The Miami Dolphins (2-2, 1-2) were slaughtered by Tom Brady and the New England Patriots (3-1, 2-1), 41-14, in front of the home crowd on National Television for Monday Night Football. I’m trying not to be a homer but I couldn’t think of a word worse than slaughtered, if I could have, I would have used that one.
After starting 2-0 on the road for the first time since 1977 things looked promising for the 2010 Dolphins. Then something happened. They came home. They slept in their own beds, they drank their own kool-aid and they embarrrassed themselves, the organization and Dolfans abroad.
That “Feed the Wolf” mantra they’ve been using to psyche themselves up seemed like a good idea at the time. Now they should face criminal charges for cruelty to animals for malnutrition. What? There’s no wolf food in Miami? Teen Wolf had more game.
Save the Dolphins? Screw the Dolphins. I feel worse now for the tuna getting caught in dolphin nets.
The good news… umm, our colors are still sweet. They can never take Dan Marino away from us. Or that 1972 Perfect Season although I wouldn’t be bummed out if they could somehow take Mercury Morris away. More good news if this counts? It doesn’t, unless you’re stupid and chances are pretty darn good you are considering you’re here reading crap about even worse crap.
…And now we go to Lambeau. Thank god!
Excellent news when you consider the dolphins playing in ‘The Cove’ are less likely to get slaughtered than the ones playing in Sun Life Stadium.
Harsh? Yes. Deserving? Yes. Season over? No. Not by a long shot but going 8-4 the rest of the way is the only realistic way they make the playoffs and the schedule is brutal the next 5 games at Green Bay, Pittsburgh, at Cincinnati, at Baltimore and Tennessee. 3-2 would be pretty good over that span but that puts us at 5-4 and hardly a playoff threat. Having already lost to New York and New England we would have to also figure out how to go into their place and come away with wins. All that will play itself out. Either we’re good or we’re not and it won’t take much longer to figure that out. Is it really gonna matter? I’ll be here either way like an inmate serving his sentence. It’d just be nice to split a few beers on the roof someday instead of getting my plumbing rearranged by this damn team.
Miami’s Monday Night debacle was historic. The Dolphins literally had the worse night in the history of professional football on special teams. Never before had a team given up a kickoff return touchdown, blocked field goal touchdown and blocked punt in a game let alone one half of football. The Dolphins also were on the wrong end of allowing the Patriots to score touchdowns five different ways including an interception return for a touchdown, a touchdown run and a touchdown pass. That’s disgusting.
Nauseating way to get throttled but the bottom line is special teams is exactly 1/3 of the game. No less, no more. Offense and defense obviously making out the rest of the game. Granted, Chad Henne threw 3 interceptions. One was an awful decision, one was a risky decision but the no-name Rob Ninkovich made a great play on the ball and the 3rd one looked worse than the other two but Brandon Marshall stopped his route and left Henne out to dry as we all watched, no doubt laughing hysterically at this point, as Patrick Chung (another household name) raced in for six. Clearly special teams wasn’t the only phase of the game Miami looked like a dumpster fire.
Brady was 19-24 for 153 yards and a touchdown. BenJarvus Green-Ellis (yet another global icon) and Danny Woodhead (at least he starred on HBO!) seemed to have little trouble picking up 4 to 5 yards a crack. Wes Welker was just playing catch out there with Brady bringing in 8 of the 19 completed passes.
Henne had his 5th 300 yard game putting him in 2nd behind the right arm of God, Dan Marino’s 63.
On the surface there isn’t much to take away from a game like this. Just take the game tape and burn it. Piss on it, then burn it. Nobody wants to sit in a film room rehashing a complete cluster@#&* that this game was. Just do the obvious and pin this entire collapse on one person and then pretend all is well moving forward. Dolphins Nation wanted a head and they got one, and it was justifiable but it’s not the end all, cure all solution. Miami has ALWAYS sucked at special teams. It’s mind boggling.
Special Teams Coach John Bonamego (Ummm… who?) was fired officially before I hit snooze Tuesday morning and he was replaced by his Assistant ST’s Coach Darren Rizzi. What the front door is that all about? That’s like a Model Agency firing Mary-Kate Olsen and hiring Ashley Olsen. No goddamn wonder strides aren’t made.
Look, Bonamego had to go but it’s not his fault Roberto Wallace got dump trucked by Sammy Morris allowing Brandon Tate to turn on the jets and outrun poor angles by Bobby Carpenter, Jason Allen (shocker!) and Nolan Carroll for 103-yard kick return touchdown to start the 2nd half.
Bonamego didn’t get confused like Lex Hilliard and Carpenter (again!) did allowing Patrick Chung to split them and Patrick Cobbs took off too early leaving Brandon Fields exposed and getting his punt blocked. Bonamego didn’t get steam rolled by Chung and Kyle Arrington like Joe Berger and Lyndon Murtha did allowing the blocked field goal to get scooped up for another circus touchdown. Even circus clowns were laughing at us.
Coaches coach, players play. Absolutely the right move to fire him for this game and everything that led up to it but I assure you the accountability is on the players that blew their assignments. Special teams is want to, we didn’t want to and they did. Hence, 41-14 with Randy Moss catching 0 passes for 0 yards with 0 touchdowns.
Disgusting.
…and the spin.
Take away six plays… kick return for touchdown, blocked FG for touchdown and blocked punt that gave New England the ball inside the 10 and three Henne interceptions and we have a different ball game. That’s all! Remember, the first half very much felt like Miami was in charge of this game. They looked like the better team. Am I wrong?
The bad news is you cannot take away those plays but what it does mean is you can prevent them from happening again. It’s easier to “coach” (Lord help us) those corrections than it is to look at our team and try to make them stronger, faster and more physical. In other words, Miami is not near as bad as the score would indicate because they are physical and talented on both sides of the ball. Mental errors are the difference in their games right now. Absolutely credit the Patriots for ass raping the Dolphins in their own kitchen but just know that the Miami mistakes can be corrected. I’m not reaching for optimism either. It’s true.
Cameron Wake, Vontae Davis and Kendall Langford played inspired and excellent football regardless of the score. Wake was a flat out beast frankly with 5 tackles, 2 for a loss and a sack. He played well against the run and got after Brady like a possessed demon. Davis followed Moss a lot and though it’s not all due to him it certainly was a factor that Moss had no catches.
Henne made a few mistakes but he was 29-39 for 302 yards and 2 touchdowns. I refuse to pile on him at this point. He took 67 snaps and aced 65 of them. Relax Dolfans, he is getting better each and every snap. This was only his 17th career start and we tend to forget that. He started 9-7. Not bad. Not Marino but certainly not the laundry list of scabs we’ve had since either. And need I remind you… we will NEVER have another Dan Marino. To us, even Peyton Manning is considered a poor man’s Dan Marino.
Being a movie freak I went to see “The Social Network” (I highly recommend.) and during it I saw the trailer for “The Tourist”. There’s a scene where Johnny Depp attempts to report an attempted murder and the Officer in France is disgusted. It reminds me of the Henne situation. Here’s the exchange.
Detective: You wish to report a murder?
Depp’s character: Attempted murder.
Detective: That’s not so serious.
Depp: Not when you downgrade it from murder. But when you upgrade it from room service it’s quite serious.
It’s all a matter of perspective. Henne is a peon when compared to Marino but doesn’t he make everyone since #13 look like a peon next to him?
Davone Bess looked like he was every bit as good as Welker and I’m not exaggerating. let’s put it this way, the only receiver in the league that you can even make the case for being better than Bess in short yardage situations moving the chains is Welker. Bess caught 9 balls for 93 yards and an acrobatic 19-yard touchdown.
This game has to be forgotten about. Learn from it, clean it up and move forward forgetting about it like an old girlfriend. And what’s the easiest way to get over an ex-girlfriend? Stick it to the better looking Green Bay Packers at their place.
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