Wow- I don't think I've ever come so close to having a heart attack. The amount of ways that we tried to give this game to Jacksonville was stunning. Over and over again, when we had a chance to slam the door on them, we gave them hope- two fumbles in field goal range, and missed 38 yard field goal (the first missed FG inside the 40 for Dan Carpenter's career), and a bad interception thrown by Henne all contributed to make a game that should have been a double digit blow out into a 4 point squeaker.
There are a couple of ways to look at this. The pessimist will say that this is a sign that the Dolphins are pretenders. Jacksonville is far from being a top NFL team, and we just could not put them away when we had everything on the line.
The optimist will say that this is [...]
Continue reading →
Yes, I say play IN game. If the season were to end today, Jacksonville would be the last Wildcard team to make it in. The Dolphins are two positions out right now, with Baltimore one spot ahead. Winning the game would still require some help (we would need New England or Baltimore to lose), but it puts us in a MUCH better position. Since we can't make other teams win or lose, we just need to focus on ourselves here.
Jacksonville is tough team to figure out- as they seem to run very hot and cold. They swept a tough Houston team, blasted the Titans, and hung tough with Indi- but they were steam rolled by a mediocre Seattle, got pounded by San Fransisco, and had close calls against the Bills, Rams, and Chiefs. If the Jags are on their game though, they will be tough to [...]
Continue reading →
The New England Patriots lead the AFC East with a 7-5 record, but that might be the only good news the Patriots have after losing at Land Shark Stadium to the Miami Dolphins 22-21. It was the Patriots' third loss in three games. It was QB Tom Brady's first December loss since 2006, a 21-0 loss at Miami. A week after losing to an NFC team during the regular season for the first time since September 2005, the Patriots lost two straight games for the first time since November 2006. They are 1-5 on the road, and that one win was in London against the 1-11 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They even got bad news via other teams! The 12-0 Indianapolis Colts beat the 5-7 Tennessee Titans 27-17, not only ending the Titans' pipe dream winning streak, but also tying the New England Patriots' record [...]
Continue reading →
December 6, 2009 by
Weston |
Anthony Fasano,
Brian Hartline,
Cam Wake,
Chad Henne,
Channing Crowder,
Dan Henning,
Davone Bess,
Miami Dolphins,
New England Patriots,
Tony Sparano
WOW- well, I predicted we would need to pass to beat the Patriots, but I was pretty wrong about everything else (*ahem* including that we would fail at trying to outpass them). And boy, I have never been happier to be wrong in my life. Playoffs or no, this will go down in Dolphins lore as a huge one.
This game looked like it could get ugly at the beginning, with the Pats going up 14-0 by early in the 2nd quarter- including some "more of the same" in the Pats putting the ball right over the top of our defense for an easy score right off the bat of the game. The offense was pretty stagnant early too, with 0 points put up in the 1st quarter. There was also a bad interception by Henne, who dropped it right into Brandon Meriweather's hands. The icing on the cake was when Pat White [...]
Continue reading →
December 3, 2009 by
Jeremy Smith |
Buffalo Bills,
Chad Henne,
Chris Craft,
Dan Marino,
Fred Jackson,
Jim Kelly,
Miami Dolphins,
Perry Fewell,
Ricky Williams,
Rogers Centre,
Toronto
The Bills squish the fish, the Bills squish the fish! I cannot stop saying that phrase. Of course, this phrase was coined back in the 90's when Dan Marino was the QB of the Dolphins and Jim Kelly was the QB for the Bills. None the less, it happened again this past weekend.
Despite the Bills entering the game at 0-1 under new head coach Perry Fewell, I have to say this was not the same team as the previous week. This team looked charged on both sides of the ball and everyone did their part to share a win in Western New York.
Another bright spot along with Coach Fewell was starting QB Ryan Fitzpatrick. Although Fitzpatrick did not have stellar stats, he looked confident with his offense. Confidence is something Trent Edwards never found this season while attempting to lead the team. [...]
Continue reading →
From the Depths of 0-3, the Dolphins have climbed back to .500 with, appropriately enough, a 5-5 record. After a tough battle against the Panthers, we now have to travel up to Buffalo to take on a struggling Bills team, who at 3-7, have nothing to gain but ruining our season.
As you may remember, the Dolphins domination of the Bills at home was their first win of the season, and the first start of Henne's career. You would think after the way we handled them that it should be a breeze of a game, but much has changed since then. For the Dolphins, they will be without defensive anchor Jason Ferguson (lost for the season with a quad injury), and maybe more importantly, Ronnie Brown.
In the first match up, Ronnie Brown toted the rock 20 times for 115 yards and 2 touchdowns. [...]
Continue reading →
I'm not going to be a classless lout and say the Dolphins lost this game. Don't get me wrong- we played well enough to win for spurts and stretches. It was a close game, but ultimately the more talented team won. The team fought valiantly, our young players had some bright moments, but when push came to shove we once again couldn't keep up. With well over 2 minutes to go and only a touchdown needed to tie the game, we once again saw untimely drops by our sub par receivers, and an inability to run the ball even when the Patriots were set up to defend the pass. When you're up against Tom Brady and Randy Moss, you have to make all the plays you can because you know they will (a la Moss' ridiculous one handed catch with Vontae draped all over him).
Our draft needs are becoming [...]
Continue reading →
The defense looked like they didn't want to win this game. When they made plays, the refs were sure to step in and "correct" it (seriously- that pass interference call on Allen was bush league). If you told me the Dolphins would surrender their first 100+ yard rushing game, would only get to Sanchez one time, had zero turnovers, and had 112 yards in penalties, then I would tell you we lose this game big time. Instead, after 5 lead changes in the 4th quarter, Henne thoroughly outperformed his rookie counterpart and delivered the W in a game that rivals the first time the Phins broke out the Orange Jerseys for excitement and satisfaction.
This defense held:
the Matt Schaub/Andre Johnson combination to 166 yards, a 54.5 completion %, 0 TDs and 1 INT.
Tom [...]
Continue reading →
For the second time this season, the Miami Dolphins are featured Monday night at primetime. A pair of streaks will be competing to stay alive: The Dolphins haven't won a primetime game since December of 2004 (a 10-7 win over Cleveland), but they are breaking out their orange alternate jerseys- which the Dolphins are undefeated in (2-0). Obviously, we are hoping for the latter streak to win out- and here is how I think we'll have to do it:
The Jets got a lot of publicity this year after going 3-0 with rookie Mark Sanchez at the wheel. Last week though, they ran into a meat grinder of a team in the New Orleans Saints, who somewhat exposed Sanchez and provided the Dolphins with a template for victory.
Lean on the run: This one is pretty obvious. With Chad [...]
Continue reading →
The Chad Henne era started with a bang last Sunday. But not all victories will happen as easily as the win over Buffalo- they were a team struggling with massive injuries along their offensive line, and more to the point, their secondary. Starting this Monday night, the going gets much tougher. The Jets have a blitz happy scheme that will aim to confuse our young signal caller, and Darelle Revis is playing out of his mind. All is not lost though. Though young QBs tend to struggle, there IS a template for success.
I decided to break down the 1st season of last years wunderkinder- Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan, to see if there were any patterns that helped them succeed. Since it is a relatively small sample size, I also decided to toss in Ben Roethlisberger's stats from his [...]
Continue reading →
