Meet the Dolphins' new OL...same as the old OL???

Michael Bennett will spend so Much time with Tanny that he will easily get defensive player of the week honors after his 5 sack effort in Week One.

white1 wrote:I'm sick to my stomach thinking this is Foerster's coaching skills coming home to roost.

Remember when we brought him on? Somebody said his lines have been terrible throughout his career.  We needed an offensive line coach the OPPOSITE of "Terribad" to fix this line.

I'm hoping this is Gase's first coaching fire.  And I hope it's midseason this year.  Foerster sucks.

Right now we have the same starting OL as last season, and so far it looks even worse.  So yeah, it sure doesn't look like Foerster has any answers.  His track record doesn't leave much room for hope.

finskev wrote:Michael Bennett will spend so Much time with Tanny that he will easily get defensive player of the week honors after his 5 sack effort in Week One.

Ugh.  That game could get ugly real fast.  That 's less than 25 days from now...not sure how much better the OL can get in that short time, especially if the coaches keep shifting players around.

Well far be it for me to say but like I said 4 first round picks and 3 pro bowlers and the line still sux? Somebody help me with the math!!!!!

Tunsil began today's practice as the starting LG - finally!  Hope that means the coaches have finally seen the light about Thomas...

If Thomas is in fact demoted (finally), I wonder if he'll call Gase a meanie on social media?

Sorry, couldn't resist

Yeah, if this move is final did not take long. He got most (if not all) 1st team snaps today, and was praised for pass protection on Tannehill TD during 11 on 11 drill.

white1 wrote:Yeah, if this move is final did not take long.  He got most (if not all) 1st team snaps today, and was praised for pass protection on Tannehill TD during 11 on 11 drill.

The tweets I'm seeing say the O-line in general got manhandled, mauled and massacred again. So if Tunsil actually got praise it should mean he's finally the starter for good.

One down, one to go hopefully. Now give Bushrod the other starting guard spot and stop this silliness with Turner. Turner and Thomas have no business being in the NFL period, let alone starters.

True, hard to follow. I gleaned that the 2 - 2 and 3 - 3 drills were owned by defense, but OL came back to play well in 11 vs 11.

In any case, clearly we are all starving to see Thomas demoted, looking for any glimpse of Tunsil winning the job. This may be it. Or it may not be.

Let's see who starts vs Dallas on Friday, and how the starters play.

Oh SHIT.

Armando just tweeted that Bushrod vs Suh "is a great battle".

If that's truly the case, we have our RG. Not many players in the league will be harder to block than Suh. Especially for a G.

Plug them in and let's go. Albert - Tunsil - Pouncey - Bushrod - James.

white1 wrote:Oh SHIT.

Armando just tweeted that Bushrod vs Suh "is a great battle".  

If that's truly the case, we have our RG.  Not many players in the league will be harder to block than Suh.  Especially for a G.

Plug them in and let's go.  Albert - Tunsil - Pouncey - Bushrod - James.

That's how it should've been literally from day one. But no, Gase had to yammer on about people "earning their spot" and how the past doesn't matter

Common sense alone would say that if you're a coach taking over a 6-10 team with the two worst starting guards in the league, and you draft/sign other guys to play guard, you at least start the holdovers as backups and make THEM "earn" a starting job. I'm assuming Gase watched some tape from last season (if he didn't he's even more short-sighted than I think). But this new breed of coaches engage in far too much intellectual dick-waving, where they feel like they have to make every player on the team learn multiple positions to feel like some sort of innovator, or something. The worst thing you can do to a football player is make him think. These guys don't go through all the physical stuff they do to think. Stop trying to make them engineers or tax accountants or attorneys and let the best players play.

I'm hearing talk that James has struggled and could be in trouble at RT.  Turner has gotten a lot of reps there, and he is a natural tackle.  That may turn into an interesting battle if Bushrod gets the RG job.

I totally agree with 316's take on Gase and the newer breed of coaches.  It's all over-thinking and trying too hard.  They rely on everything but the fundamentals of football, which basically amount to "beat the guy in front of you".  It shouldn't be rocket science - no need to make it more difficult than it actually is.

A fair critique but there is an advantage to the approach Gase executed.

He came in adamant to run a "meritocracy". Meaning, the best players play, regardless of draft status or past history.

By choosing to keep Tunsil on the 2nd team at LG, and rotating him between LT and LG, Gase proved he was going to execute the "meritocracy" exactly as he described it. Then he ran 6 plays against the Giants, letting the team see Dallas Thomas on tape getting manhandled once again.

So, are there any grumbling veterans now that Tunsil is on the way to winning the job? Can anyone gripe that Dallas Thomas did not get his fair shot? Hell no! No grounds for any complaint. The competition and result are plain as day for anyone to see.

That's how you run a team. Make it obvious through results who should start and who shouldn't. History DOES NOT matter, and we just saw in this case that you don't need it anyways. Nothing is plainer to see than present performance on game tape. All it took was one game.

Interesting on James.

Yeah, that whole merit thing cuts both ways. The fact James was a cemented starter won't amount to a hill of beans if we have someone better to take his spot. I have no doubt if he doesn't clean up his game he's in trouble of getting a big demotion.

All this talk about Gase is boring. I understand that he's trying to make his bones and all that shit but the bottom line is you are not changing shit! Game film on Thomas and Turner is still the same as last years were they about to be breakout pro bowlers this year? I don't get it!

I get it you want these players to self discover but the reality is Tannebaum brought you players and if he is gonna have a say he will insist that you play them!

white1 wrote:Interesting on James.  

Yeah, that whole merit thing cuts both ways.  The fact James was a cemented starter won't amount to a hill of beans if we have someone better to take his spot.  I have no doubt if he doesn't clean up his game he's in trouble of getting a big demotion.

From what I saw the other night it's Albert who might need replacing. Every player, no matter how good, reaches a point where he goes downhill overnight and IMO Albert's reached it.

I'll give Albert the benefit of the doubt because he at least has a great track record (when healthy).  He's been a top tackle...unlike James, who was overrated from day one and appears to be declining fast.

Plus, with Tunsil on the team Albert is just living on borrowed time in Miami.  He'll be replaced the second he gets injured...which will likely be sooner than later!

Umix10 wrote:All this talk about Gase is boring.  I understand that he's trying to make his bones and all that shit but the bottom line is you are not changing shit!  Game film on Thomas and Turner is still the same as last years were they about to be breakout pro bowlers this year?  I don't get it!

I get it you want these players to self discover but the reality is Tannebaum brought you players and if he is gonna have a say he will insist that you play them!

There's a right way and a wrong way to do it. You don't go into camp with the worst players on a bad team anointed as starters and declare that the people brought in specifically to upgrade their position need to "earn" it. That's just Gase trying to prove he's "in charge". Like most first time head coaches Gase needs to learn it's not about him, it's about making the team better PERIOD.

Now as much as I bash JJ, he did it the right way when he brought in Jack Del Rio, and wound up cutting him for some rookie named Zach Thomas, because Thomas was just plain better. If this same situation had happened under Philbin/Gase, Zach's behind would've been glued to the bench and he'd have been gone in 3 years without us ever knowing what he could do. That's REAL meritocracy in action. That's how "earning your spot" and the past not mattering benefits a team, instead of just a coach's ego.

I also think part of it is some sort of odd backlash against millenials for being handed everything in life. And they have. And it's absurd. But this is not the time or place to suddenly put one's foot down and declare they have to start "earning" things. Especially when other millenials are involved.

(BTW I also have an issue with Lynch being relegated to third string behind some jamoke named Trevor Simian who I never heard of until 2 weeks ago on a team with Mark Freaking Sanchez as the de facto starter, and I think that's happening for the exact same reasons.)

DolFan 316 wrote:There's a right way and a wrong way to do it. You don't go into camp with the worst players on a bad team anointed as starters and declare that the people brought in specifically to upgrade their position need to "earn" it. That's just Gase trying to prove he's "in charge". Like most first time head coaches Gase needs to learn it's not about him, it's about making the team better PERIOD.

Exactly.  You don't have to be a genius to know that Thomas and Turner were, by far, the worst starting guards in the NFL last season.  They CERTAINLY didn't earn starting jobs entering this offseason.  The only thing they earned was a demotion.

Who does Gase think he's kidding?  Everyone in the world knew that Tunsil was going to be the day one starting LG, so why play games?  The sooner Tunsil lines up with the starters on a full-time basis, the better for the team.   So much wasted time this offseason, and for what?  To somehow make the whiny veteran players on the team feel better about demoting a crap player that doesn't even belong in the NFL???  Fuck that.  You want to earn respect as a first-year head coach?  Then do the right thing right out of the gates, and start your #1 pick from day one.  Dallas Thomas didn't earn shit, so why should Tunsil - who is supposed to be a future cornerstone piece of this team - have to spend months as his backup?

I have no problem with Gase and the others coaches having Thomas and Turner as the starters for Preseason game 1.

Come the regular season and they are still in there, then, I may start to wonder what sort of hash the coaching staff is smoking...same as the last bunch'a tards.

There is always roster churn going on in training camp on bad teams, because (some) of the starters stink and they are getting pushed by competition.

If Bushrod and Tunsil cannot unseat Dallas Thomas and Billy Turner...THEN we may have a problem.

I just hope they pick the starters on the Oline and let them work together without the constant tinkering and micro-managing that Sparano did.

And I hope Thomas is not starting. The FACT I had to state that is a very sad testament to the state of the Phins.

Egad! But he stinks.

I've never seen a lineman with such a poor sense of balance and leverage as Thomas displays - NEVER.  He looks like he's playing on skates.  He plays with zero technique and zero strength...hard to comprehend how a guy this bad could keep his job for so long, even with coaching changes.

There's hardly any practice time anymore, so having Thomas as the starter did nothing but waste valuable time that could have been spent developing Tunsil and getting him comfortable playing next to Albert and Pouncey.

Starting Turner I can at least understand, because we literally had no other options at RG.  Bushrod was hurt for the first half of the offseason, and he's never played on the right side, or at guard, in his life.  I thought Urbik would step into the RG position, but it appears that the Phins want him to be the backup center because Jamil Douglas sucks and will likely get cut.  Anyway, now that Bushrod is healthy he should be able to supplant Turner...and I don't even like Bushrod.  What a mess!

If there's one thing this whole "start Thomas over Tunsil because I'm in charge now!" business has accomplished, it's getting me more fired up to post than I ever thought I'd be again. Can you tell?

I'm pretty good with offensive line theory, but I need someone's opinion like Merc, or really any of you all. I have seen no appreciable improvement in Thomas's technique, at all. Has anyone? What is this bullshit we have been fed about this guy?

Degarmo wrote:I'm pretty good with offensive line theory, but I need someone's opinion like Merc, or really any of you all.  I have seen no appreciable improvement in Thomas's technique, at all.  Has anyone?  What is this bullshit we have been fed about this guy?

I haven't seen any improvement either. When I saw him getting pushed backward on every down in last week's game, his getting-my-ass-handed-to-me technique looked exactly the same as it did last year. Apparently, all that weight training he did this offseason didn't help him one bit.

I haven't seen any improvement either. When I saw him getting pushed backward on every down in last week's game, his getting-my-ass-handed-to-me technique looked exactly the same as it did last year. Apparently, all that weight training he did this offseason didn't help him one bit.
.

Yeah. Not really knowing technique and training myself, but from reading enough content on the topic over the years my totally uneducated opinion is this. It's all about leverage. Pad level, balance, footwork and hand placement. Speed too - I've read coaches talk about linemen "getting their hands on a guy quickly". Makes sense - first with hands on can start the work on balance and placement to out leverage the opponent. If you can get them off their center of gravity, you have the advantage early.

Thomas could be as strong and big as an ox, what with all the NFL caliber weight training resources at his disposal. If he doesn't have balance and the right footwork it doesn't matter. The guy in front of him has already won, already pushing him on his heels, negating all that size and strength.

Just my two cents, and again a totally uneducated opinion.

The more I think about it, the more I believe the real problem is that Dallas Thomas is just too darned nice for the NFL. These days, it seems like you pretty much have to be a world-class jerkass to play football. It's not like the old days, when guys knew how to limit their nastiness to the field. IMO he can't really bring himself to do harm to another human being and there's no way he'll ever be able to do this football thing any better than he has unless that changes. And personally, I'd rather have him just retire than change. The world could use more nice guys, just not playing football for my team. It's astonishing that Thomas made it this far. There's clearly something about him that makes coaches like him. I'm guessing they see the niceness and just can't bring themselves to say no to him. Think about it--Gase doesn't seem to be going out of his way to accommodate anyone else's feelings to this extent.