Dolphins - Bills Week 1 Discussion

[TonyB0D]

we are so losing this game, we never win in buffallo

[Pappy13]

Last week I compared the Dolphins defense to the Dallas Cowboys offense.  I said that despite having less than stellar pre-season play they were confident going into the first game because after all it was only pre-season.  So here we are, just after the Dolphins defense dominates in a win and the Cowboys offense stumbles in a loss, so there was no comparison right?  I'm not convinced.

Today in Dallas they are talking about this being a wake-up call to the offense.  No one on the offensive side of the ball in Dallas is now saying everything will be fine once the season starts because it has started.  So I shouldn't be worried anymore about Miami's D right?  They thoroughly dominated the Bills.  Unfotunately I think this was a really bad game to make any kind of judgements about the D.

The Bills offense is bad and I mean really bad.  CJ Spiller might be a great back someday, but unless he's the 2nd coming of Barry Sanders he's gonna need some help from his offensive line and he got zero yesterday.  If Trent Edwards isn't the worst QB in the league he's close to it and he didn't get a lot of help with Lee Evans being his only real threat and an offensive line that isn't much better at holding out the pass rush then it is at creating running lanes for running backs.  So before anyone starts praising the defense, not that anyone is yet, lets wait to see how they do against our next 4 opponents.  If they can hold up against the Vikings, Jets, Patriots and Packers then I'll start singing their praises.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be the Miami Dolphins today than the Dallas Cowboys and I was pleased with how they showed against the Bills, but it's only 1 game and only the Bills.  The next 4 games will say alot more than yesterday's game did.

[Doc-phin]

Well Pappy, you may be right.  The cool thing is that we have a pretty good barometer type game next/this week in the Vikings.

On a little more optomistic side...  It was a pretty windy day and you can see why the passing game went the way it did.  Not to mention we didn't have much to build a game plan on.  We had a lot of players step up that had question marks.  And quite frankly, I think the Bills are under-rated.  You could really see their speed, but they just couldn't handle our power up front. 

[Pappy13]

On a little more optomistic side...  It was a pretty windy day and you can see why the passing game went the way it did.

Not enough has been made of this.  I too thought the wind may have played a part on that pass to Marshall that was underthrown.  Henne said he thought he threw it hard enough, so perhaps the wind caught it just a bit?  Might just be Henne trying to deflect the blame but he's not really one to duck the blame in my opinion.

[Pappy13]

Honestly, I wasn't trying to be sunny.

So far I'm happy to say that sunny is winning!  I've been impressed with Jason Allen's play and actually I think putting Sean Smith as the nickel back hasn't seemed to have hurt him either.  He had a nice play on 4th down to seal the win against Minnesotta.  Vontae seems to be turning into a very nice corner.  Starks seems to be holding his own and Soliai has looked pretty good when he's in there as well.  Misi seems to be coming on strong and Wake has picked up where he left off at the end of last year.  It's hard to say on Odrick because he's been hurt.  Dansby has been outstanding, although I wasn't really worried about him in the first place.  Even Dobbins filling in for Channing seems to be doing Ok.  I can't remember a lot about Bell and Clemons play, but it's a good thing when your safeties aren't noticed.

I don't know whether you can give all the credit to Nolan, but whomever is responsible it sure is working.  All in all they have far exceeded my expectations.  Keep it up guys!