208 replies to this topic

[CaneBrain]

Yeah, well they look like complete garbage today. 4 turnovers. Just going to assume it was one of those games. All things considered the defense looks pretty good.Somebody needs to glue Fasano's hands together if he falls asleep on the way home. Idiot.

[Ron_Mexico]

uh oh. Not liking what I saw. And again, I hope I'm not knee jerking here, but Chad Pennington and his constant dumping down is starting to wear thin. The most exciting play of the game for me was when Pat White launched that bomb, even if it was 7 yards too long.

[CaneBrain]

When you have 45 minutes of possession and run for 200+ yards and lose, you have to almost be trying to lose. Our secondary is a joke. Gibril Wilson is a gigantic bust. He cant cover or tackle apparently. Our play calling is bad when it counts. How many times can you run on 3rd and 6+ in Colts territory? You do not beat Manning by kicking field goals. Find your balls Sparano, please. You play to win the game.How much more obvious can we make our blitz packages. Hint: If you put 7 guys on the line of scrimmage, a good QB like Manning will recognize the blitz and adjust. Our lack of interest in disguising our blitzes is mystifying.Our two minute drill needs work. How do you run the ball twice to start a two minute drill? Who is calling these ****ing plays? It is not like Miami has quick strike capabilities. You need to save time. 3mins and 18secs is more than enough time to get down the field especially with a timeout. The way they wasted time was a disgrace. How do you let 40 seconds run off the clock and then call timeout. How? Just pathetic.Other thoughts:Ted Ginn had the worst 100 yard receiving day in the history of the NFL. Two enormous drops in the end zone. Hey, I am glad he can catch a 8 yard button hook.....but when you draft a deep threat with the 9th pick it would be nice if he could give you anything at all down the field. If you want to be a #1 WR, you need to make those catches. Ginn is a total bust in terms of what we drafted him for (to make big plays). He also gives us nothing after the catch. He either falls down or runs like a girl to the sideline. I hate him.Why do we have two safeties who are good against the run and lousy against the pass? Wilson and Bell are both good run stoppers. Neither can cover. You need to have one of each. It is not a coincidence that we keep getting shredded by good tight ends. Oh and we play San Diego and Antonio Gates next week? Fantastic.

[JoeyJoJo]

CaneBrain, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 7:52 AM, said:

when you draft a deep threat with the 9th pick it would be nice if he could give you anything at all down the field.

It would help if Pennington could actually, like, throw the ball down the field.

[Yoda]

That game was pretty awesome/hilarious.

[CaneBrain]

JoeyJoJo, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 11:02 AM, said:

It would help if Pennington could actually, like, throw the ball down the field.

I am perfectly aware that Pennington has a noodle arm but he hit Ginn on the hands twice on 30 yard plus passes in the endzone and he dropped both.He cant throw it more than 50 yards I bet but he made the perfect throw down the field twice to Ginn and they were both dropped. Fasano dropped a TD pass of reasonable length too.It is fun to mock Pennington's arm (I did it a lot when he was a Jet) but he played outstanding last night and it would be great if one of his receivers or tight ends could make a ****ing play.

[JoeyJoJo]

I'm definitely more of a fan of Pennington than Ginn, but it just seems to me that he would have a better chance of being a legit deep threat if his QB could throw NFL deep. I could throw 30 yards downfield in middle school. Of course, I am a super awesome stud athlete. Of course. Anyway, I pretty much agree with you, just picking nits.

[MaxStPolish]

CaneBrain, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 9:52 AM, said:

When you have 45 minutes of possession and run for 200+ yards and lose, you have to almost be trying to lose. Our secondary is a joke. Gibril Wilson is a gigantic bust. He cant cover or tackle apparently. Our play calling is bad when it counts. How many times can you run on 3rd and 6+ in Colts territory? You do not beat Manning by kicking field goals. Find your balls Sparano, please. You play to win the game.How much more obvious can we make our blitz packages. Hint: If you put 7 guys on the line of scrimmage, a good QB like Manning will recognize the blitz and adjust. Our lack of interest in disguising our blitzes is mystifying.Our two minute drill needs work. How do you run the ball twice to start a two minute drill? Who is calling these ****ing plays? It is not like Miami has quick strike capabilities. You need to save time. 3mins and 18secs is more than enough time to get down the field especially with a timeout. The way they wasted time was a disgrace. How do you let 40 seconds run off the clock and then call timeout. How? Just pathetic.Other thoughts:Ted Ginn had the worst 100 yard receiving day in the history of the NFL. Two enormous drops in the end zone. Hey, I am glad he can catch a 8 yard button hook.....but when you draft a deep threat with the 9th pick it would be nice if he could give you anything at all down the field. If you want to be a #1 WR, you need to make those catches. Ginn is a total bust in terms of what we drafted him for (to make big plays). He also gives us nothing after the catch. He either falls down or runs like a girl to the sideline. I hate him.Why do we have two safeties who are good against the run and lousy against the pass? Wilson and Bell are both good run stoppers. Neither can cover. You need to have one of each. It is not a coincidence that we keep getting shredded by good tight ends. Oh and we play San Diego and Antonio Gates next week? Fantastic.

This is such a homer analysis IMO.Ted Ginn had a very solid game, I think like 5 of his first 6 catches were for 1st downs, pretty much all in 3rd down situations. He dropped a HUGE TD and a second one earlier on, yes. But "worst 100 yard receiving game" is such a horrid statement. "Play calling bad when it counts" is kind of questionable too. I give that staff a reprieve with how amazingly they controlled the game. You need to realize that those 3rd and 6 run calls were on the colt 31 yard line....which is a big grey zone for your kicker. 4 yards there is huge for the FG. FG's don't usually beat the colts....but the coaching staff played this game perfect, sans those last 2 minutes (which even then everyone would be gushing over if ginn catches that pass). I'd be pissed with the loss if i cared about the dolphins (was gonna bet them +3.5/+3 all week, and decided no at the last minute ), but the whole gripe here is big WR dropped passes and defense getting owned by the best QB in the league at owning young players. I think your rant is way overdone w/ respect to the team in general/playcalling/etc.

[CaneBrain]

MaxStPolish, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 12:12 PM, said:

This is such a homer analysis IMO.Ted Ginn had a very solid game, I think like 5 of his first 6 catches were for 1st downs, pretty much all in 3rd down situations. He dropped a HUGE TD and a second one earlier on, yes. But "worst 100 yard receiving game" is such a horrid statement. "Play calling bad when it counts" is kind of questionable too. I give that staff a reprieve with how amazingly they controlled the game. You need to realize that those 3rd and 6 run calls were on the colt 31 yard line....which is a big grey zone for your kicker. 4 yards there is huge for the FG. FG's don't usually beat the colts....but the coaching staff played this game perfect, sans those last 2 minutes (which even then everyone would be gushing over if ginn catches that pass). I'd be pissed with the loss if i cared about the dolphins (was gonna bet them +3.5/+3 all week, and decided no at the last minute ), but the whole gripe here is big WR dropped passes and defense getting owned by the best QB in the league at owning young players. I think your rant is way overdone w/ respect to the team in general/playcalling/etc.

I am sure there is a lot of "homer" bias creeping in. Yes, they had a gameplan. Yes, they executed it very well for the most part. But that does not mean you settle for field goals. Especially when you are having so much success throwing on third down (14 for 19 right?). If Pennington is playing so well, why settle for 40 yard plus FGs? I think that is inherently bad football strategy.As for Ginn, I stand by my analysis. You talk about how solid he was and how many third downs he picked up and then kind of gloss over TWO DROPPED TDs. I believe two dropped TDs invalidates 11 catches for a paltry 9.5 yards per catch average. I am sure some will disagree. I think Ginn proved it is possible to have a 100 yard receiving day and still have a bad game.....hence, the worst 100 yard receiving day ever. Maybe some guy once had 101 yards receiving with two lost fumbles and three big drops. Then he could take that title instead.

[CaneBrain]

Peter King summarizes beautifully what I was talking about:But even a plan this intelligently neo-conservative needs some guts, and Henning's ultra-safe call with 4:33 left in a 20-20 game was just plain wrong. Miami had the ball at Indy's 30. Third-and-six. Be Henning for a second. Think.• If the Dolphins convert here, they get to cut more time off the clock, and maybe the Colts have to start using their three timeouts, and maybe Peyton Manning gets the ball back with less than two minutes left, needing a field goal or touchdown to tie or win. Or, if the Dolphins can get two more first downs before kicking a field goal or scoring a touchdown, the clock could bleed down to zero and Miami will have won without letting Manning have another possession.• Think of the previous third-and-five-yards-or-longer snaps for the Dolphins. In inverse order, here are the five in the second half that preceded this playcall: Third-and-seven, 21-yard pass to Ted Ginn; first down. Third-and-five, 15-yard pass to Ginn; first down. Third-and-six, seven-yard pass to Ginn; first down. Third-and-seven, incomplete pass to Ronnie Brown. Third-and-five, 10-yard pass to Ginn; first down. All five were passes. Pennington completed four of them, all first-down conversions.• If Pennington throws an incompletion, kicker Dan Carpenter has a 48-yard field-goal attempt. Carpenter's a second-year kicker; his career-long is 50, and so far on the evening, he's hit 45- and 44-yard kicks and missed wide-right on a 49-yarder. Running but not converting the third down could make it a slightly shorter kick.Henning called for a run by Brown behind the left side of the line, behind guard Justin Smiley and franchise tackle Jake Long. But the play gained only three yards. Miami settled for a Carpenter field goal from 45 yards out to take a 23-20 lead with 3:55 to play.An eternity for Manning.It took Manning 32 seconds to go 80 yards, thanks to the 48-yard catch-and-run by Pierre Garcon, the replacement for Anthony Gonzalez. That made it 27-23, and the Dolphins couldn't score in the last 3:18, so that was the final.Just as I have to believe Erhardt would have let Jeff Hostetler try to hit Ottis Anderson in the flat or Mark Ingram on a short curl in a similar situation 19 years ago, I have to think Henning is kicking himself today. He has to be. You have one of the play-it-safest quarterbacks in recent times behind center, and you don't choose to put the ball in his hands. Instead, you choose to put the ball in Manning's hands, with enough time for him to score three times. A big, big mistake. A year ago, Miami started 0-2 but rebounded to win 11 of its last 14 and win the AFC East. The difference between then and now: The Dolphins had the Wildcat to unveil, and used it to help whip the Patriots and Chargers in the next two games. What element of surprise does this team have now? A year ago, Miami had the soft midsection of a schedule (Buffalo, Denver, Seattle, Oakland) to run off a winning streak. Now, in the next six games, it has: at San Diego, Buffalo, Jets, Saints, at Jets, at New England. Can the Dolphins go 4-2 against that slate to right the ship and get in playoff contention? I'm thinking no.

[dolfan]

CaneBrain, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 8:52 AM, said:

I hate him.

Yep, and I'll gladly admit that I'm biased. Also, I've been out of the country for a while so I haven't been able to keep up with the goings on here. I really just wanted to offer some support for the "I Hate Ginn" campaign.

[MaxStPolish]

I agree-ish cane, and I guess I agree that the call on 3rd and 6 is crazy soft. Im guessing the thought was "3-5 yards his huge for getting some points on the board, and since we've ran 10 yard routes every time all day hooking at the sidelines in this situation, the there should be some room to run in the hashes, plus a sure 40 more seconds comes off the clock regardless by running." You can't game plan for Manning to score in 40 seconds, you just can't.i dunno. I guess if we were talking bears football in the same context, i would have pretty much the same gripes as you guys do. I still think it was a great game strategy to the end, and if ginn holds one ball there w/ 30 seconds left or whatever, people are pretty much fine with everything that happened in the game and consider it brillance (unless manning scored again in the last 30 seconds, which appears possible with that secondary).

[SuperJon]

MaxStPolish, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 4:23 PM, said:

I agree-ish cane, and I guess I agree that the call on 3rd and 6 is crazy soft. Im guessing the thought was "3-5 yards his huge for getting some points on the board, and since we've ran 10 yard routes every time all day hooking at the sidelines in this situation, the there should be some room to run in the hashes, plus a sure 40 more seconds comes off the clock regardless by running." You can't game plan for Manning to score in 40 seconds, you just can't.i dunno. I guess if we were talking bears football in the same context, i would have pretty much the same gripes as you guys do. I still think it was a great game strategy to the end, and if ginn holds one ball there w/ 30 seconds left or whatever, people are pretty much fine with everything that happened in the game and consider it brillance (unless manning scored again in the last 30 seconds, which appears possible with that secondary).

Maybe you can't, but you should definitely try.If there's anyone in the leauge that can score in a short amount of time, surely it's Peyton Manning. I mean, the dude's a beast at his posistion. He's not just one of the best QBs in the league, he's one of the best ever, and that's saying a lot considering he's still got 5+ years in him.

[JoeyJoJo]

CaneBrain, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 10:53 AM, said:

Peter King summarizes beautifully what I was talking about:But even a plan this intelligently neo-conservative needs some guts, and Henning's ultra-safe call with 4:33 left in a 20-20 game was just plain wrong. Miami had the ball at Indy's 30. Third-and-six. Be Henning for a second. Think.• Think of the previous third-and-five-yards-or-longer snaps for the Dolphins. All five were passes. You have one of the play-it-safest quarterbacks in recent times behind center, and you don't choose to put the ball in his hands.

Apparently Henning's play call was a run-pass option. Pennington made the call based on the defensive personnel Indy had out there. So, in a sense, he did put the ball in his hands. Anyway, the "gutsy" call isn't to pass there since they've passed on third and 5+ every single time in the second half (as pointed out later in his article); the "gutsy" call is to run. That's the call that goes against the grain. But the real gutsy call is to run it twice. Two plays to pick up 6 yards. That would've been awesome.

[jmkiser]

I think Cane is right. As far as Ginn goes, we're more upset with Jennings (who covered him) on the Colts side then we are scared of Ginn as a receiver. Our secondary is typically top notch, but this article is general sense of most fellow Colts fans that I know." There was a very interesting comment from the Indy Star's PhilB in his post-Monday Night Football live chat with readers:' Jennings definitely gave more cushion than Powers or Hayden. I guess we have to attribute that to the guy's coverage skills. The Dolphins receivers had little problem running him back at least 5 yards, then making that out cut. I know it's maddening to watch. It reinforces that Jennings is probably nothing more than a fill-in guy, a nickel back when needed if Jackson is ever moved out of that spot. 'After re-reading several comments in the post-game thread, one consistent criticism of Jennings was that he gave too much cushion to the Miami Dolphins WRs, in particular Ted Ginn Jr. Chad Pennington seemed to pick on Jennings a bit, always throwing his way whenever he needed to convert on third down.Interestingly, Bill Polian discussed the "zone cushion" on his HANK FM radio show Tuesday night [via Colts.com]:' First of all, you need to understand the construct of our defense, which is that we try to get pressure with our front four. If you get pressure with your front four, then you can drop your linebackers and your corners and safeties into zones, then you can drive on the ball and you can make the kinds of plays necessary – usually a hit that will knock the ball out to prevent those kinds of plays. In our style of defense, which is designed to prevent the big play – which we did a good job of Monday Night, by the way – you’re going to give up some of those depending on the coverage you call....This game was really no different – albeit with more talented players on the opposition side – than the Cleveland game last year. We won that one on a sack/fumble recovery by (defensive end) Robert Mathis in the fourth quarter. We played a cleaner game last year. We had too many penalties Monday Night, and we didn’t to a good job stopping the Wildcat, but the talent level on their offense was better than that of Cleveland. Essentially, it was the same style of game. Our theory was let’s not give up big plays if we can avoid them. 'The issue with Jennings is two fold: One, he isn't that great of a coverage corner. He seems to give big cushions because he is coached not to get beat deep. Second, when he closes on the ball carrier, which is what he is told to do, then he is not doing enough to create turnovers or disrupt the receiver prior to or after the catch. With Jacob Lacey looking better at corner than Jennings, and with the eventual return of Jerraud Powers, Tim Jennings might fall further on the depth chart. "

[Ron_Mexico]

dolfan, on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009, 4:03 PM, said:

Yep, and I'll gladly admit that I'm biased. Also, I've been out of the country for a while so I haven't been able to keep up with the goings on here. I really just wanted to offer some support for the "I Hate Ginn" campaign.

Me too. I'm here.I picked the Fins in my football pool this week. Nick Hardwick is out, which is big for the Chargers and so is LDT, but I get the impression the Chargers no longer care if LDT is out. I think we have the ability to beat these teams but we have to play perfect, which is hard in THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE (TM Ron Jaworski, who I'm starting to hate more than broccoli)also, I am usually not that animated during a game and just roll with whatever happens, but that 3 minute drill almost made me vomit, then drop my phone in the vomit, then throw my vomit covered phone through the television, but it would've slipped out of my hands due to the slippery vomit, hit the dog in the jaw, knock out one of his fangs, then I would have had to take the dog to the doggie dentist and that would've been expensive. So, basically, I'm glad I kept my cool.

[CaneBrain]

3 red zone trips, 6 points.Ladies and Gentleman, your 2009 Miami Dolphins!!!!I do not know what is worse.....that we stink and are going to go 4-12 or that Chad Henne has looked so bad. He looks a bit more composed finally late in the 4th quarter but that TAINT he threw was about as bad a throw as an NFL quarterback will ever make.

[GeneralGeeWhiz]

CaneBrain, on Sunday, September 27th, 2009, 3:08 PM, said:

3 red zone trips, 6 points.Ladies and Gentleman, your 2009 Miami Dolphins!!!!I do not know what is worse.....that we stink and are going to go 4-12 or that Chad Henne has looked so bad. He looks a bit more composed finally late in the 4th quarter but that TAINT he threw was about as bad a throw as an NFL quarterback will ever make.

[dolfan]

Well, it looks like we will get a serious look at how Henne can develop over the next few months.

[CaneBrain]

dolfan, on Monday, September 28th, 2009, 4:11 PM, said:

Well, it looks like we will get a serious look at how Henne can develop over the next few months.

I am disappointed for Pennington but this is probably the best thing for the Dolphins. They will find out what Henne has over the next three months and if he stinks they should have a high pick again to address the need.