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… I mean we’ve lost games over the last several years, but without exception, those games were either close by score or at least COMPETITIVE. I’m getting old now and my memory isn’t what it use do be, so forgive me if, for the life of me, I can’t remember a game in the last 6 years that even comes close the debacle we saw on Sunday. There was a game against the Pack in 2002, or games against the Steelers and Chargers that were 2TD+ losses, but they still had a SEMBLENCE of back and forth. This game DIDN’T. Maybe we have to go back to Tom’s first game against the Dolphins in 2001 to get a game that was as close to the mismatch that this game was. I’m not sure. We’d probably have to go back to late 90’s to find anything as bad as this one was.
This post is “raw footage”. I walked out of my local with about 4 minutes left in the game, I have neither listened to ANY media, nor read the paper for any “feedback” on this game. Thanks for letting me vent…and my apologies for anything redundant that I may say. I hope there will be some insights that will make the read worthwhile.
1. I said early on that going into this season, this team is a real enigma. We didn’t see anything in the preseason that would excite us, NOR did we expect to see anything. After Brady went down, the “enigma” continued to grow, but we thought we had gotten a FEW answers last week. Evidently….we didn’t.
2. Cassel will get a lot of criticism for his play, some of it can be explained by his inexperience, some is deserved. BUT no one should even THINK that this game was lost on the offensive side of the ball.
3. This was as badly a coached game as the Pats have had since BB arrived in 2000. Not only wasn’t the team prepared to play, the offensive game plan sucked, the defensive game plan was worse, and for the first time in my memory, the defense wasn’t able to at least EVENTUALLY react to the RB shotgun series the Phns showed us. It reminded me of the series KC ran in 2002 in that high scoring game in NE we won in OT. I don’t remember exactly how it went, maybe someone will jog my memory.
4. Please help me here. I am a former HS HC who has been out of day to day coaching game for about 20 years. Still it occurred to me very yearly in the game that the Phins were using a very similar alignment to discourage any offense going to Randy Moss. You had the CB playing fairly close to the LOS, and a S pre rotated over the top. Now I may not be an offensive genius, but it doesn’t take one to know that in that alignment the MIDDLE of the freakin’ field is going to be OPEN!!!!!!!!!!!! It certainly was for the Phins offense. HOWEVER in our great wisdom we continued to IGNORE the middle and throw short outside passes to the outside…in other words….into the STRENGTH of THEIR defense!????? I doubt I’m the only casual observer who noticed that OBVIOUS blunder.
5. Here are some serious props for the Miami effort, both on the field and in their coaching staff. That RB Shotgun series was brilliant. Not only was it EXTREMELY effective, every team they play now will have to spend valuable time preparing for it….and I’m sure it has some wrinkles we didn’t see. That was the best offensive effort against a BB we’ve seen. We can blame our side for some of that work, but a lot has to go to Chad Pennington and their OC, who bounced back from an awful week, and put together a great plan and then EXECUTED it.
6. IT’S THE OL, STUPID. I have no reason why an OL with THREE “all pros” can’t seem to run block…but it can’t and the problem isn’t Moroney, Morris, or Jordan. There just WEREN’T any holes for RBs to go through
7. Clearly the KO return team WASN’T the problem.
8. So now we HAVE to wait for 2 weeks and endure a multitude of payback from fans of other teams and the usual haters in the media. My suggestion is that we all take the BS with good grace, god knows we’ve had the luxury of dishing it out for the better part of 7 years. Perhaps this humbling with be good for our souls. .
9. Thank god this is just the beginning of the season, and as Miami showed us, remarkable turnarounds in a single week ARE NOT rare in the NFL…we can only hope, because the alternative is...well...just too horrible to think about.
This post is “raw footage”. I walked out of my local with about 4 minutes left in the game, I have neither listened to ANY media, nor read the paper for any “feedback” on this game. Thanks for letting me vent…and my apologies for anything redundant that I may say. I hope there will be some insights that will make the read worthwhile.
1. I said early on that going into this season, this team is a real enigma. We didn’t see anything in the preseason that would excite us, NOR did we expect to see anything. After Brady went down, the “enigma” continued to grow, but we thought we had gotten a FEW answers last week. Evidently….we didn’t.
2. Cassel will get a lot of criticism for his play, some of it can be explained by his inexperience, some is deserved. BUT no one should even THINK that this game was lost on the offensive side of the ball.
3. This was as badly a coached game as the Pats have had since BB arrived in 2000. Not only wasn’t the team prepared to play, the offensive game plan sucked, the defensive game plan was worse, and for the first time in my memory, the defense wasn’t able to at least EVENTUALLY react to the RB shotgun series the Phns showed us. It reminded me of the series KC ran in 2002 in that high scoring game in NE we won in OT. I don’t remember exactly how it went, maybe someone will jog my memory.
4. Please help me here. I am a former HS HC who has been out of day to day coaching game for about 20 years. Still it occurred to me very yearly in the game that the Phins were using a very similar alignment to discourage any offense going to Randy Moss. You had the CB playing fairly close to the LOS, and a S pre rotated over the top. Now I may not be an offensive genius, but it doesn’t take one to know that in that alignment the MIDDLE of the freakin’ field is going to be OPEN!!!!!!!!!!!! It certainly was for the Phins offense. HOWEVER in our great wisdom we continued to IGNORE the middle and throw short outside passes to the outside…in other words….into the STRENGTH of THEIR defense!????? I doubt I’m the only casual observer who noticed that OBVIOUS blunder.
5. Here are some serious props for the Miami effort, both on the field and in their coaching staff. That RB Shotgun series was brilliant. Not only was it EXTREMELY effective, every team they play now will have to spend valuable time preparing for it….and I’m sure it has some wrinkles we didn’t see. That was the best offensive effort against a BB we’ve seen. We can blame our side for some of that work, but a lot has to go to Chad Pennington and their OC, who bounced back from an awful week, and put together a great plan and then EXECUTED it.
6. IT’S THE OL, STUPID. I have no reason why an OL with THREE “all pros” can’t seem to run block…but it can’t and the problem isn’t Moroney, Morris, or Jordan. There just WEREN’T any holes for RBs to go through
7. Clearly the KO return team WASN’T the problem.
8. So now we HAVE to wait for 2 weeks and endure a multitude of payback from fans of other teams and the usual haters in the media. My suggestion is that we all take the BS with good grace, god knows we’ve had the luxury of dishing it out for the better part of 7 years. Perhaps this humbling with be good for our souls. .
9. Thank god this is just the beginning of the season, and as Miami showed us, remarkable turnarounds in a single week ARE NOT rare in the NFL…we can only hope, because the alternative is...well...just too horrible to think about.
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