Ask The Phinsider

“…the Manning-less Colts…”

Didn’t the Dolphins lose a CB as a result of the Patriots game? What is that all about and what will we see as a result of that?

First, we have to understand how the Patriots offense works. Brady goes into the huddle and tentatively calls a play but the mainly calls a personnel formation. At the line of scrimmage Brady makes the read and 9 times out of 10 will find the best matchup and throw that way. This was happening all Monday night. When our corners were suffering from cramps and such, Brady immediately threw to our 4th sting corner covering Branch. The starting corners of Smith and Davis actually held up pretty well when on the wideouts (85 had 1 catch). The problem came in bad match-ups against slot receivers and TEs. Belicheat and Brady will immediately go after what they perceive to be the weakest point in the armor. This Pats O burned the Packers, Bears, Steelers, and Jets last year. Theses are all very good Ds, but this Patriots spread and chip away at you style is tough to counter.

Now onto the Dolphins D. This is actually a good defense. Brady was so afraid of our D-Line that he was constantly calling plays to the sidelines to quickly wear them out (it worked, but Nate Solder was holding Cam Wake all night and never got flagged). When playing against a more traditional offense they are pretty potent. Expect the blitz early and often. With walters out expect slanting coverage to AJ. Most faithful feel the D will bounce back. The secondary just got much better by brining back Will Allen. Most fans were shocked when he was cut and Benny Sapp was kept. ILBs are good against the run as is OLB Misi at setting the edge. Our run D is built around the NT Paul Soliai and DE Randy Starks. Not really afraid of the texans run game but Daniels and Casey, if used properly, could give the Fins problems.

I don’t necessarily think that our D is as bad as it seemed on Monday. The biggest part of the fiasco was the fact that we could generate no pass rush at all. And as you guys have seen often with Manning, if you give a QB the calibre of Tom Brady 6-8 seconds in the pocket to throw (which he had almost all night), he will just pick you apart. Our starting corners, Vontae Davis and Sean Smith, played really well and kept their guys, Ochocinco and Deion Branch, pretty quiet. Branch got a few catches when Davis sat out some plays with cramps, but mostly Brady picked on Nolan Carrol and Benny Sapp, who mercifully got released, all night.

Another big factor was that Brady was using a no huddle and not giving our guys time to substitute, and it wore them down. They showed that they were obviously not prepared fror that and it came back to bite them. And I think one of the biggest factors was that they seemed to be stunned that they could not get any kind of pressure on Brady at all and they didn’t know what to do.

Overall, I think they will have a better showing when they are not going up against one of the best teams in the league with one of the best passing games, but they also aren’t going to get a break this week going against Houston’s high powered offense. I would expect to see one of our starting corners stuck on Andre Johnson all game, with the other one or Will Allen following Owen Daniels around.

but we recognized the assets of having a homerun threat out of the backfield. We all recognize that he isn’t an every down back, but interestingly, against the patriots he averaged about 5 yards per completion. Short passes to Bush was kind of a substitute for a lacking power running game. We didn’t see much of a run game from either the Pats of the Fins on Monday but expect them to run it more on Sunday. So far there are no indications of using Bush on special teams which is kind of a head scratcher.

If we use him that way it will be a really good matchup problem for most teams. I do hope that we get some production from our other RBs in short yardage and goal line situations. We could have scored 2 more TDs(and been a lot closer to winning that game) if we did that effectively on MNF.

Dallas Clark is a glorified WR. Though Fasano is good, they wont leave him one on one against Williams.

We have the best CB tandem in the league.. that’s what I am going to say.

I hope they were embarrassed by their performance last week. CRAMPS?? Are you kidding me?

One thing Monday definitely showed us is that while Reggie Bush is wanting to show that he can be an every down back, he is definitely not a back who should be running between the tackles. I would expect us to use him a lot to the outside where he can make the most use of his explosiveness. The key will be to get him into space and let him do what he does best.

I hope you like check downs to Reggie Bush in space.

Love,
Dolphins

Henne is a very good quarterback.
He’s basically matt schaub with more upside.
His only flaw (INT) is really blown out of proportion. He basically has had to carry the team which leads to having to force those passes, he also has really not had a running game ever, he was basically the unluckiest qb in the league last year with 1 dropped int.
We can’t run the ball at all, Henne will probably be the #1 fantasy qb by years end.

Pats. Henne was actually among the top QBsd against pressure last year. His weakness last year was the D sitting back and not letting a WR get open after 5 seconds. I don’t think the Texans corners are going to be able to do that on Marshall, Hartline and Bess.

We were really worried about Soliai at first because he hadn’t played all that great until his contract year. But he was pretty strong in the pre-season and looks far better than he did a couple of years ago. If he can continue with this level of play, we probably won’t have to address the nose tackle position for a while.

The left side is great. The right side sucks balls.

We got Jake Long at LT, who is phenominal. Richie Incognito at LG, who although had a couple of holding calls against him on Monday, is a pretty good guard. Mike Pouncey at C, who is our 1st round pick and so far looks to be doing very well at center, for the most part he help his own fairly well against Wilfork and Haynesworth. He could still use some work obviously, but he just seems to be getting better.

On the right side we have Vernon Carey at RG, who used to be our old RT. But he was battling injuries and was starting to decline, especially against speed rushers. And at RT we have Marc Columbo, former Cowboy who I think is worse at RT than Carey. The term most often used to describe Colombo is a “revolving door”.

So if you guys attack the right side, you will probably be able to get a good amount of pressure on Henne.

not an every down RB, but still a RB.

They did get a RB. Reggie Bush.

Ha ha! See what I did there? Man I’m hilarious.

Seriously though, we wanted to get faster and more explosive on offense, which is the main reason they went for Reggie. They drafted Daniel Thomas to be the power back, which may have been at least partially influenced by the lockout and them not knowing if they would be able to sign Ronnie or Ricky back. So as for now, we will have to wait and see if this will work out or if we will have to make a big change. But I would at least say that since they re-signed Larry Johnson and are working out other veteran backs they probably aren’t happy with the running game.

We got way too much of it the past few years…. If we can sprinkle some of it in there here and there we will be perfectly balanced. Whether it comes from Larry Johnson or Lex Hilliard we don’t really care. But we want to see more passing than we did the past few years. I loved what we did on offense last game minus the lack of power running at the goal line.

Then I could tell the Dolphins FO so they could fix it and probably get paid a nice chunk of money. Believe me, we are painfully aware that we have never beaten you. I think you guys are right behind the Jets and the Pats as the team that we most want to beat. Just so we can prove that we can.

2003— Dave Wannstedt
2006— Nick Saban(6-10 record that year)
2007— Cam Cameron(1-15 record.. thanks Cam)
2008— rebuilding season. We made the playoffs that year, but don’t be fooled, we were a really bad team that year and we got eliminated(insert humiliated) in the first round of the playoffs and didn’t even look like we belonged.
2009— No Defense… thank you Paul Pasqualoni…. thank you so much…

With all the communication problems they had in the game, Crowder and his ability to read plays and be the field general was very obvious.

You can’t do sarcasm boxes in titles. I could only imagine it was sarcasm. The real question is do you regret having Jason Allen on your roster yet?

I was pleasantly surprised to turn on the TV last year and see him get torched by Santonio Holmes to let the Jets pull out a win… you guys should have won that game. Jason Allen the first round pick that keeps giving—→ crap

How he can actually manage to hurt the Dolphins from another division… that is some talent…