Game 2 thoughts: Bills at Dolphins

I’m not even going to discuss the game. Just a quick rant and I’m out.

Brian Flores is a defensive coach. For the second year in a row, the Dolphins have the worst defense in the NFL. Last year, we had the excuse of a crappy roster. But no excuses this year. We signed a bunch of defensive free agents and the D is worse. Last week, the Patriots racked up 200+ yards rushing. This week, the Bills racked up 400+ yards passing. In other words, the Dolphins suck against the run, and they suck against the pass. To put it even more plainly – they suck.

On a day when the offense actually woke up and put points on the board, the D played like a bunch of gutless dogs.

I’m done making excuses. Flores is not an NFL coach, period.

Hero of the Game: Mike Gesicki had a big game, including a garbage-time TD.

Goat of the Game: Tie. Flores for having no idea how to get his defense to defend a damn crossing pattern, and Preston Williams for dropping an easy TD on 4th and goal. I’m done with him, too…hands of stone.

Beer of the Game: The lone bright spot of the day is that I had more Zombie Dust.

Agreed. Not much to add. Just tired of the suck.

Improving but need some playmakers on D. Seeing highlights of all these young guns making plays and he have an average old man. Can't wait to see Tua and what he has.

I will say it hurts my soul to see Jmp and other people I care deeply about get red-pilled and go from enthusiastic to sour in a matter of moments. But some people just have to learn the hard way and at least they do learn. Which is more than can be said of a lot of NPCs these days.

Fitz was great today. Not his fault that Preston Williams sucks.

And let's face it... Tua will suck in Miami. The Dolphins suck and it doesn't matter who the QB is. The coaches suck, the players suck, it's just a lost cause. This team will destroy Tua. We'll see who the new staff wants at QB in a year or so. Dan Marino would suck with the garbage team and staff we have.

Can't wait to see Gardner Minshew throw for 500 yards against us next week. Or will James Robinson run for 200? Pick your poison...doesn't even matter.

Looks like those two games against the Jets are going to determine who gets the #1 pick. Phins need to tank those games so Jets can't draft Trevor Lawrence. Not that it matters...the Phins aren't going anywhere any time soon.

So, just read that the Phins' plan today was to have Byron Jones cover Diggs. Ok, makes sense. But Jones left the game after the first series with a groin injury and did not return. Every person on the planet would then have switched the coverage so that Xavien Howard would take Diggs the rest of the game - right? Well, not every person...the Phins instead decided it was a great idea to let a rookie, Noah Igbinoghene, cover Diggs. Diggs ended up with 150+ yards and pretty much won the game by himself.

What a colossally epic fail by this garbage coaching staff. Flores and Boyer should be fired on the spot for that dumbass decision. How fucking STUPID can you be?

BTW, so far Igbinoghene looks like a completely wasted 1st round pick. Its only 2 games, but this guy has been an embarrassment so far. Save a spot for him on the ever-expanding bust list.

JMP wrote:BTW, so far Igbinoghene looks like a completely wasted 1st round pick.  Its only 2 games, but this guy has been an embarrassment so far.  Save a spot for him on the ever-expanding bust list.

Some of us thought he was a bad pick literally from day one. Just sayin'.

I don't think I gonna kill the team until they loss to the Jags on Thursday. Miami bad but at least they aren't Jets bad

JMP wrote:So, just read that the Phins' plan today was to have Byron Jones cover Diggs. Ok, makes sense. But Jones left the game after the first series with a groin injury and did not return. Every person on the planet would then have switched the coverage so that Xavien Howard would take Diggs the rest of the game - right? Well, not every person...the Phins instead decided it was a great idea to let a rookie, Noah Igbinoghene, cover Diggs. Diggs ended up with 150+ yards and pretty much won the game by himself.

What a colossally epic fail by this garbage coaching staff. Flores and Boyer should be fired on the spot for that dumbass decision. How fucking STUPID can you be?

BTW, so far Igbinoghene looks like a completely wasted 1st round pick. Its only 2 games, but this guy has been an embarrassment so far. Save a spot for him on the ever-expanding bust list.

Apparently Jones has the same groin injury the rest of the defense has, no balls!

DolFan 316 wrote:

JMP wrote:BTW, so far Igbinoghene looks like a completely wasted 1st round pick.  Its only 2 games, but this guy has been an embarrassment so far.  Save a spot for him on the ever-expanding bust list.

Some of us thought he was a bad pick literally from day one. Just sayin'.

Yeah his pick didn't make sense to me either. With some many good secondary players coming out, Igbin picks was stupid. The two Rookie OL are doing better than I thought.

CarsonChris wrote:

JMP wrote:So, just read that the Phins' plan today was to have Byron Jones cover Diggs.  Ok, makes sense.  But Jones left the game after the first series with a groin injury and did not return.  Every person on the planet would then have switched the coverage so that Xavien Howard would take Diggs the rest of the game - right?  Well, not every person...the Phins instead decided it was a great idea to let a rookie, Noah Igbinoghene, cover Diggs.  Diggs ended up with 150+ yards and pretty much won the game by himself.

What a colossally epic fail by this garbage coaching staff.  Flores and Boyer should be fired on the spot for that dumbass decision.   How fucking STUPID can you be?

BTW, so far Igbinoghene looks like a completely wasted 1st round pick.  Its only 2 games, but this guy has been an embarrassment so far.  Save a spot for him on the ever-expanding bust list.

Apparently Jones has the same groin injury the rest of the defense has, no balls!

I didn't have a problem drafting a DB in round one, at all. But so far, Iggy looks in over his head. Too early to write him off, of course, but right now he clearly isn't ready for prime time.

JMP wrote:Every person on the planet would then have switched the coverage so that Xavien Howard would take Diggs the rest of the game - right?

the truth is, i'm not convinced Howard would've done any better against Diggs. Howard had a hard enough time (not) covering Brown to the tune of 4 for 82 including a 46 yard TD. Howard has been living off his reputation from that one great season and hasn't been the same since his multiple injuries (something which he had a long history of in college). they've sunk a ton of money in him and he just hasn't been worth it. if the team really felt good about him, would they have then gone out and paid all that money for Jones and drafted a CB in the first round? all this after they made McCain the highest paid slot and subsequently moved him to safety. anyway you slice it, the defensive backfield just isn't living up to their billing.

and nether are the other FA acquisitions of Van Noy, Lawson, Ogbah and Roberts. but should this be a surprise? i know it seemed like a good idea to sign all these guys as instant fixes, but the truth is, there is a reason why their previous teams didn't see the need to keep them.

its still very early in Year 2 of the rebuild and hopefully things will begin to turn around fast, but yes, so far things are not looking good.

It is possible we (and I'm guilty) made the assumption all the free agent $$$ would be an "instant fix" for this defense. Clearly, at least thru two weeks, that isn't happening.

I'm not ready to write off Flores but we need to be playing much better the rest of the season and see constant improvement on both sides of the ball.

I, too, am perplexed and confused that a veteran defensive coach can come to Miami and field the worse defenses we've seen here in a long time. It just doesn't make sense. When we gained the 20-17 lead in the 4th quarter and had seemed to stop the bleeding on defense, we instantly gave up the deciding points. Fitz answered, but it was too little too late the damage was done.

It is POSSIBLE, and gain I say possible, that the D line just doesn't have the talent we need. Or, the youth we do have on the line will continue to improve and solidify. I do think we are missing at least one elite pass rusher, someone that demands double team blocking and can consistently win against the tackles when one on one.

The missed opportunities really hurt us today, which to me does tilt the blame towards players instead of coaches. IMO it would be a much better outcome if the players in question missed making these plays. I don't know if I've got the stomach for another clean-house-and-rebuild job. Van Noy had a pix-6 bounce off his hands. Howard dropped an INT. Williams with the TD pass right through his hands. These plays tilt the game in our favor. The Howard INT all but ices it.

All in all no shame - the Pats and Bills are consecutive playoff teams. Both made the playoffs last year and will do so again (most likely) this season. The Bills receiving corps is better than us and their defense is much better than ours at this point.

We must respond. I know Jax has had some good moments this year and played well on their way to 1-1. Minshew can be rattled and he will turn the ball over. The Fins must show they can respond on a short week. An 0-3 start... well let's just say I think Ross will be talking to Grier a lot this week.

Merc, you may be right that Howard wouldn't have been able to stop Diggs either. But with Jones out, X is our #1 corner and needs to cover the Bills' #1 receiver. There's no reason for a rookie playing his second game with a limited preseason to be given the responsibility to cover the opposing team's top receiver. It's a recipe for disaster. If their best beats your best - fine...what can you do? But if their best beats your worst, well, that's a mistake.

White - of course there is no shame in losing to the Pats or Bills. But there is shame in taking a 20-17 4th quarter lead and turning it into a 31-20 loss simply because you couldn't stop giving up huge chunk plays on crossing patterns, over and over and over. Did the coaches disappear at that point in the game? How can you not make any adjustments to stop the same play that the Bills kept killing us with???

As for the talent on defense - it is absolutely better this year, no question about it. Unfortunately, that better talent isn't getting the job done, at all. We may not have superstars anywhere (except Jones), but there's simply no excuse for a defense giving up almost 1000 yards in 2 games. I suppose it's progress that we're giving up a lot less points than we did last year, but the level of defensive play has been absolutely horrendous through 2 games. We heard about an emphasis on forcing turnovers in camp...not translating to the field. The coverage looks worse than last year when we had a new group of street free agents starting nearly every week. The pass rush looks worse than last year when we literally had no pass rushers. The run defense looks worse than last year when we couldn't stop anyone.

I'm not saying we need to become the 85 Bears overnight, but damn...I never expected to look worse than last year. This is an UGLY defense right now, with literally nothing positive that you can build on moving forward. The scheme looks like absolute trash, and that's all on Flores. It's just not acceptable. Opposing teams just have to figure out if they want to win by running or passing - we can't stop either, so they can do whatever they want.

Can you imagine what the Seahawks game will look like in 2 weeks???? My God....if Flores can't figure out how to stop the bleeding, Russell Wilson might throw double-digit TDs.

White - of course there is no shame in losing to the Pats or Bills. But there is shame in taking a 20-17 4th quarter lead and turning it into a 31-20 loss simply because you couldn't stop giving up huge chunk plays on crossing patterns, over and over and over. Did the coaches disappear at that point in the game? How can you not make any adjustments to stop the same play that the Bills kept killing us with???

Yes, I totally agree. It's shameful we had the opportunity and blew it.

Also echo your thoughts on Flores. While I'm not ready to give up hope on him, if we finish 2020 with another bottom-of-the-league defense, it's going to be difficult to believe this regime has the front office, scouting and coaching to build a contender. Ever.

Not impossible, but difficult to believe....

Well... When you churn the roster like they did this year, bringing in a bunch of new faces....you have to expect a high learning curve, just like last year... I expected the D-line to be somewhat better, but there was no pass rush vs. the Pats. Even the LB blitzes didn't work.

SO, just like last year, I expect the D to get better as they are "coached up".

SO far, the free agents on D have not looked any better than the those players they let go. Maybe they will improve like the rest of the D as they get coached up.

I was not expecting MUCH this season anyway, as Fitz is due a Fitz-fizzle instead of a Fitz-magic season, but the D in the Pats game was even worse than I was expecting.

I never like blaming COVID-19 for anything but it definitely hurt Miami this year. Most teams are working with people that they have had for a while now, even with new players it pretty much new to everyone. I not saying that Miami has an excuse bc other teams are winning but it definitely something that has to be considered.

Yeah, I guess my expectations were just too high. I sure wasn't thinking Super Bowl or even playoffs, but I did expect big improvements in coaching and on-field performance. It's apparently going to take much longer than I anticipated. It just sucks to see that we lost all momentum and positive vibes from the second half of last season and are now starting from square one again.

Let's just see if there have been major improvements after game 6. I know right now that sounds like giving up on the season, and you guys know me, I wasn't positive we were going to be good in the 1st place , improved, but not necessarily good. Hopefully by game 6 we'll have a more concrete ability to see what we have set in place, and changes will have been made, and we shall be on the right track. If not, then we are assuredly in for another rebuild After 1 more year of this current administration.I'm hoping they can pull it together again in this very odd season.

I’ve said this a million times, Grier sucks! Iggy was a bad pick. A 3rd round evaluation that had the draft pundits scratching their heads. We can have 15 picks in a draft and still suck if the guy making the picks sucks.

Some analysts did have Iggy as the #1 man-coverage corner in the draft, and that's how the Dolphins use their corners. In that respect, the pick makes sense. So far he's been pretty bad, but it's early yet...we'll see. Hopefully he develops. He'll likely get the start on Thursday - let's see some progress!

Flores showed enough last year that two games won't make me give up, especially two games after no pre-season made it a bit rougher on any team with more turnover than usual in the coaching staff.

In this particular game, if we don't turn the ball over on downs after getting a first and goal at the one in the third we likely win anyway.

HalCHorn wrote:Flores showed enough last year that two games won't make me give up, especially two games after no pre-season made it a bit rougher on any team with more turnover than usual in the coaching staff.  

In this particular game, if we don't turn the ball over on downs after getting a first and goal at the one in the third we likely win anyway.  

Hal with the voice of reason!

I was just really, really frustrated on Sunday. I've come back to reality. I'm still on board with Flores....but we need to see improvement on defense really soon.