The Dolphins seem to be giving up on trying to be competitive, so we’re giving up as well. Actually, we’re just moving to warmer waters, aka the new Sports Blog @ Damox. It’s got coverage of all the major sports, and sometimes even some of the minor ones. It’s kind of like electronic Sports Illustrated, minus Peter King making incredibly inaccurate football predictions.
The Dolphins dominated the Bills last season, and a Madden video game simulation predicts they’ll win again in their first matchup this season by a final score of 34 to 27. Chad Henne throws for 297 yards in his first complete game as a starter this season, including 4 passes for touchdowns.
The Dolphins traded in undisclosed draft pick next season to the Chiefs in exchange for Tyler Thigpen. Thigpen will take over backup QB duties now that Chad Henne has been promoted to starter. That means Pat White remains in the 3rd string QB spot. Why or why did we do this? First of all, Chad Henne is terrible. The Dolphins are going to realize this sooner or later. He will never adjust to become a great NFL quarterback. Second, Pat White was made for the Dolphins offense. He’s got skills similar to Michael Vick in his prime. Maybe he isn’t a great passer, but that’s not how we should be winning games anyway. The Dolphins revolutionized the NFL last season with the Wildcat, and they could take it a step further with Pat White at QB. You’d basically have a QB/running back/receiver and a Running back/QB/receiver in Ronnie Brown in the huddle all the time. Defense’s wouldn’t know where the ball is, let alone where it’s going.
It boggles my mind to think we actually gave away a draft pick for a guy who will back up Chad Henne without even considering moving Pat White up from the 3rd string. If the Dolphins don’t think Pat White is the type of quarterback they want running their offense, why the heck did they draft him? They are failing to recognize the talent they’ve already drafted, and they’re giving away future draft picks in the process.
The Dolphins beat the Bills twice last season, and they hope to get started on the same track again this year when Buffalo visits Landshark Stadium on Sunday. For some reason this is a 4:05 game, even though it’s on the east coast. That seems to be happening a lot this season, perhaps the schedule maker should lay off the coke and booze. The Bills offense looks anemic as always, and their only points against the Saints this past week were from a fake field goal play that resulted in their punter throwing a touchdown pass. The Dolphins defense is good enough to stop these guys, and even without Pennington we should still be able to run all over the Bills defense, which seems to be designed to stop the pass (no passing touchdowns for Drew Brees this past week, by the way). We won’t pass, and we’ll run straight runs and Wildcat all day on the Bills. This might surprise some folks, but I don’t expect this one to be close. Dolphins by 17.
Chad Pennington will probably miss the entire rest of the 2009 season after injuring his shoulder in yesterday’s game. Pennington, who has the highest completion percentage of any quarterback in NFL history, has had multiple surgeries on that shoulder before.
Chad Henne did not look great backing up Pennington yesterday, and I’ve got to say we might be in trouble. The Dolphins sit at 0 and 3, but they play 1-2 Buffalo next week.
Perhaps it’s time to rethink our gameplan. The Dolphins dominated the Colts defense and ran the Wildcat more times in one game than they ever have before, but they still lost by 4 points on Monday night. The Colts benefited from several big plays on offense, while the Dolphins offense slowly but steadily marched down the field time after time to score on the Colts. The Colts held the ball for less than 15:00 minutes the entire game, a new record low for a victorious team. It seemed that each time the Dolphins killed the Colts defense with a thousand cuts with a long drive down the entire field eating up 10 minutes off the clock, the Colts would respond with a 2 or 3 play drive capped by a 30 or 40 yard touchdown play.
The Dolphins inability to respond with a big play downfield really hurt them at the end of this game. While they could gain 6 yards every play with the Wildcat, that’s not the way to comeback in the final 2 minutes. We’ve got to be able to strike 20 or 30 yards downfield to one of our receivers, particularly Ted Ginn. Ginn let a potential game winning touchdown slip through his hands in the end zone on that final drive. Chad Pennington might have the highest completion percentage of all time (it’s true, look it up), but I don’t know if I trust his ability to accurately place a ball deep and not just “toss it up”.
Need cheap tickets for this game?
The Dolphins will face a daunting task with their final game of the regular season. The defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers will stroll into town. Hopefully, we’ll have clinched a playoff berth by this point. Maybe it’ll be the Steelers who have to worry about making the playoffs via a final game at Miami. Tickets for this game are selling for considerably more than other Dolphins home games this season, but I think that would obvious considering what is likely to be at stake. You can still buy them from resellers online for under $60 each for nosebleed seats.
Need tickets for this game (think possible stocking stuffer)?
The Dolphins will play their second-to-last home game of the season against the Houston Texans on December 27th. The Texans are becoming that team that has enough skill to really scare teams, especially late in the season, so I hope the Dolphins won’t overlook this match-up. They’ll need to make sure of a win here, because they host the Steelers in the final week of the season, and even die-hard Dolphins fans know that’s not going to be a cakewalk.
See who is selling tickets for this game
The New England Patriots will come to Miami on December 6 for a nationally televised Sunday night game. This game was obviously chosen to be one of the featured games of the week because it will answer one question football fans have been wondering throughout the offseason: are the Dolphins for real, and can they contend with a Patriots team that has a healthy Tom Brady? Of course, that’s assuming the Patriots still have a healthy Tom Brady by December. Unlike the Patriots, the Dolphins have shown they don’t have one player that decides the fate of the entire team.
Get some cheap tickets for this game
As with their previous home game, the Dolphins 5th home game of the season will feature a non-conference opponent in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs are most certainly a regional rival, even though they might not be true competitive rivals. Like most Dolphins fans, I expect a win out of this game, although I’m not so confident that I’m not going to bother going. Tickets for this game are reselling for cheap — in some cases under $20.
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