Miami isn't there

Miami got exposed on the offensive and defensive lines. This is where championship teams are built. Tua is lucky that he's not back in concussion protocol. Tua looks lost when protection breaks down. The defense was no match upfront against the Bills. 

Both lines are substandard and this causes defensive and offensive breakdowns. 

Grier's loss. We are not championship caliber.

Yup. To be fair, I've already gone over how O-line scouting's been a huge issue since '95 but Grier's bizarre insistence on refusing to draft/sign an actual center and bringing in injury-prone players hasn't helped.

Wilkins was supposed to be better than he is, and taking him over Clemson teammate Dexter Lawrence appears to be yet another Grier gaffe. We'll be able to compare them directly on Sunday. And where is David Long? All I heard all offseason was how much of an upgrade he was supposed to be. Also, is Channing Tindall even still on the team?

Even *I* didn't want to say anything about this but now it's obvious for all to see--this team absolutely did NOT get better in the offseason at all, and may in fact be WORSE defensively somehow! That Broncos game might end up being the worst thing that could've happened to them, which would be so...Dolphins.

OR...maybe it's a strength and conditioning staff thing and THEY need replacing...Then again as far back as the Silver Age (early '80s) this team's lines got shoved around by anybody that really tried.

No, its just the Bills are much better than the Phins at nearly every position. And the Bills coaching staff might be better too?

finfanatic wrote:No, its just the Bills are much better than the Phins at nearly every position. And the Bills coaching staff might be better too?

It's the coaching more than the talent. Hill and Waddle on paper are better than Diggs and whoever else they have. Tua objectively is a better passer than Allen. Gregory Rousseau is good but no better than Phillips and the same can be said about Ed Oliver and Wilkins.

Even Bills fans last season thought their O-line was trash, but they're better than the Fins just by virtue of not sucking and blowing at the same time. Their starting safeties are 32 and 33 and their secondary as a whole seems to be as injury-prone as your average Grier acquisition.

Milano does give them a HUGE edge at LB especially since Chubb's decided to mail it in after getting paid. But every time I look at their roster I just can't see any Murderer's Row of Hall Of Famers and all-stars. It really does seem to come down to their non-stars being at least average compared to some of the Fins being flat out bad and...coaching. I would even go so far as to say the real reason they haven't been able to break through and reach a Super Bowl is in fact their LACK of talent compared to the tippity-top teams. But mark my words, that'll change this season. It's just the Bills' time.

Both lines are substandard and this causes defensive and offensive breakdowns.

Grier's loss. We are not championship caliber.

I agree with your take. I will add our LBs are also a problem on defense - so mark the entire front 7 as just not good enough. Not good enough against the run, dropping into zone coverage, or rushing the passer. And our secondary can't hold up with all of that.

I didn't think Tua looked lost, at all.  I thought he had a good game, all things considered.  This is the first time all season he has faced real pressure, and he handled it well.  Unfortunately, the OL breakdowns, missed opportunities on 3rd and 4th and short, and poor adjustments and playcalling were too much for the offense to overcome.  

I was impressed with how Tua took a hit - he didn't flinch and didn't shy away from the pressure.

Hopefully McD and the offense use this game as a learning opportunity and get back on track this weekend.

I didn't think Tua looked lost, at all. I thought he had a good game, all things considered. This is the first time all season he has faced real pressure, and he handled it well. Unfortunately, the OL breakdowns, missed opportunities on 3rd and 4th and short, and poor adjustments and playcalling were too much for the offense to overcome.

Our offense, as badly as we are all saying they played, put up four touchdowns. Two rushing and two passing. Both passes by Tua were lights-out redzone throws - on one he held a key player with his eyes before throwing a perfect ball to the corner. One TD was called back due to the Eich ineligible downfield penalty.

Do I want more from the offense? Yes, of course I do, and we're trending the right way on that side of the ball. Our running game already looks way better than last season, and McDaniel seems more committed to a balanced attack. I expect improvements to continue over the year.

So on offense - that's not a bad day. Many teams would LOVE to put up 28 points a game. Our defense lost this game, plain and simple. And that's been the recipe for the last several seasons, we cannot slow down the Bills offense.

The game was over the first time we didn't drive the field for a score. Then getting down a few touchdowns changed the complexity of the game. We needed to score on every opportunity but we didn't. Tua played good but to win a game like that he has to play great. It's a team effort that was hampered by the two lines. Tua has the ability to play great games when he's not being sacked. The line lost up front causing a cascade of events. Disrupting timing and throwing lanes. 

The defense made Josh Allen perfect. This falls on the pass rush that failed to generate enough pressure to disrupt the Bills offense.

Well said, white.

The offense actually only scored 3 TDs yesterday. But inconsistent as the offense was, the defense didn't help AT ALL. Can you maybe get a turnover every now and then...or maybe just stop them from scoring every damn series??? I say this all the time, but the best teams play complementary football - with all three phases contributing. Yesterday, the Dolphins got negative results from the defense, and nothing at all from special teams. Even if the offense had been great, that is not a recipe for winning games against good teams.

BTW - Achane averaged over 10 yards a touch again...just insane. Call me crazy, but I'm thinking he needs more touches!

CarsonChris wrote:The game was over the first time we didn't drive the field for a score. Then getting down a few touchdowns changed the complexity of the game. We needed to score on every opportunity but we didn't. Tua played good but to win a game like that he has to play great. It's a team effort that was hampered by the two lines. Tua has the ability to play great games when he's not being sacked. The line lost up front causing a cascade of events. Disrupting timing and throwing lanes. 

The defense made Josh Allen perfect. This falls on the pass rush that failed to generate enough pressure to disrupt the Bills offense.

Yep. The defense put the offense in a position where it had to be absolutely perfect - and for a variety of reasons, it wasn't. Hell, I'm not sure even a perfect offensive game would have been enough with the way the D played.

Totally right - when the Dolphins didn't score on that third drive it kinda seemed like everything was gonna fall apart - and of course, it did.

On defense, we should not have rushed 4. This was exactly the game to scheme pressure. You think you are really gonna beat Allen/Mahomes/Herbert/Jackson with a 4 man rush? Check the stats for Bradley, Philliips and AVG and Ogbah. As good as we think they are none of them has averaged double digit sacks in any season. None....Zero.....Nada. We were getting beat not on the base offense but the off schedule throws from Josh Allen. Yes its personnel, but at the end of the day you need to adapt to the scheme to the personnel. What we needed was pressure from the A and B gaps force him DE's but since we dont make any adjustments it was like playing street ball.....first one to the QB wins. Lmao.

On offense, we had the perfect plan at the beginning, we had the perfect mix of passes and runs. I believe that we were using the pass to stick the run in from time to time. We started to get predictable after the first 2 drives which probably started to make Tua nervous. The protection really wasn't an issue IMHO. You might laugh because it was 5 sacks but if you think about it really good. Tua started having problems when he was forced off the the 1st and 2nd read. Buffalo started bulldogging the flash fake side which hurried his read. No one til now did that to him. The only adjustment McD made was to post the TE on the RB side and use Ingold in pass pro. Which made it worse. All I know is the more you have in pass pro the harder it is to pass pro because all you are doing is creating more pass rushers. More pass rushers requires your entire Offensive protection to be on the same page. It's hard with 5 guys but 7 or 8 guys now you talking assignment sound football.

Umix10 wrote:On defense, we should not have rushed 4. This was exactly the game to scheme pressure. You think you are really gonna beat Allen/Mahomes/Herbert/Jackson with a 4 man rush?  Check the stats for Bradley, Philliips and AVG and Ogbah.  As good as we think they are none of them has averaged double digit sacks in any season. None....Zero.....Nada.

I DID check and...you were almost right! Chubb did in fact have 12 sacks his rookie season though, which caused such a great first impression that people thought he was an elite sack artist even 5 seasons later who was just a bit injury prone. It's only now in his 6th season that they're starting to figure out the truth. Ogbah received what is now the team's highest cap number based off...consecutive 9 sack seasons. I guess by this team's standards that really IS elite in a twisted sort of way. Phillips had 8.5 as a rookie and is still second in the '21 draft class behind only Micah Parsons (although the way things are going he'll be surpassed by his former teammate Rousseau as soon as next week. AVG's never had more than 5.5 although barring injury he'll surely pass that total soon since he's got 3 already. None of them are 30-yet--but Phillips is the only one of the four younger than 27. Aside from Ogbah, Chase Winovich is the only DE listed on the roster BTW.

On offense, we had the perfect plan at the beginning, we had the perfect mix of passes and runs.  I believe that we were using the pass to stick the run in from time to time.  We started to get predictable after the first 2 drives which probably started to make Tua nervous.  The protection really wasn't an issue IMHO.  You might laugh because it was 5 sacks but if you think about it  really good.  Tua started having problems when he was forced off the the 1st and 2nd read. Buffalo started bulldogging the flash fake side which hurried his read.  No one til now did that to him.  The only adjustment McD made was to post the TE on the RB side and use Ingold in pass pro.  Which made it worse. All I know is the more you have in pass pro the harder it is to pass pro because all you are doing is creating more pass rushers.  More pass rushers requires your entire Offensive protection to be on the same page.  It's  hard with 5 guys but 7 or 8 guys now you talking assignment sound football.

Do you think the Bills switching from zone to man after the first 2 drives had something to do with that? And which teams are the most capable of emulating this strategy going forward? Besides the Jets, I mean?

DolFan 316 wrote:
Do you think the Bills switching from zone to man after the first 2 drives had something to do with that?.......

Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because they man pressed and shaded inside which took away the RPO flat wheel route concepts. Tua was actually forced to read through the progressions. The problem isn't the reads but the middle is no loger there and shouldn't have even been looked at. I think Tua thus far has been reading inside out, but should have went the opposite and read outside wheel to flat. Especially when they started jamming the flash fake. Milano knows the play. He's seen it far too often. And this is second time that he read the play and dropped an INT.

DolFan 316 wrote: And which teams are the most capable of emulating this strategy going forward? Besides the Jets, I mean?

I think that everyone is going to emulate what the bills did. They have no choice. Unless they want to be like Denver. If everyone wants to slow down the Dolphins they need to take a look at what happened. But one thing that was key situation for the Bills was getting turnovers at the right moments. In last weeks win, Fangio in his interview mentioned how Miami scored 70. He stated that the Defense gave the offense two possessions inside the 8 yard line which they scored. What happened to Denver was a perfect storm of issues and Karma came back for Miami instantly. Because Mostert almost always never fumbles and when he did Josh Allen capitalized, just like Miami did. Its funny to me how we didn't kick the field goal to avoid bad juju and yet here we are pissed off as all hell about the Karma that the universe was sure to collect.

Great discussion here.

The teams that can emulate what the Bills did are going to be teams that have strong coverage DBs and LBs, to go along with a stout front 4. It really takes a complete performance from all 3 areas of the defense. That seems obvious, but the fact is, most teams don't have that combination. Looking at the remaining schedule, I'd say the Eagles, Jets, Cowboys and Bills are the only teams that really have all those things working for them - and as I stated elsewhere, that Jets' D can be exploited to an extent. The Ravens and Commanders have tough defenses as well, but I don't like the secondary on either team.

And that doesn't mean the Dolphins have no chance in those games. There will be plays to be had and weak spots to take advantage of against all of those defenses.

The offense actually only scored 3 TDs yesterday.

Yeah, I kind of took a measuring stick approach. Technically they held us to 3, but the Tua throw on that fourth TD that was called back for the Eich penalty was a great play. I only called it out to illustrate hey, the Bills didn't exactly dominate us on defense. Where they dominated was on offense and that's the more urgent problem we have to solve.

I totally agree with Umix: When teams take away the middle routes, or inside, where Tua gets most of his yards, the wheels come off the offense IMO.

I was expecting McD to gameplan for the Bills taking away Waddle and Hill, but he didn't IMO. Tua still looked to them for first and second reads and then had to shift to underneath and outside and with Leakin' Eichenberg at Center, he just didn't have time. Plus, the Bills Lbs were PREPARED for those passes.

A gameplan that focused on passing to the TEs, RBs, and outside passing would have forced the Bills to shift out of the middle coverage shells IMO. Use Waddle and Hill as decoys initially; to DICTATE coverage to the Bills.

Instead of thinking Tua was going to be able to get rid of the ball in less than 2 seconds over the middle and downfield, focus on getting the ball outside and underneath in less than 2 seconds.

The Bills have speed on their D though, so even that might not have worked.

The Bills made the adjustments and the Phins didn't. Plus, I think the Bills are a better team, so...

finfanatic wrote:I totally agree with Umix: When teams take away the middle routes, or inside, where Tua gets most of his yards, the wheels come off the offense IMO.

I was expecting McD to gameplan for the Bills taking away Waddle and Hill, but he didn't IMO. Tua still looked to them for first and second reads and then had to shift to underneath and outside and with Leakin' Eichenberg at Center, he just didn't have time. Plus, the Bills Lbs were PREPARED for those passes.

A gameplan that focused on passing to the TEs, RBs, and outside passing would have forced the Bills to shift out of the middle coverage shells IMO. Use Waddle and Hill as decoys initially; to DICTATE coverage to the Bills.

Instead of thinking Tua was going to be able to get rid of the ball in less than 2 seconds over the middle and downfield, focus on getting the ball outside and underneath in less than 2 seconds.

The Bills have speed on their D though, so even that might not have worked.

The Bills made the adjustments and the Phins didn't. Plus, I think the Bills are a better team, so...

Good post, FF.

I agree. It is not that Tua can't go through progressions - he absolutely can. It's that he didn't have time to get through his initial reads. And yes - there should have been adjustments to make his primary reads passes outside the numbers, or underneath. And let's start using Julian Hill in the passing game!

But ultimately, the Bills were just the better team that day.

JMP wrote:It's that he didn't have time to get through his initial reads.

yes, the Bills gameplan was to disrupt Tua's quick read rhythm with press at the line and safety coverage shells.

Prior to this past game, Tagovailoa had the fastest time to throw in the NFL at 2.34 seconds from snap to pass. This week, Tagovailoa had 45.7% of his attempts thrown more than 2.5 seconds after the ball was snapped. Tagovailoa had a passer rating of 81.3 on passes of more than 2.5 seconds compared to 96.9 on passes under 2.5 seconds.

https://sports.yahoo.com/dolphins-loss-to-bills-showed-them-what-the-next-evolution-of-their-offense-needs-to-be-235222569.html

its nothing new. it is exactly what the Patriots did 2 weeks prior. its just that the Pats couldn't do anything on offense so Miami didn't have to press and could rely on the run. but since Buffalo could move the ball and score at will, the Phins were forced into shootout out pass mode and the Phins' o-line didn't hold up. the two drive killing penalties (illegal formation and a TE J Hill false start) on the 3rd drive put the Miami offense behind the 8-ball and when the Dolphins tried to go to the run to get some momentum back on the 5th drive (2nd qtr) already down by 2 TDs, they were rewarded with a fumble from Mostert giving Buffalo another 3 points.

Miami's offense actually had 3 sustained drives of more than 60 yards in the 2nd half, but only scored 1 TD because of ill-timed penalties (Eich downfield that removed a TD and Hunt holding on Miami's last drive). so Miami's offense was no different against Buffalo than it was against NE, but for the turnovers and penalties that made the difference. in fact, without the Eich penalty, they would've outscored their output against the Pats.

so i don't believe Buffalo unlocked a special key to stop the Phins' offense (or Tua's ability to read and throw), the Dolphins just shot themselves in the foot with penalties, turnovers and o-line replacements (mostly Eich) that failed.

the difference in the 2 games was that Buffalo is a much better offense than the Pats and Miami's D (especially lack of pass rush) wasn't up to the task.

mercury22nathan wrote:Miami's offense actually had 3 sustained drives of more than 60 yards in the 2nd half, but only scored 1 TD because of ill-timed penalties (Eich downfield that removed a TD and Hunt holding on Miami's last drive).  so Miami's offense was no different against Buffalo than it was against NE, but for the turnovers and penalties that made the difference.  in fact, without the Eich penalty, they would've outscored their output against the Pats.

so i don't believe Buffalo unlocked a special key to stop the Phins' offense (or Tua's ability to read and throw), the Dolphins just shot themselves in the foot with penalties, turnovers and o-line replacements (mostly Eich) that failed.

And yet again Merc is almost scarily dead on   Fins VS Pats: 3 TDs, 389 yards, 244 passing 145 rushing. Fins VS Bills: 3 TDs, 393 yards, 251 passing 142 rushing. Couldn't get any more similar against two different opponents if they tried.

the difference in the 2 games was that Buffalo is a much better offense than the Pats and Miami's D (especially lack of pass rush) wasn't up to the task.

The Bills being a far more complete team was my biggest fear going in, but again based on the 3 games last season I really did believe McDaniel would have them ready to at least compete. Reminds me of the Fins-49ers Super Bowl where even as an 11-year old homer I knew deep down inside the 49ers were just better going in. In retrospect it was pretty silly of me to actually expect that D to stop the likes of Montana and Roger Craig with Jay Brophy and Mark Brown (who at that time was such a JAG I didn't even realize he was even a starter on that team)

One thing to consider: we actually had an experienced backup center on the roster this offseason, and traded him for nothing. Not sure if Dan Feeney would have made a difference Sunday, but it kinda makes me wonder what would have happened with Feeney on the line instead of Eich.