Miami could easily be 0-4 right now.

[MaineDolFan]

Miami barely beat a bad Buffalo team in week 1 and snuck out a win against a team determined to beat itself in week two (Vikings).

Week 3 they made Sanchez look like the second coming of John Elway.  Last night, even without the special teams debacle, they only mustered 14 points against a suspect New England defense.

This team could easily be sitting at 0-4 right now.  Pure luck they won the first two.

Changes need to be made, and they go beyond scapegoating the ST coach.  What say you?  What should be done?

I think a few things need to happen.

1:  At 2-2, Miami can still climb in this thing.  It's time to get Pennington back under center.  Miami is NOT taking shots downfield, even with Henne.  The rare times they do - Henne over or under throws his receiver (he did it again last night).  Pennington, if nothing else, PROTECTS THE BALL.  He is accurate.  He is the better option at QB right now.

2:  Ronnie Brown isn't explosive at the line.  Ricky Williams needs to get 15-20 touches per game. 

3:  The wild cat needs to go.

4:  The defensive scheme needs serious adjusting.  The only pressure Miami seems to get on the QB is on 1st downs.  3rd downs seem to be automatic.  3rd and 14?  No problem.  3rd and 5?  No problem.  3rd and anything?  No problem, Miami will allow that chain to move.

5:  The play calling needs to go back to more meat and potatoes.  With an accurate QB under center and a viable running threat, Miami has weapons to keep defenses honest...but they need to start ramming it down people's throats.  We have a punishing TE and WR (Marshall) and Bess gets open even in double coverage.  Power I, double TE set and start pounding the ball.

What say you?

[StL FinFan]

1.  I think we are more likely to see Thigpen before we see Penny.
2. agree
3. AGREE!!!
4. There is definitely a problem when the majority of 3rd downs are being converted. Can we clone Wake?
5.  If we have no deep threat, then opposing defenses just stack the box all day.

[dolfan13]

i mean more and more, pennington does start to look like the best option to win now. that's a HUGE decision though... basically at that point you are admitting failure on henne, and giving up on him. i mean i guess he could come back at some point, but effectively he would be done.

i mean it really comes down to what the organization feels about the state of this football team. if they feel like they are way more talented and the qb position is holding them back, you make the move. if they feel like qb is just one in a number of other areas that are just not there yet from a talent perspective, then i think you should stick it out with henne.

it is what it is i guess... seems more and more like if you want to squeeze the most wins possible out of this team going forward, you turn to pennington now.

[gocowboys31]

Maine, Miami was never going to lose to the bills. The bills are the worst team in football. Miami brought it's C+ game on the road and still won. They caught Minnesota when Favre was just getting acclimated to football again, plus Sidney rice was out and Harvin was hurt. Still, anytime you win at that place it's good.

After these 2 games it's clear as day Miami is the third best team in the division and it's not even close. The jets were missing Revis, Jenkins, Pace, and holmes and still won by 8 on the road.

The pats last night were missing... Fred Taylor, Ty Warren, Leigh bodden, Kevin faulk, and Logan mankins and still whipped the floor with Miami. I gurantee you Miami couldn't survive with that many quality players being injured. The blame goes on parcells and that front office. It's mind boggling to see the gap in depth between these teams and the dolphins. I'll say it again I'm not sold on henne. The guy started 4 years at Michigan and his signature victory was the Capitol one bowl in 07 against the gators. I see a guy like Sam Bradford over in ST. Louis.. He has IT!!.. Miami shouldn't give up on Henne, but if he dosent progress this year they have to move on.

[Pappy13]

I only agreed with 1 thing you said, the wildcat needs to go.  They are now running it just for the sake of running it and that's not a good enough reason especially with the standard offense isn't that bad.

The only other major problem this team has is the special teams. 

Other than that their problems are fixable.  Let's hope the special teams is fixable because if it's not they are gonna lose every tough game they play.

[bsfins]

I agree we could just as easily be 0-4....

1.) I agree with the analysis,and the sentiment,not the conclusion....I don't think bringing Pennington  in changes The play calling. The first two games we played not to lose, our defense was causing turnovers, we managed to keep trying to run the ball.(Complaints that we still played too conservative) We had the lead in both those games,we had a little more balance despite the damn momentum killer of the Wildcat. Last night we could have over came those two picks in the first half We lead at the half 7-6. We can't win trying to throw the Leather off the ball game in and game out...

2.)Agree, I think,I think Dave said it best, our O-line isn't exactly opening big holes either,perhaps the return of John Jerry at R.Guard (He's been out the pas 2 games I believe) seems to have taken at tole on our running game....

3.) Amen

4.) I'm not sure what to do on third down....We blitz people are ready for it...We seem to miss tackles on that down...I really don't have an answer for this....

5.) Again agree with the Analysis,and sentiment, not the conclusion...I don't think we have the hogs up front to run those formations...We want big plays out of play action,but our running game is sputtering.....

[Dave Gray]

We could also easily be 3-1, though and looking down from the top of the division.

We sucked last night.  It was so bad, I think you just have to throw it away and go from there.  The special teams play alone was impossible to overcome.  Then, Henne had a bad night on top of it.  It was a perfect storm of bad play.

I think that the special teams coach being gone is a good symbol, but it likely won't make us good overnight.  I think we just have to do the best we can and let the new guy try to figure something out.

We have the building blocks for a good offense.  Henne has been playing well, protecting the football, until last night.  But I think that we have enough there between Henne playing well, Marshall and Bess picking up slack, and our running backs to get the job done and convert on 3rd downs, which we've been unable to do in the past.  I think that our play calling needs to get more basic, and pretty quickly.  Once we're doing things well there and you want to throw in your tricks, go for it, but right now, we need "meat and potatoes" play calling.  ...high percentage chances.

Defensively, we're in trouble.  We don't have the personnel to cover all these receivers.  New England can throw 5 yard plays all day.  It only takes 2 to move the chains.  We need better line pressure and we're just not getting it.  It reminds me of the "bend, don't break" defense that we had a few years ago, where we'd allow first downs, but eventually the offense would make a blunder (dropped ball, penalty, sack allowed) and have to punt, because it was all short yardage stuff to that point.  Now, we're bend AND break.  We allow these long, drawn out drives that still result in a TD, 'cause we can't cover when we really need to.

It's really about staying above water.  It's conceivable that we can finish the season VERY strong.  But we can't drown early, and we can't get too down on ourselves.  We've dug a hole where we're going to have to win at least 1 more division game on the road, but if we can steal a few more wins in the top half of our schedule and go .500, the stretch can still make for the playoffs.

The bottom line is this, if I were to come to you before the season started and said:
at Buffalo
at Minnesota
New York Jets
New England

You'll be 2-2 after these 4 games, would you have taken it?  I would have.  It sucks that our two wins came first, but that's where we are.  We just can't self-destruct from here out.

[Pappy13]

The bottom line is this, if I were to come to you before the season started and said:
at Buffalo
at Minnesota
New York Jets
New England

You'll be 2-2 after these 4 games, would you have taken it?  I would've have.

Absolutely.  There's still plenty of season left and were sitting at 500.  It's not how we got here that is important but what we do from here on out.  I've seen both the offense and defense play well at times.  I'm still waiting on the special teams to do something encouraging and Sparano better spend most of the time the next 2 weeks on that area.  We got outcoached last night more than we got outplayed in my humble opinion.

[USO-ORLANDO]

Miami could easily be 0-4 right now.




BUT WE ARE NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Spider-Dan]

With a merely competent special teams unit (i.e. we get no big plays, but give up no big plays), Miami could be 4-0 right now.

Vs. New England, even with Henne handing the ball to NE's offense twice, our offense outgained theirs.  Like I said previously, without the historically unprecedented collapse of our ST unit, that game is, at the very least, close (though Henne's mistakes did not help).

The NYJ game turned on the blocked punt.  MIA was down 1 and gave up three points solely on that play, and even with that we were in a position to tie at the end of the game.

MIN benefited from some extremely fortunate fumbles in the worst possible positions (one of which was from a RB who basically NEVER fumbles).  Otherwise, that game isn't even close.  Argue what you want about Brett Favre, but a 3 INT game is nothing extraordinary from him.

We completely dominated BUF and the game was only close on a fluke busted coverage, so I'm not at all interested in entertaining the notion that we pulled out a lucky win there.

The sky is not falling.  Our special teams unit is unspeakably bad, and as long as they continue to turn out performances like they did in the last two game, we will likely be losing.  But with merely adequate play from them, we would be in a position to be undefeated.

[dolphins4life]

If you go to one of the games.  Bring a sign that says

DON'T RUN THE WILDCAT!!!!

If everyone brings one, maybe Henning will get the message.               

[mecadonzilla]

I'd rather go to a game with a sign that says, "Run Dan Henning...out of town"

[Tenshot13]

We are 2-2 and the only unbeaten team left is the Chiefs...seems like every team is having some bad games.  I won't start panicking until later in the season.

[Spider-Dan]

I'm still surprised at the level of vitriol for the Wildcat (and Henning in general), given that our run game as a whole has been unimpressive this season.

If we were steamrolling teams with our smash-mouth power running game, I could see the argument.  But we aren't.  And we see what happens when Henning pulls out the Marino playbook for Henne.

So what, exactly, is it that you want him to do?  When he calls a conservative game and we win, you bitch and moan that we aren't blowing teams out.  When he goes all Mike Martz on you and Henne throws INTs, that's still Henning's fault?

[Tenshot13]

I have no problem with winning a game with conservative play calling.  I have a problem with his timing on being conservative.  Example:  We are down by 20 with 9 minutes left in the game, and he calls a run play.  We throw a checkdown pass on the next play (which I don't have a problem with if guys are covered downfield), then the very next play is another run play.  His problem is he calls conservative plays at the very worst time.  IMO, because others disagree with me, he is also too aggressive when we should be more conservative, but I have a bigger problem with the before mentioned.  His timing is horrible.