The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

After looking at the line's performance this year, this is surprising, but then it isn't.  I guess they should've never let Houck go.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3833043

I heard about this and thought a few things.  First, our offensive line play had some major problems in execution of the run game this year.  Pass protection could have been better, but wasn't all that bad.  My two biggest concerns of the off season are getting things in place for a better run game and improving our wide receiver group.

But I also thought that considering the loss of our right guard on the first game and then Smiley half way through the season, we did fairly well.  Not to mention that our left tackle was a rookie and our right tackle was re-adjusting to the position.  Difficult to say from a fan standpoint how Maser did; I guess that is what front office people are for.

I think, with guys like Ricky and Ronnie in the beckfield, the running game should have been a lot more powerful than it was.  I see games where the entire team ends up with under 100 yards rushing and that's just embarrassing.

Pass blocking, they were exceptional.  However, they couldn't open up a hole to save their lives.

Agreed.  Miami was 3-5 when rushing for less than 100 yards, the 3 wins coming against the Bills, Broncos and 49ers.  Miami was 6-1 when holding their opponents to under 100 yards rushing, the sole loss being to the Cardinals.   Maybe it's time to update my screen name to Stop_the_run_to_win?

Still, the team rushed for just shy of 1900 yards, and the two-headed tailback tandem combined for 1575 and 14 TDs.  Not quite acceptable, but not so bad for those of us who remember the Marino era.

This too is reminiscent of the Marino era.

Makes perfect sense to me. Parcells likes to  run the ball. If the OL can't get it done, there needs to be a change in coaching staff.

I'm sure the fact that opponents were stacking the line to stop the run didn't help matters much. 

Still, there were a lot of missed blocks and we rarely had any completely dominating blocking (where an d-lineman is pushed down or way back, allowing the o-lineman to attack the second level).

I think the evidence of why Maser was fired can be seen in the progression of Jake Long.  Yeah the offensive line played ok and progressed as a unit, but we didn't really dominate at the point of attack.  Samson Satele and Jake Long have the talent and ability to be All-Pros but you could argue Satele took a step backwards this year. 

I'd like to see us pick up a young stud FB like Lo Neal 20 years ago.