The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

https://www.lockedondolphins.com/dolphins/game-number-two-that-doesnt-count-review-dolphins-at-panther/ (https://www.lockedondolphins.com/dolphins/game-number-two-that-doesnt-count-review-dolphins-at-panther/)

Great article recapping the game last night.  I especially liked the part on why Gesicki was invisible.

Weird game. Listening to Joe Rose and Big O  ... apparently Gase is making excuses saying they are holding back and not showing their plays. They are running vanilla schemes. It doesn't appear anyone is buying it. 

I believe they may be working on Gisicki and his blocking because he is a factor in practice but I find it hard to believe that Miami has these great plays they are holding back in the red zone. Maybe a couple ... but those type of plays only work once if you can't figure out another way to get into the end zone.

it looked like they were being very vanilla the entire game on both sides of the ball, very very few blitzes, no crazy coverage, very vanilla running plays .. very simple passes, entirely 1 move patterns.

i saw no double moves, no read options, no tosses, very vanilla screen passes when they happened. the TE stayed in and blocked on most plays. no deep passes at all

I didn't see the game because I was traveling. Reading what Fau described sounds like the Miami offense of the last decade.

You talking about Miami's offense vs Carolina's defense? Because Miami's defense must have thrown about 15 different types of blitzes at Carolina's offense. The defense sure isn't being vanilla. Doesn't seem to be any lack of creativity or aversion to having the opposing teams being able to scout the Dolphins defense from the Dolphins defensive coordinators. Basically I'm calling BS on Gase saying they are being vanilla on purpose. I don't buy it, they are being vanilla for a reason and it doesn't have much to do with not wanting to allow the other teams to be able to scout them. My guess is that the offense isn't capable of being anything more than vanilla at this point in the season which has been a trend and a shocking one in Gase's 3rd season as head coach. I'm tired of the excuses I want to see the offensive genius that we have been hearing about for 2 years. Ok, year 1 he didn't have the players and year 2 he didn't have Tannehill, but this year there's no more excuses. Either they start putting something on the field that looks like a pro offense or Gase has to take the blame.

^ I think you've made it pretty obvious you're jaded when it comes to the Dolphins.

I only a little bit of the game on NFLnetwork replay.

IMO.If the guy's can't excel at running the vanilla basics,what good is making the plays schemes more complicated? As Joe Maddon says do simple better.No Stills,No Parker is the reason they didn't run any deep stuff,is the what I read PBPost tweets...*A lot of guy's who we're leaning depending on heavily to play at a really high level for us didn't play....

Reading the articles by the beat writers,nothing about this team seems to be a surprise,they are what I thought they'd be...Questions at Starting DT,Starting Lb's playing good enough,Starting Corner (We're desperately looking for another guy to start Across from Howard),can the O-line play better,etc..)

*The delusional front office says they're comfortable with these guys,and don't see a need to upgrade/replace them B.S.

The Offensive line wasn't physical at all.  Quinn played ok but there were some gaping holes in that defense on a number of running plays which means we may have a real problem at DT.  It seemed like they had an easy time trapping guys at the linebacker level inside  and then it ripping through off tackle and guard.

Edited to add TOO MANY CHECKDOWNS on 3rd down.  Not having Parker is an excuse.  Throw the damn ball already!!!!

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you saying that 3 years isn't enough time? Or are you saying that I'm basing my comments on 1 preseason game which isn't the case at all.

My perception from your recent comments on the team is that you're jaded.

In response to Pappy.  I think you don’t want to put anything new on tape in preseason.  Running the same blitzes that you ran last year and there is 16 or 32 weeks of film on is fine.  But you don’t want to show a new offensive look, and in general offenses have more wrinkles than defense.

I wouldn't call myself jaded. Certainly I was disappointed with the lack of results from the team under head coach Gase last year, but the team (and thereby him) could certainly turn my opinion around in a moments notice with just a little bit of progress shown. And I certainly am tired of the "rhetoric". It's awfully convenient to say that it's preseason and that you don't want to give away your secrets. I'm not stupid. There comes a point where I say "Show me". That point is quickly approaching (about 2 weeks away). If then you have another excuse for the lack of production then it sounds an awful lot like bullshit if you ask me.

To be fair I'm not TOTALLY negative. I thought Miami moved the ball really well outside of the redzone and on 1st and 2nd down when Tannehill was in the game. 3rd down and redzone they were ULTRA conservative. I'm not the only one that noticed this. Go watch the game and listen to the Carolina Panthers announcers at the end of the game saying how they were ULTRA conservative. Now they said that was the plan basically echoing what Gase said. All I'm saying is that I'm finding that a little tough to swallow. Maybe that was the plan because when they try something a little more aggressive it always ends up badly. THAT's not a good thing no matter how you slice it and in fact IF that is the case all the more reason to run those plays in a preseason game and get the problems on tape against an opponent so that they can be corrected.

So you really think a TE fade to the corner of the endzone is giving away secrets? Yeah I'll bet that no one has that in their playbook. C'mon hoodie, you know me better than this. I'm not asking for them to line up in the wildcat. I'm asking them to try something in a game that they are CERTAINLY going to do once the season starts. That's not giving away ANYTHING. If you honestly think that whomever the Dolphins 1st regular season opponent is that they aren't going to have watched the hundreds of replays of Gesiiki 1 handing it in the endzone in practice, you're fooling yourself. The other teams scout your practices too you know. So what we're not suppose to even practice the plays we are going to run in the regular season now too? That sounds like a recipe for success. Not.

NE went 0-4 in the preseason and then went 16-0.
The following year, DET went 4-0 in the preseason and then went 0-16.

The preseason DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING outside of bubble roster players. It just doesn't.

I think Gesicki only blocking in a preseason game is an excellent use of time when his biggest weakness is his blocking.  I think things would have been different last year if Tannehill wasn't hurt, I mean Jay Cutler was our QB for Pete's sake.  I will agree that if they have another mediocre season, everything after will be bullshit and excuses.  Something about this season, I think Tannehill is going to have an elite year, however I am worried about the defense, mainly LB and DT.  We've got some young guys that need to develop quick for that group to be successful.

NE was 2-2 in preseason in 2007 the year they went 16-0, they went 0-4 the following season and then became the only team to miss the playoffs with an 11-5 record.  Fun trivia: The 82 Redskins are the only team to go winless in preseason and win the super bowl.

Preseason records mean nothing. I couldn't care less if the Dolphins go 0-4. However don't tell me it's meaningless either. I played enough sports to know that the reason that you play meaningless preseason games is not to determine how the season will go but to determine where you are at and what you need to work on. The worse you play in the preseason the further you have to go to get to where you want to be. Doesn't mean you can't get there, but it does tell you something. You play the games to get better, not to determine what your record will be.

Practice is where you determine what you need to work on, and where you play to get better.
The ONLY meaningful purpose of the preseason is to determine who will and will not make the roster.

In practice, you have full schemes and gameplanning, but you don't have real game speed.
In preseason, you have no schemes or gameplanning, but 100% game speed.

Preseason complements practice to allow you to determine who can win one-on-one matchups at game speed.  That's it.  Complaining about the play selection or game strategy in preseason is pointless; the coaches may as well be choosing suboptimal strategy on purpose because they aren't trying to win, but rather to figure out who can play.

Charles Davis was on Joe Rose today and they spoke specifically about how much preseason really means. Charles said the games mean nothing and in fact ... brought up the joint practices between Carolina and Tampa last year. He said the practices were intense with 1s vs 1s and so on. He said each day got got more and more intense and they saw some great football. He then said when it came to game time the game was horribly bad and didn't resemble anything they saw during the week for various reasons. He said that if halfway through the season you can go back and look you will see some of the things they were actually working on.

He also brought up the fact Cleveland went 4-0 in the preseason and then went on to lose every game. haha

Is there any reason, outside of a ticket price and TV rights, to have preseason games? 

Why not just start the season?  It's a crap product, waters down interest, and invites injury to players people actually want to watch.

GET RID OF IT.

Wins and losses do nothing for me in the pre season as they have been proven time and again to be terrible predictors of future performance.  And they keep saying that they are keeping their playcalling ultra vanilla in the pre season.  The disturbing thing is that the vanilla pre season playcalling we are seeing is eerily reminiscent of the regular season playcalling we have seen for years now. 

I'm not jaded I'm just sick of losing and the 4 year cycle this team seems to be stuck in.  Hire new coach.  Miss playoffs.  Optimism for next season.  2nd year: Miss playoffs have same record but act like team played better.  3rd Year: less optimism worse record.  Miss playoffs.  4th year: Fire coach mid season.  Hire interim coach.  Finish 6-10.  Hire new coach.

^^^ IMO it's the keep flipping coaches,and keep the Gms/front office,then later fire the GM/front office but keep the Coach.

It makes too much personnel flipping,and team turnover,and ever changing on "how we're going to win" because the last administration tied our team to these guy's on the team.

I also feel like our front offices,never stick with the plan...We want to build through the draft,but spend too much in free agency.

It's hard to watch the same problems with this team year in,and year out...

I don't feel like my hopes for the teams season are based,on 1,or 4 preseason games.I feel like we lose in the offseason with questionable drafts,then bad free agents..

Did you ever play sports at any level?  Playing against another team is hugely beneficial in terms of team development.  The problem is fan expectations of game entertainment for what is a practice scrimmage.  

What I think needs to be done is change the pricing for tickets.  Let’s say ticket prices right now is $100 (or 1000 for season). Change it to $120 for regular season and $20 for preseason.  That way it is easier to sell (and buy) preseason tickets and no expectations of same quality of product.

I'm not sure what they are today but in the past I paid the same price ($110 a game) for each of my season tickets regardless of if they were preseason or regular. You were forced to buy all 10 games as part of the package. It's a huge rip-off.

Yeah, I've played a little when I was younger.

Either way, I don't agree with the point, for a few reasons.  All teams would be on the level playing field.  So, if they have to learn and develop, they are all doing it at the same rate.  Secondly, I don't even agree that it helps them learn and develop.  Most of the players don't play any meaningful amount of time, they risk injury, and the NFL is now professional athletes that are in full shape and prepared all year around.  It's not like in the 70s, when these guys were welders and butchers in the off-season.

But it's also a question of giving the public a good product.  You're paying to watch teams practice with guys they're likely to cut.  What the hell is that about?

I would want to see that change.   If preseason tickets had a face value one fifth regular season tickets you could easily sell them on ticket exchange to some on who wants to take his 10 year old to a game but can’t afford to spend hundreds a regular season game costs. 

Dave, here is a time I completely disagree with you. While the score of a preseason game is meaningless, there is a lot the game does preparation wise. This rings especially true when you consider the logistics behind the scenes. A lot goes into putting on an NFL game other than just the players on the field. You need to step back and consider the entirety of the event and not just the product on the field.

These seem like excuses to me.  Stadiums function just fine for big events all the time.  College games don't have preseason.  What's the difference?  Those stadiums, parking, vendors, and the product all seem to do just fine.

Colleges often schedule lopsided out of conf games that are unlikely to affect a teams chances of winning the conference for the first few games (eg preseason) You won’t see Michigan vs Ohio week 1.  You might see Patriots vs Dolphins.

because in college sports it's rarely an official game.  There will be 6 or 8 teams on one or two fields and they'll take turns round robin style for x number of plays each.

I thought this was true, too, but it's actually not and is a misconception, perhaps of days gone by.  I made this same point elsewhere and was called out on it.  There's just as much big play in week 1 as any other.  It's totally up to schools and there are huge matchups in week 1.

This year, Notre Dame/Michigan, FSU/VT, Miami/LSU are all week 1, plus several other small lines from teams outside of the elite schools.

I think it used to be worse than it is now since int today's world they have to impress upon the polls more than a few games.   I know that last year FSU opened with Alabama in Atlanta and the year before they opened with Ole Miss here in Orlando .... both of which were Prime time games.