My thoughts on the game

[SVN]

obviously everyone has expressed most of the disappointment on the board. i just want to chime in
Defense
-Our defense obviously sucked.somehow i always felt our defense plays this bend dont break like playing with fire. when they get stops all of them talk about not allowing points is the key but cant give too many chances to a team all the time
-Our rush defense against jets was also not very good honestly. we made goal line stops -yes- but we got run over a few times by thomas . iam hoping the bye helps to correct this becasue take a look who we are facing as RB's next - gore,LT/sproles,denver(anyone),stephen jackson,addai,lynch
-i always thought and still think our defense is smart but getting beat on the same 3 plays really gave an indication they were frustrated and shocked this was happening to them instead of just focusing on the job.and our pass rush was always a bit late on chad with no LB within miles of the TE.not really sure who they were playing on defense a lot times.
- the 60 yard run in the 2nd half after having talked over in the locker room was really even more embarassing.
-0 sacks on pennington.
Offense
-our oline seems to move backward at the same pace as cassel steps back. at times i felt he hardly could see the field because the players were so close to him in a few seconds. maybe they should have tried 7 step drops etc i dont know.maybe someone more technical can answer that but i guess it wouldve resulted in more sacks.
-a lot of us called for deep balls thrown to moss. i seriously think cassel didnt have time to go back and then step up and make the throws. and by the 2nd quarter his confidence was shaken.
-its not fair to cassel to compare him to brady on every play really(just my opinion). or brady to anyone for that matter. those plays where brady just steps up and takes a hit and delivers the ball -even manning doesnt do it so if cassel ends up tacking sack its no detriment to him.he is a rookie really and hasnt played much.
-cassel also stares down his receivers which is another skill (looking off receivers) a lot of Qb's dont have.
-we are going to live and die with cassel so there is really no other option(again just my opinion) o'conell is not ready and any new qb is going to take a while to come to grips with our offense.
- first downs really killed us on offense. every time we ran morris and almost everytime we gained nothing or lost yardage. 3 for 14 on 3rd downs therefore. conversely miami was hardly on 3rd down as much. if we want to be a good running team we really need to invest time working on some power running plays like we had with antowain smith and dillon.i guess miami also knew we would run on first down everytime and that didnt help.
-could they have gone to a no huddle early on the 2nd quarter or something ?dont know. worth thinking i guess.

overall i think this win by the fins really gives a lot of confidence to all other supposedly bad teams on the 'easy' schedule that they can beat the pats so its just going to get harder regardless of the opponent.will be interesting to see how this effects other teams playing us and what got exposed.i remember in 2002 after the chiefs game we got really run over and had a bye and after the bye again lost to the broncos.i believe our defense is better than that but will need to wait and see.
the sad part isnt that we lost -we lost at hime to a division team and in a situation with brady's injury where these are teams we are supposed to beat. this puts us in situations where we have to beat some of the tougher teams at home where a loss may have been expected e.g denver/pitts
up next the 49ers. i was stuck with this game hereon the west coast and mike martz really had the offense clicking.o sullivan if not pressured can make a lot of good throws so will be an interesting test.
special teams
-nothing to complain about really.
i may have missed something so feel free to chime in guys.

 

[cincipatsfan]

Nice write-up.

Nothing much to say about the defense. They came our flat and stayed that way the entire game. Suddenly SF isn't looking as horrid as they were last year, so whatever needs tweaking better get done over the next couple of weeks.

As for Cassel and going deep. Just speculation, but I wonder how tight a leash the staff has on him. They may be trying to grow his capability from the quick short stuff we've been seeing the past few weeks to the "hang in the pocket and waiting for a play to develop so he can go deep" type of plays. Obviously only the team knows the answer to this.

 

[muzz]

My thoughts on the game.....

PATHETIC!!

WE got POUNDED by the DOORMAT of the NFL!!!!

PATHETIC and UNACCEPTABLE !!!

 

[captain stone]

You've pretty much hit the nails of our coffin right on the head.

Bend But Don't Break is broken. The defense looked like dinosaurs yesterday. Give me the aggressive, relentless, blitzkreiging defense that the Eagles gave the Steelers any day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Zero sacks against NoodleArm is a disgrace to the human race. It's time to activate Shawn Crable and move the declining Vrabel inside more often.

Enough has already been written by me & others about our offensive Line. No running lanes & collapsable pocket = lotsa 3rd/longs. Cassel didn't help his cause a couple of times by throwing to receivers who had not yet crossed the 1st-down marker. And not only should they have gone no-huddle earlier, but they should have also used more roll-outs, power backfields (3+ RBs), and other back-of-the-playbook formations to keep Miami on its heels a little longer. And for the love of Ganja, Skippy, will you please lose the empty backfields with less than 4yds to go? Not giving the other guys something else about which to defense, like maybe running the ball, is special olympics-sized ******ed.

Like you said, SVN, we now have to steal a win from a team that we had previously earmarked as a loss; otherwise, this season could be 2002 all over again.