Home
THIS SITE
  About Phins.com
  Contact Us
TEAM NEWS
  Team Info
  Twitter Feeds
  News Wire
  Phins RSS Feed
GAMES
  Schedule
PERSONNEL
  Roster
  Depth Chart
FOR THE FANS
  Forums
  Places To Watch
HISTORY
  Team History
  1972 Tribute
 
-- Advertisement --
Privacy Policy at Phins.com
 
  Phins.com Phorums
    News Wire | Roster | Depth Chart | Last/Next Game | Schedule | Links  
          Some observations heading into Week 5
Miami Dolphins Civilized Discussion :  Phins.com Phorums The fastest message board... ever.
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
Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: Panteraize ()
Date: October 08, 2009 04:48PM

I just wanted to throw out some things I've noticed about our team these past 4 games and see what everyone else thinks.

The rookies-
At this point, Pat White looks like a gimmick player/development project at QB who is unlikely to contribute much at all this year. At some point he's probably going to throw out of the wildcat again, but his presence isn't really interesting to me at this point

Sean Smith got the starting spot opposite Will Allen at the start of the season. Since then, he hasn't played all that well. I know the position takes time to learn so I'm not sour on him at all, he's just been beat long a few times and made some mistakes. Last week, however he played real well. He blanketed his man and had like 2 pass break-ups in the 1st quarter, a couple against T.O and then Sparano decided to sit him in favor of Vontae Davis. Davis came in and made that pick six. Even before that pick, Vontae has gotten playing time and has looked incredibly athletic (one play earlier this season comes to mind where he reversed his body's direction to slap away ball that was heading sort of towards his receiver, but sort of out of bounds. He has excellent body control. I think he's beginning to play a lot better. Both corners are cause for excitement. I'm curious what the deal was with Sparano sitting Smith in favor of Davis early on against Buffalo was about. He made the move right after Smith swatted a ball away from T.O

Wake- 3 sacks, one game. Obviously he hasn't proven that he can cover or stop the run at this point, but boy can he rush the passer.

Taylor- Made some plays against Buffalo. He's not washed up, and he's not in pro bowl form. If we get him against the right match up, Taylor is still good enough to make big plays for this team

The D line- It looked bad early on and has looked better since. Langford has looked stout at times, Merling seems to always turn it on during games. Tony McDaniel was a good acquisition. Soliai has moments where he manhandles centers.

O-line- I'm not impressed with Jake. He looked ridiculous against Freeney, getting pushed over like 6 times. A Left tackle shouldn't be falling awkwardly to the turf and getting tossed to the ground, eating turf all game. He hasn't given up many sacks, but he really does struggle against those speed rushers. He must have done his job paving the way for the run these past two games however, as we've obviously been enjoying a lot of success there.

Vernon Carey has been very disappointing. He just looks lazy out there. He has given up sacks, some of which have made Henne look bad by not giving him any time to throw. I don't know if he turns it on sometimes and phones it in at other times, but he hasn't been consistent.

Grove-started REALLY slowly, was getting eaten up by all the NT's we played and the run was getting stuffed. Seems to have picked it up a bit. I saw him marching all the way downfield blocking for Ronnie on a particular run play. He gives good effort and has blocked better recently. I'm not really sure about Donald Thomas I haven't noticed him giving anything up nor have I thought we were invincible at RG

As a unit, the O-line seems to be playing pretty well since the Colts game. We flat out couldn't run to start the season and now, Ronnie is very quietly 3rd in the league in rushing.

Henne- As long as we're running like this, we really should be exploiting the secondary. With Henne behind center, I think we should be able to. We don't need to be throwing bombs, (god knows we don't have the receiver corp for that) but in regards to Henne, I thought his performance was promising. He didn't turn the ball over. He threw a touchdown. He looked confident in the pocket and when he throws the ball really has some zip on it when it comes out of there. I'm excited to see what he can do. My only concern is the pass protection. He's not going to get anything done if he's on the ground. We need to protect him. If we do, I think this guy is totally capable of moving the chains.

Last season, I thought that we were at our best offensively when Pennington was in the shotgun and we had 3 or 4 receivers running routes in what looked like a spread formation. We seemed to move the ball through the air extremely well at times. In fact, it would frustrate me when we would go to the run in certain yardage situations when we needed to convert on 3rd down. I'm interested to see what Henne can do in the shotgun if he has a lot of receivers to choose from.

All in all I'm hoping that with Henne and our resurgent run game, we can start winning some games. The defense just needs to hold up for us. Also, we don't talk about it much, but sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot with the play calling. Like when we gave up during the Colts game and settled for a field goal by deciding to run on 3rd and long in field goal range instead of actually trying to pick up the 1st down. We were playing Peyton Manning for Christ sake, we weren't going to hold him with just a field goal when he has an entire 2 minute drill to score on us with and our defense had already showed how quickly they were prepared to let him score. Poor decision through and through. Not to mention how painful it was to watch the clock management (or lacktherof) and our entire offense lackadaisically roll around the turf, slowly get to their feet, dust themselves off,....all while the clock was running with under 30 seconds to go. Pitiful. But that's over. Hopefully, in the future, our defense won't give up enough points in 15 minutes to offset the points our offense scores in the 45 minutes we have the ball.

I'm really hoping the Henne era REALLY begins to take off this Monday against the Jets. After all that's been said, I want more than anything right now to put the Jets in their place by shutting their golden boy rookie QB down hard, and picking that Raven-leftover defense everyone thinks is so great completely apart!

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: Phinsfan2 ()
Date: October 08, 2009 05:26PM


Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: ranger1 ()
Date: October 08, 2009 05:50PM

I agree about the Long comment. Not saying I am concerned yet but...............I am concerned. Second year big as a house and mobile. No reason to be man handled by Freeney

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: Phinsfan2 ()
Date: October 08, 2009 06:18PM


Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: ranger1 ()
Date: October 08, 2009 06:33PM

Like I said not really Concerned yet. I know Freeney is a great player but I don't really think anybody can argue that long has not been as I
pressive as I think he should be. I think our o-line should be among the best in the league but we are struggling against the pass too much Monday should be a good measure of were we are

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: Phinjim ()
Date: October 09, 2009 05:29AM

1. Yes / yes re: pat White. Not impressed.
2. Rookie DBs are getting better, still work there.
3. Cam Wake should have been in there before now. great that he got the chance last week.
4. My onply concern with th O-L is thier lack of pass protection.
- I think the Coaching staff needs to develop some offensive sets to gtive the Henne a bit more time and toi really work with him on play action fakes. Our run game is good enough to set up the pass and we need to leverage it.
- We also need to unveil a pass option out of the W/Cat. A few successful passes will freeze the defenses out of a run blitz pattern (ala BAL) and leave teams without an effective answer.
5. Henne is doing okay. Not really tested yet and shouldn't be the reason we win or lose.
- My money is on the Coaching staff designing schemes to allow his arm to be used and giving him time to make decisions.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Some observations heading into Week 5
Posted by: colonel ()
Date: October 09, 2009 06:02AM

Freeney is clearly one of the top rushers in the league. Long's difficulty with him in was unexpected; rejecting Freeney would have been a nice surprise, that would have been unexpected. As Jake Long gains experience against top rushers, his dominance against the rest will become more evident. Give him time. He's a player and that will eventually show itself against other top pass rushers in the league. Even Babe Ruth struck out at the plate.

The O-line may be improving as a unit, but I do notice occasional lackluster play by Vernon Carey. Is he tiring between plays? Just a thought.

Offensive play: As long as we can rely on the rush to move the team down the field, Henne will build confidence and experience to effectively pick and time his targets. If the ground game is stopped, going to the air will result in some mistakes, possible turnovers and defensive scoring. The better the ground game, and the more points put on the board to stay in front, the better. A brilliant QB with better than average receivers can "come back" when points need to be put on the board quickly. We don't have that in place yet. Dominating the clock with a strong running game from beginning to the end will ensure that the team has the greatest chance in winning the game. This is the way I see it right now. This also seems to be Coach Sparano's game plan.

Hats off to QB Mark Sanchez for his quality play; it's refreshing to see new faces with real talent. (Despite Favre's success with the Vikings, he should have stayed retired. He's cruisin for a brusin, in my opinion.) I am looking forward to Monday Night Football to see how Sanchez handles the rush brought by Cameron Wake. I hope Wake continues to play and shine Monday night. winking smiley

Options: ReplyQuote


Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.
This forum powered by Phorum.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     
   
Home Curt Fennell
Contact Us
DOLFAN in New England
TOP
   
© Phins.com. No portion of this site may be reproduced without
the express permission of the author, Curt Fennell. All rights reserved.