Dolphins actually got this O-line decision right

did anyone watch the Super Bowl? stupid questions, of course you did (well, maybe not DF316).

the real difference in the game came down to Cincinnati's inability to pass protect for Burrow in the 2nd half. and did anyone happen to notice that it was former Miami Dolphins' 2019 6th round pick OT Isaiah Prince that was repeatedly getting abused by Rams' pass rushers - even to the point that he got a personal foul flag for taking a swipe at the Ram defender after a play. Prince hadn't seen the field for most of the season and was unfortunately (for the Bengals) forced into the lineup when OT Riley Reiff went down and was place on IR. Prince had been a liability on the right side since being inserted and played a large part in inadequately protecting Burrow last night.

so there, for whatever little bit that it's worth, the Dolphins made the right call on Prince by waving him in December 19 - after he struggled in his only 2 starts in aqua and orange.

LOL Yes, I've been watching Prince this postseason and he is really, really, really bad. He gets beat constantly in pass protection. I thought he had potential when the Phins drafted him, but now I am overjoyed that he's not a Dolphin!

What Merc is saying is.... "At least we got rid of the "bad" turd from all the other turds in our punch bowl!"

I sincerely hope some decent Offensive coaching can at the very least "polish" some of the remaining turds.

At least even Grier didn't think Prince was worth taking until the 6th.

The message I've gotten from the last two Super Bowls is...a team absolutely, positively, indisputably does NOT want to go into that game with O-line starters out. At least the Bengals gave a far better showing than KC last year. And yes, Merc knows me all too well

But I also must reiterate that even with being the league's most sacked QB, Burrow still led the league in yards per attempt, finished second in passer rating, and got his team to a Super Bowl after said team had not won a playoff game in over 30 years. I'm certainly not condoning any sort of bribery Ross allegedly engaged in to tank, but I cannot blame the man if he did. Ross was nowhere near the only person wanting the Fins to tank for Burrow, the only difference is he's the owner so he's not *supposed* to ever think it out loud.

BTW speaking of O-line drafting, out of all the 45 players this team has drafted there since '94 (pre-Grier) the one with the highest Approximate Value according to PFR is...Tim Ruddy. Drafted in '94. These 45 O-linemen have combined for...8 Pro Bowls total with the Fins and 4 elsewhere. Half of those Pro Bowls belong to Ruddy and #1 pick Jake Long, who STILL was the wrong pick over Matt Ryan. In addition, this team has not drafted any O-lineman with a career AV over 40 in a decade. A season AV of 8 is considered decent for a starter, so if a player averages 8 AV per season that comes out to 40 over ten seasons. The best O-linemen of course average far more AV per season than that. My point is, this list is *not* a pretty sight

https://stathead.com/football/draft_finder.cgi?request=1&order_by_asc=0&order_by=career_av&draft_year_min=1994&draft_year_max=2021&pick_type=overall&team_id=mia&conference=any&draft_positions%5B%5D=t&draft_positions%5B%5D=g&draft_positions%5B%5D=c&draft_positions%5B%5D=ol&show=all

wow, what i learned from that list is just how bad Austin Jackson is...worse than Jonathan Martin!!

wow, what i learned from that list is just how bad Austin Jackson is...worse than Jonathan Martin!!

Totally agree. I will add - I'm not sure it's the fault of Austin Jackson either.

He played in a serviceable manner during our 10-win season as a rookie, and seemed to seriously regress last year. A big part of the blame goes to our horrible, poorly-conceived and structured offensive coaching staff.

I don't know if Jackson will win a starting job this season, but if he does and plays much better than last year I won't be surprised in the least.

white1 wrote:

wow, what i learned from that list is just how bad Austin Jackson is...worse than Jonathan Martin!!

Totally agree.  I will add - I'm not sure it's the fault of Austin Jackson either.

He played in a serviceable manner during our 10-win season as a rookie, and seemed to seriously regress last year.  A big part of the blame goes to our horrible, poorly-conceived and structured offensive coaching staff.  

I don't know if Jackson will win a starting job this season, but if he does and plays much better than last year I won't be surprised in the least.

Totally agree, white. As a rookie, I saw a lot of positives in Jackson's game and he looked like an ascending player. But in year 2 he was an absolute disaster. It's difficult for me to believe that a young player went from improving to awful in just one offseason, so I am going to put a lot of blame on scheme and coaching. Jackson seems to be a fit for the type of offense McDaniel will run, and I too won't be surprised if he improves in the new system and with the new coaching.

I agree also...

We saw Jackson have SOME difficulty in his rookie season, but to be a total stinkweed in his sophomore season?? No, that has coaching, or in this case, lack of coaching, written all over it IMO.

Also, the one I was VERY Surprised by was Solomon Kindley. He looked like he was going to develop in his rookie season, and then he stunk so badly in his sophomore season, the equally as stinky or even stinkier Jackson took his spot as a Guard? After a season of strength training at the NFL level? There is no way you should regress THAT MUCH IMO.

No, I can see how players just DO NOT DEVELOP into much better players, but to REGRESS as much as the Oline did this season? Methinks, there is something ELSE rotten in this Denmark!!

And think about how BAD Liam Eichenberg looked this year. He was fairly highly rated in the draft and he looked WORSE THAN JACKSON did in 2020 at LT IMO.

While nobody will ever say this Oline is at a Pro Bowl level, I sincerely DOUBT they are the worst O-line in football either. This is 80% on coaching and poor player development and about 15% on TeamKiller Flores IMO. His dedication to Offensive Staff Assembling Dumbassedness put the KIBOSH on the Phins O-line in 2021 IMO.

It is going to be VERY INTERESTING to see what the new Offensive staff think about the Phins current Oline. We should have an answer by how they approach free agency.