believing in Tannehill but believing in Philbin & Co.

Yeah, there was a lot of pressure on Tannehill yesterday but I am beginning to wonder if Tannehill was 100% healthy.

I can't figure out how he is limited in practice the whole week (I think I heard that somewhere but I may be wrong) is listed as questionable and then starts and does not SEEM to have the escapeability that he had in prior games.

Myself and one other poster stated that Tannehill should not have been played unless he was 100% healthy.

What if Philbin and company were willing to gamble on less than 100%?

What if giving Tannehill more game experience was, to Philbin & Co, worth more than the dangers of injury to Tannehill?

You know where I stand on who to blame for the NYJets overtime loss and the Arizona overtime loss....squarely on the coaches.

On this board some are asking whether we are drinking the Kool Aid with respect to how good Tannehill is. I don't think so. I STILL think a healthy Tannehill is better than Andrew Luck yesterday and that Andrew Luck yesterday was inflated by a superior offensive line blocking AIDED BY REFS WHO WERE BLIND TO THE HOLDING OF OUR DEFENSIVE RUSHERS and AIDED BY OUR RUSHERS WHO FAILED TO PUT THEIR HANDS INTO ANDREW LUCK'S FACE.

But given the overtime losses and maybe forcing Tannehill to play for some unknown reason (even if he himself demanded it) might reveal that the biggest kool-aid drinking may be believing in the divinity of Philbin and Company.

Now I know that every coach since Shula has been hated by the people on this board. I know that none of them can even approach Philbin in being as good.

But that still does not mean that he cannot make mistakes and as long as he is treated like a God, he will not begin to self-examine.

Without criticism, there is no self-examination.

I'd start with demanding to know precisely HOW he justified playing Tannehill after listing him as questionable the whole week.

However, please do not put me in the "Matt Moore would have done better" camp. I'm not saying that.

I'm not talking about the loss of the game. I'm talking about what this says about the recklessness of the coaching staff in risking injury to Tannehill.

Chyren--Ah Hah! You pegged it, "The Kid" wasn't 100%. He didn't practice because he hadn't reached a comfortable level where he said he could play. I'm sure, although I speculate, that the coaching and trainers were monitoring his pain and mobility all week. At some point, RT gave somebody that nod that he could play. At that point, again I speculate, that it was up to Philbin to play him or start Matt Moore. RT was healthy enough to play. Bumps and bruises, and stiffness and pain are something they deal with every week. At the end of 8 weeks, who is not suffering from some ache or pain somewhere on their body yet are still well enough, strong enough and competitive enough to play.

While none of us know Tannehill, correct me if I'm wrong, I'll bet he is one competitive hombre. I knew men in the service like that. They could be in real pain, exhausted, yet force themselves to go the extra mile, so to speak. If RT was tough enough, mentally strong enough, he would convince his coach--Shula, Landy, Lombardi that he was good enough, ready enough, to play.

I believe, like you do, that RT is the real deal. Mark my words, these two QBs will meet again and again for the next 15 years....Next meeting may be different if the right players are fielded and match up better than they did on Sunday.

The coaching staff makes mistakes. Play calling was sporadic and I was yelling at the TV to slowly move down the field, take your time, use the clock. I apparently didn't yell loud enough.

And if you compare the pressure each quarterback was under and the fact, as someone else pointed out, Luck threw 3 potential picks that were dropped and Tanny threw none, and given the defense Luck confronted compared with the one Tanny faced, I don't see Luck as having performed better.

I am pleased that Miami got RT, but Luck is the real deal, there's no getting around it.

Sure, Luck threw 3 potential picks, but since Miami didn't get them, it never happened. But, converting 13 of 19 3rd down conversions? Give me a break! The guy can see the whole field and can move away from pass rushers, ala Marino. He has a strong arm, and he pretty much has pinpoint passing.

RT? Still has quite a ways to go, but is improving game-by-game. Get him that top notch #1 WR and I am confident he will do much better and Miami could (possibly) start winning some of those close games that they have been losing.

As was said in other posts, none of us were really expecting much from Miami this year; they have been a surprise, but....let's hold down the enthusiasm as we are only 8 games in. Anything can happen the rest of the season.

This is just dumb. If you seriously expected this team to be better than 4-4 at this juncture- , with a rookie QB, no WR, and the same rehashed defenders - then you really don't have any credibility to begin with.

This is the best coaching staff we've had since Shula. The only reason why Tannehill is starting, much less showing signs of being a good QB, is because this coaching staff is running the exact same offense Tannehill had in college.

------------------------------------------------------------

Miami Dolphins. Always Perfect.

I find myself finally in agreement with DolfanKing... Philbin and his staff are in my opinion the best reason for optimism with our team. He's bright and I believe he has a plan... If somebody had told me before the season began, that we'd be 4-4, in second place in the division, and one game behind NE, I'd have asked what they were smoking. Win the Tenn. and we're a game over .500 after 9 games. Who really would've thought that? I'm enjoying the season because I see us building the team the right way with the right man at the helm... Next year... we'll be a lot better.

But being better than our past coaching regimes POST-SHULA to the present ain't saying a helluva lot. Get me?

But the issue is NOT whether they are an upgrade over last year OR EVEN WHETHER THEY ARE THE BEST SINCE SHULA. I see right now the improvement. Particularly over Sparano. But I'd like them to be a little more Conservative.

I think they are trying to be the ANTI-SPARANO, who was SO conservative that he lost us games.

I think they are trying TOO hard to fight that image and are taking chances that they should not have.

Maybe even letting Tannehill talk his way back on the field last Sunday instead of hushing him and sitting him down because he was not back 100% was an example of that.

I don't know that is what happened.

But it would be consistent with Philbin's chancy style.

Actually, I think the more reps Tannehill gets, the better. I really don't think he played that badly. As for Philbin, I'm mostly talking about the assistants he's hired, the emphasis on developing players, and the no nonsense approach he's taken with players like Chad Johnson, Vontae, etc. I've never gotten the impression that the job is too big for him... which I really thought was the case with Sparano. I just really think he'll be successful and was a very good hire (IMO a better one than Fisher).

I wanted the team to move gradually down the field, not to gamble on mid throws that gave the impression of being overly excited, impatient that they game would be lost unless they had a a couple of 20 yd completions. I had hoped for a more methodical approach to use the clock to their advantage. I'd like to study the film (don't have it on tape) to see exactly what the team and Colt defense was doing.

I just thought of something unrelated I will comment about--

The CBS TV coverage was out of sync. The CBS announcing crew missed the starting of new plays as the coverage team yakked about the previous play. I also thought some of the camera work was not following the action very well. Finally, those damn commercials. It seems I saw more stupid commercials than plays. Did anyone else sense that imbalance?

I noticed that the Dolphin pass rushers were putting up their hands up against Locker. That's progress but the run tackling was just as bad, no worse than against Indy.

And worse, Dolphins on return teams kept committing the same penalties that the refs were CONTINUALLY CALLING.

Game coaching.