What is our weakest link? i nominate: pass rush offensive guard play and consistency kick return coverage special teams coaching man pass coverage cornerback and free safety talent cornerback and free safety inexperience drafting in the second round discuss; if you choose other, please expound.
i voted other because im going to say its the stadium and fans. when its not the mud, or the hurricanes, its the infield, and an honestly lackluster roar from the crowd. the rest of the problems will come and go, but the weak crowd seems semipermanent and is an embarrassment when someone calls me out on it. its been like that since when, dan marino? the orange bowl. i wonder how much better the dolphins would be if we were the best crowd in the best stadium in all of the nfl. and its the only things we actually have the power to change, or at least affect.
Corners are not exactly shining in man to man coverages. Special Teams is a close second, they looked horrible last night in both Coverage and punt team phases. And Gm #2...where is Cameron Wake?
kickoff coverage and secondary coverage. The Jags are terrible on offense and they started their drives on their own 40 or better and after 1 completed pass were at the 25 looking at FG already.
our challenges seem to be: OLB and pressure on the QB .... i will continue to advocate that Wake is not the answer at WOLB -- i do expect us to pick up someone post roster cuts to help here .... if not, put Ike at SOLB and Misi at WOLB ... or leave Misi at SOLB and Anderson at WOLB ... but Wake is not our solution on 1/2 downs -- let him stick with being a pass rush specialist ... i and we should be good with that STs and big returns .... CB and coverage ... i will continue to advocate that Smith is a liability here, Carroll could be starting before the end of the season (if Allen stays at nickel) I am not worried about the line .... they will be fine
i said pass rush. i'm not seeing it yet and hopefully we get some when nolan unleashes his blitz packages. i wouldnt be worried about special teams since they're made up of players that wont be on the team in three weeks
Our cornerbacks. Despite the man love for them on this board, they get burnt for big plays far too often. Vontae Davis is a cornerback, not a linebacker. Time to start judging him as one.
I agree he can play better, but can we get the man some safety help? He's in press a lot of the time, and there's no one over the top. That's not bad play, it's bad play calling.
No way is the pass rush our weakest. They've looked okay and they haven't even used any Nolan blitzes. They're saving it for the regular season. They may even save some stuff for week 3. ;] It's a toss between special teams and the young secondary. Will Allen get well soon! They could use his help and experience.
Voted Special Teams coaching, because ALL 4 phases of our ST's still suck badly. Maybe it's because Bonamego is being forced to try so many different bubble players but our opposition so far seems to have this figured out, why can't we stop a KR/PR to save our souls?
Secondary inexperience. Vontae and Sean have gotten beat in both games and I don't believe it is because they can't play. They just need more time on the field. Unlike a few here, I think that CLemons has done pretty well at FS. He hasn't been perfect by a long way but I've seen enough to think that the game isn't too big for him. I am not worried, yet, about the coverage teams. They haven't looked good at this point but I see different guys out there all the time. It'll come together after the cuts and things get finallized.
In order for this team to take the next step, all those things have to be placated. They all have to have some success. If you had to pick one, right now, I'd have to say the young secondary. All three have shown some very good stuff and some 'scratch your head' stuff so far. It's imperative that Smith and Davis improve from last season in order for us to progress. The STs are in bad shape and the only reason that it's as big and issue as we've made it is that it's been a trend (for you know, the last 8 yrs). Our return and coverage teams are ugly... They do, however, get somewhat of a bye from me since this is the preseason and their working with 30 some-odd guys on these teams, of which probably only 5 or 6 will be here in 3 weeks... If you look around the league, there are several teams that the coverage squads are 'lacking' right now...so, I'll withhold judgment....for now. The Lbers and young players along the front 7 look to be less of an issue. At least Wake and Misi don't have nearly a full year of starting under their belts as Smith and Davis do, so some mistakes are to expected. The pressure on Misi will be great. He just might surprise us, but we'll have to see how he develops....
Other: pass defense in general. Our biggest problem last year, and I refuse to declare it fixed until I see it in the regular season. Short area coverage by the linebackers should be improved, but we need our corners to step up, Chris Clemons scares me at FS, and Bell is as one-dimensional as ever.
I know our D has many issues right now, pass rush, corner and safety play but I don't expect immediate results with Nolan only having one training camp working with his new players. I fully expect it to take a couple live games to realize what they are doing and what is working and what needs to be tweaked. I think each of the next 2 preseason games and week 1 in buffalo we should have better results from our D. I believe we have the talent and the coaching but it's a different scheme so it will take time. I'm more concerned about our Special teams. I'm not sure we have the personnel there to be effective regularily. I'm also concerned about the interior of our O line. If they break down with injuries or quality of play it could seriously hurt our offense. I expect our D to play better in the comming weeks. If it is still bad by week 3 in the regular season, then i'll consider it our biggest weakness.
I can't believe how many people are saying pass rush when it's obvious that Nolan has been completely vanilla the first two preseason games. The weakest performing unit has been our STs. Two blocked punts, horrendous coverage and nothing special on the returns makes that our weakest link.
I picked kick return coverage. You let the opponent start at their 40 every time, you are going to lose more games than you win. I havent been disappointed at all with the secondary when you consider the lack of pass rush, and I havent been disappointed with the lack of pass rush when you consider how vanilla we are being.
I put special teams coaching, we have stunk and we don't look much better this preseason so far. I consider that part of Kick return coverage.
I put our cornerbacks. Last year big plays killed us. So far in the preseason our corners continue to get burned and give up some big plays. Fortunately some of them have been dropped, but it's been concerning. Hopefully it's just the field conditions, but given last year I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt just yet. We need Allen healthy. I almost put special teams but at this point I don't think we're playing our ST starters.
Directly after (and during) the game, I agreed with you, whole-heartedly. To emphasize the point, the STs have been pretty poor for years for this team. However, there is still one thing to keep in mind, and after thought and watching many other preseason games (thank you NFLN), STs, particularly return coverage teams have generally sucked throughout the league. That has to be because, if you look at it, probably only 5 or 6 of the probably 30 or so guys on the coverage teams, especially later in the game, will be on their respective teams in three weeks. That said, this isn't something that started here this TC....it's been on-going...but we can give them somewhat of a break for a couple of weeks...
In my case, it's because I need to see the improvement in a few regular season games, not because I think the defense has schematically failed in the preseason. Of course we're playing plain defense. That's not the point.
Crowds don't make teams. A good team will win in an empty stadium. Bad weather is a poor excuse as well. We used to be a pretty good wet weather team. We dominated an AFC championship game in rain and mud. Were an outdoor team. Inclement weather should be an advantage for us when indoor teams come to town. If the team isn't prepared for those conditions now it's a coaching problem. Seriously you could not have picked much less important issues for this discussion. It's all about team talent first and foremost.
Cannot say what our weakest link is at this point. There are clear areas for concern. Same areas we knew about going in so it's not a mystery. I'll list my concerns for possibly being weaknesses on our team. 1st: Secondary Safety positions weve talked about all summer. Bell seems one dimentional and the other spot could be a complete disaster. CB: 2 rookies return Need I say more? Big question mark there to whether they take a step forward of backwards. This is possibly the weakest area on the team and if the 2 rooks don't progress it could kill the season ultimately. 2nd: OLB/Pass Rush. We lose two old but proven pass rushers. We are relying on unproven talent in this area. Wont know how it's going to work out until the defense is truly unleashed. 3rd: Henne Yes Henne. He showed very promising signs but I don't think anyone would disagree that he needs to take the next step this year. If he does, we could be special. If he dosen't were in trouble. My biggest concern personally is the secondary.
Secondary in man to man with a vanilla defense are getting burned as bad as last year. Nolan will dials up blitzes in the regular season, but if they don't cause pressure, it's going to have even nastier consequences. That's my main concern.
Notice that very little concern is on offense besides health? Isn't it refreshing to see that we finally have an offense that could be explosive, after all those years from 2000-2007 of a strong defense and mediocre-weak-crappy offense?[plus horrible coaching]. It's nice to have good coaching and an offense that should end up between top 5-10 in the NFL. [please please stay healthy]. I mean, they were 15th last year, so with the additions you have to expect top 10, maybe like 8th. Hope the defense improves enough through the season when we see more of it. I think Dansby could have his best year ever.