102

    jw3102 season ticket holder

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    I happened to go on the Broncos fan forum to see what their fans were saying about the game. It appeared that the vast majority of their fans wanted the Broncos to lose today so they will get a higher draft pick.

    So there were a lot of Dolphin fans in Denver today rooting for their team to keep tanking the season. Based on how awful the Broncos played today, it appears they were happy to give the majority of the Bronco fans the loss they were hoping for.

    The Bronco fans realize they don’t have a single NFL caliber QB on their roster at this time and therefore they want their team to lose out, so they have a better chance of getting one of the top two QB’s in the draft. I guess we will see how that works out for them.
     

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