Lack of rushing was all coaching
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This is a moderated phorum for the CIVILIZED discussion of the Miami Dolphins. In this phorum, there are rules and moderators to make sure you abide by the rules. The moderators for this phorum are JC and Colonel.
I love the whole staff, they did a fantastic job all season and no negatives from me overall.
The lack of rushing was their fault, plain and simple. Their only rushing schemes are end around or wide runs and straight pushes. Polite is a good blocker, we need to have interior plays that pull guards and utilize Polite in taking out the linebacker covering the hole.
Last year we have 4 100 yd games in a row by Ronnie Brown with a slower, smaller less physical line and a rookie fullback. Plus we had no balance at all, it was all run.
We should have easily had 150 yd average for rushing this season, if the coaches stepped up.
Ronnie and Ricky looked good all season. Every rushing game out there starts slow and builds up, our coaches never let them build up this season.
...or maybe they saw that the Center and both Guards were not getting any push or executing their assignments and decided not to force something that wasn't there to avoid getting our RB's killed and turn the ball over.
Sparano's background comes from being the Offensive Line coach. I will have to defer to him on this matter and assume he may have known soemthing we didn't.
Obviously our line last year was not so inferior compared to this year if they were more successful. You can't just look at a guys name, height and weight and say they should be better. It is about chemistry and knowing what the other guy is going to do in any particular situation. We had two second string journeyman guards that struggled, a center that struggled, a RT that struggled and a rookie at LT who was the best lineman.
The Titans have an elite Pro Bowl Center, a Pro Bowl Left Tackle who has been with them for 4 years, a RG who previously started all 16 games for the Colts 3 years in a row and a LG who has been on the same team for 5 years and a 6'7 RT who started every game last year and who has been with the team for 4 years.
Did you expect Sporano to turn backup players into Pro Bowlers over night?
They were backups for a reason. Our RG was beaten out by a 6th round rookie from Connecticut.
Now if Smiley and Thomas had played all season and still weren't producing then I would say you had a good argument but for Ricky and Ronnie to both average 4.1 ypc and 4.3 ypc respectively..with this rag tag offensive line....that is pretty good.
I don't expect him to turn backup players into pro bowlers, I just expect someone to use plays that create holes for our backs, and to use our backs more.
Your point is my point too, Ricky and Ronnie are doing well, the coordinator just isn't using them. We should have two 1,000 yard rushers in my opinion. They got all excited about the wild cat and forgot about interior lanes for rushing.
The Dolphins...just between Ricky and Ronnie had 374 rushing attempts. The leader in attempts this year was Michael Turner with 375.
Miami ranked 12th in the NFL in attempts. It doesn't seem like it was that much but it was. We were also ranked 11th in rushing yards per game. I don't know how much more we could have done unless we tried to force it like Jimmy Johnson used to do....remember...run 1st down...run 2nd down...make Marino bail us out on 3rd and 10 or run on 3rd and punt.
eesti Wrote:
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> The Dolphins...just between Ricky and Ronnie had
> 374 rushing attempts. The leader in attempts this
> year was Michael Turner with 375.
>
> Miami ranked 12th in the NFL in attempts. It
> doesn't seem like it was that much but it was. We
> were also ranked 11th in rushing yards per game.
> I don't know how much more we could have done
> unless we tried to force it like Jimmy Johnson
> used to do....remember...run 1st down...run 2nd
> down...make Marino bail us out on 3rd and 10 or
> run on 3rd and punt.
Yeah, Jimmy actually made Karim Abdul Jabbar a 1000-yard rusher. Not sure what was the point of that. Jabbar was average at best. JJ just wanted Miami to have a 1000-yard rusher again. Heck, any of our 3 RBs this year could have rushed for WAY more than 1000 yards the way Jimmy would run it. We wouldn't have won as many games, though.
They had almost no interior lanes, someone isn't calling the plays right.
Watch the replays, the offensive coordinator is replacing good line movement with gimmicks like the end around and wildcat.
Don't tell me what they did last year, show me what they did this year. This year we were never a dominating rushing team, and I think we had the talent to be one. That's all I'm saying.
Ronnie and Ricky are slashing runners that have always done well between the tackles, but we're not giving them the chance now.
greg woulf Wrote:
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> Ronnie and Ricky are slashing runners that have
> always done well between the tackles, but we're
> not giving them the chance now.
I agree, but perhaps our OC's logic was our weaknesses at our interior OL vs the Ravens' NT, as was discussed in other thread(s). This isn't really an excuse though, because we should have at least tried interior runs more than we did as a gametime adjustment when the end runs weren't working
JC Wrote:
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> greg woulf Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Ronnie and Ricky are slashing runners that have
> > always done well between the tackles, but we're
> > not giving them the chance now.
>
>
> I agree, but perhaps our OC's logic was our
> weaknesses at our interior OL vs the Ravens' NT,
> as was discussed in other thread(s). This isn't
> really an excuse though, because we should have at
> least tried interior runs more than we did as a
> gametime adjustment when the end runs weren't
> working
I'm pretty sure we DID try internal runs with Ronnie, and they went nowhere.
Lineman are like socks....you can never have too many. So yeah, I'm all for that being a draft priority.
And believe it or not I did actually watch the game (New England TV channels are forced to show the Phins when it's a playoff game!). I guess it only *seemed* to me like we almost always ran to the outside.
I'm not whining though, it was a great season for us.
greg woulf Wrote:
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> Don't tell me what they did last year, show me
> what they did this year. This year we were never a
> dominating rushing team, and I think we had the
> talent to be one. That's all I'm saying.
Lousaka Polite had success when he ran up the middle, converting two more 3rd and 1 attempts and then getting 11 on a 1st down run up the middle. For whatever reason, Ronnie and Ricky weren't getting it done up the middle, but I would have tried Polite a few more times. No telling whether it would have been any more successful than those two with more carries, but they hadn't stopped him from getting first downs on every other run.
Ronnie does run hard, but he doesn't seem to hit the hole (or lack thereof) as hard as Polite. It seemed like we sort of acquiesced to their dominance of the middle of the line without trying to smack them good a couple times.
I need to re-watch the game to solidify my opinion here, but it didn't feel like we really tested them there.
Again - I don't think we necessarily would have won that battle, but I think it was worth more of a fight than my recollection of what we gave.
I love the Dolphins and everything Parcells and his crew have done for us. I've never complained, and been a constant fan even at 0-13 I saw every minute. I'm just saying that Rushing is not a strength yet.
I'm glad we have a balanced attack, I want to pass for 50% and rush for 50%. We're a little behind on the passing and the rushing is mostly gimmick right now.
I'm not whining and I'm also not insulting anyone here. I'm just saying that when I watch the game an area that I think we can improve upon is creating rushing lanes for our backs.
I don't really like arguing here, I'm just giving my thoughts and I don't have anything else to say. Either you look at our attempts up the middle and see what our line is doing or you don't. If you do look back you'll see a lack of line movement every time our backs are trying to go between tackles.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2009 12:58PM by greg woulf.
With Donald Thomas and Justin Smiley, our line this year was superior to last year. But, that lasted less than one game. Ndukwe was awful, even worse than Rex Hadnot last year. And when Smiley went down, Alleman was even worse than Ndukwe. Go back and watch Sunday's game if you recorded it. Count how many times Alleman completely whiffs on his man. It was absolutely ridiculous. It's very difficult to run the ball up the middle when you have two terrible guards.
And you also can't discount our lack of a deep passing game. Until we get other teams to stop putting 8 and 9 men at the line of scrimmage, we will struggle to run out of our base offense.
The problem is we were playing with two backups at guard... it is amazing we had as much success as we did with the injuries we had there. It was by design that we didn't go up the middle often because we did not have a lot of push, unfortunately the Ravens were able to overcome those designs and we didn't have the skill to revert to a power-rushing game.
Next year we will have our starters healthy and look at sigificantly upgrading our depth, and possibly even a starter at RG... wo we won't run into those problems again.
Plain and simple... we were not going to be running up the middle on the Ravens... they tried it a few times and it was ugly. Even on the outside rushes, the plays were being broken up by the D-line pushing the interior of our line back and disrupting plays, so you can't say that we had the players in place to make a power running game work, because you weren't watching the same game I was if you beleive that.
I think we overacheived and got the results we did this season largely BECAUSE coaching was able to mask our numberous weaknesses and did a good job of best utilizing everyone's strengths.
I am saying that it's coaching, or more specifically play design. Last season we pulled the center and had him lead block on some plays. Those plays worked and we were rushing the ball.
Where are the pulling guards and center this season, that's all I'm asking. I know it's a different offense, but this offense isn't using our running backs the best way possible.
Some teams can push the defensive line back 5 yards, we can't I can accept that limitation, but I can't accept our lack of rushing plays between tackles, we just don't have any that use our offensive lines quickness.
It was a strength last year, and we improved in every way this year in personel, but we don't call the plays that use the extra mobility.
I hope they come through and we get a line that pushes the other teams around, but I still think you can use plays that take advantage of our lines speed and youth.
I don't much like arguing, I can watch film and see that we're not trying any plays in between tackles. Almost every big run we had was outside, and I don't think that's power running.