Game 7 thoughts: Rams at Dolphins

Tua went 12 of 22 with 4 drops. that's 55%. they catch those balls and we're talking 73%. a much different conversation.

three things to remember...

Preston Williams (who was responsible for 2 of the drops) played 44 of Miami's offensive snaps. Parker (who doesn't drop balls as frequently as Williams) played only 29 snaps (perhaps that hamstring is still bothering him). with hopefully Parker getting more snaps moving forward, that gives Tua a more sure handed target.

and why did they drop those passes? Tua threw the ball with much greater velocity than Fitz. i think guys were caught off guard and it may take a bit (hopefully more practice reps) to get used to a ball coming at them much quicker.

and lastly, Gailey was caught completely off-guard by the Rams defense and our rookie QB had to scrap a lot of what he practiced the last 2 weeks and learn on the fly...

TUA: "It was more so we came to the sideline and I was kind of telling the guys, ‘Hey, that’s my fault. We’ll get it the next series.’ But a lot of the chatter was just talking about how we could fix certain things because they were giving us a little different look than what we expected and what we had seen in practice, and so we tried to kind of fix up what we were trying to do on offense.”

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/armando-salguero/article246887227.html

...and don't forget the drive-killing fascination with the wildcat.

i believe we'll see a much-improved Tua moving forward.

merc wrote:Tua went 12 of 22 with 4 drops. that's 55%. they catch those balls and we're talking 73%. a much different conversation.

And all 4 of those drops would have resulted in first downs. Who knows what happens if those 4 drives were extended??

merc wrote:Preston Williams (who was responsible for 2 of the drops) played 44 of Miami's offensive snaps. Parker (who doesn't drop balls as frequently as Williams) played only 29 snaps (perhaps that hamstring is still bothering him). with hopefully Parker getting more snaps moving forward, that gives Tua a more sure handed target.

Parker definitely looks like he's struggling a bit out there. It's great to see him playing through pain, but I sure hope he gets healthy soon - we need him close to 100%!

As for Williams, he's been a major disappointment. He's so frustrating because you know the talent is there. He's one of those receivers that makes the tough catches and drops the easy ones. Dropping easy passes over and over is just not acceptable. The dropped TD in the Bills game could really come back to bite us...we probably win that game if he catches the pass that was right in is gut.

merc wrote:and why did they drop those passes? Tua threw the ball with much greater velocity than Fitz. i think guys were caught off guard and it may take a bit (hopefully more practice reps) to get used to a ball coming at them much quicker.

Yep, and the fact that Tua is left-handed plays into it too - the ball comes out differently. The pass that Gaskin dropped looked like it was thrown out of a cannon...Gaskin clearly wasn't expecting that type of heat, even though the ball hit him in the numbers. No excuse - gotta catch that.

merc wrote:...and don't forget the drive-killing fascination with the wildcat.

I'm OK with throwing a wildcat play out there every now and then with Perry and Bowden since both were QBs. But you don't run the same formation 2 plays in a row, and you certainly don't run it with Gaskin as the QB. UGH!!!