Overnight Thoughts - Week 1 Dolphins
 

Colts dominate, break the Week-1 curse... And the site goes down on gameday.

First off, Dolphins don't look good. That said, like Omaha mentioned, I saw like 80% or more picking against us. Tua/Waddle/Hill were going to be too much and their DL was so stacked it would make up for the back end. Never as good as you look when you win, never as bad you look when you lose, of course. But that was a fucking beautiful game top-to-bottom.


-Obviously Jones. You should appreciate the subtle, but significant difference of completing an easy 5-7 yard out route vs. rocketing the ball into the stands or into the dirt.

Instead of a 3-and-out, momentum shift, defense getting tired... we have sustained drives of 9-plays, 14-plays, 17-plays, 15-plays... 7/8/9-minute drives that are just demoralizing and exhausting for a defense. Nice to be on the good end of a 39-21 TOP. But he also pushed it downfield. Throws to Pittman, Pierce, and Warren were really nice to see.

-OL was great for the most part. My concern going in was Goncalves recognizing handoffs and stunts in pass pro and he was solid. Steichen also mentioned that DJ checked into proper protections several times pre-snap, which is great.

-Run game looks more inefficient on the stat sheet than it actually was. After a big lead, they went into Parcells clock mode. JT barely played the 2nd half, looked good, earned the rest. Giddens had some good runs, too.

-Warren had probably the most un-rookie first drive I've ever seen. That was fucking great. And the vision on that one leak route (I think) to spin upfield and avoid those two defenders that were going to crack him... good stuff.

-Pittman was also very good. Stumbled on that wheel route, I thought it would be out of reach, but he snagged it. Never get tired of watching him fight.

-Defense reminded me of watching Flacco vs. the Vikings last year. It's like, how do you get a read on this? How many times did Tua pump fake because he realized last second, "oh, that's not what I thought"? Refereshing and exciting.

-DB's getting sacks, Latu getting an INT epitomizes it.

-DL looked good. Curious how they do vs. the run in a tighter game. Paye made some great plays on the run. Buckner still lining up at DE occasionally and wrecking shit. He's fucking good. Stewart crushed Tua pretty good.

-DB's seemed to communicate well for the most part and it looks very uncomfortable for a QB.

-We'll see how next week how much of this was MIA being a trainwreck, how much was no film on either squad, and how much was Steichen and Anarumo calling great games.

A very solid performance against a team that is unlikely to do too much this season.

I was still concerned with some of the tackling, the Achane run right at the end was just like last year. The reserve DT's didn't look great when watching live.

I also thought the kickoff coverage units looked poor AGAIN, this is a continuing theme that was a struggle in this preseason and last year's regular season.

Other than the injury to Jaylon Jones, not too many things to nitpick about. An extremely encouraging first outing of the season.

Goncalves is a road grader out there, or at least he was yesterday.

Tyler Warren needs to protect himself a little more. He seems to take big hits. Great great looking player though. Really exciting.

I thing McDaniels will be the first coach fired. That team is REALLY bad.

I thought Jones had a couple shaky moments but was outstanding overall. His performance, the way he ran the offense makes it clear why Steichen went with him. AR has never had, and probably never will have, control of an offense like that. I’ll need to see more than one game though.

It’s SO refreshing to have an attacking defense.

I had to pinch myself a couple times to ensure I was not dreaming or that the red wine was doing some kind of voodoo on my eyes as it was 7pm in these parts and I was getting my "pre-flight" preps on! :D

What a wonderful change from what I was sadly expecting given all the know it all pundits and doomsayers.

Hope like hell this is not a one shot moment of glory and we sink back into the old "doormat" mode of mediocrity.

The wife and I were watching the game and I didn't even know how to act.

Any good team should beat the Dolphins. It just makes it even more stunning that we did so convincingly, in an almost businesslike way, like a good team should do.

The Titans lost, the Texans lost, we're only 2.5 underdog next week against the Broncos, and the Jaguars have a tough road test vs Cincinnati next week.

I cant complain about anything. JT was on pace for 140 yards, the new guy got some time and looked good. We had a DE drop into coverage and get a pick. We didn't punt, 7 for 15 on third down isn't horrible. 3-3 on 4th down.

We have two 10-7 teams in the next three weeks before the division game against the tacks.

I guess that could be the groundwork for a solid start. Not sure how I would act then either.

A lot of great individual performances. As noted, Miami looked awful though and had a number of bad unforced errors. So while extremely encouraging I’m going to temper my excitement on much of it for now. Hopefully they sustain it. The one area I’m not going to temper my excitement is the difference in the defensive calls. I doubt the results will often look as good as on Sunday, but I at least feel confident they won’t sit back and let bad QBs off the hook with constant predictable vanilla coverages and pressures.

One difference is that, between Duke and the pro’s, Jones has been in 107 games vs Richardson’s 30’something.

This is AR’s 3rd year in this offense. Versus Jones in his 3rd month. There’s no excuse for Jones outplaying him so badly.

The he’s so young and inexperienced argument doesn’t fly with me anymore.

I fully expect Jones to revert to form at some point. That doesn’t negate the fact that he’s better than AR. That’s more of an indictment of AR than it is of Jones.

Jones is just making the layups. AR was doing it in camp as well, but maybe sitting and learning behind a veteran will benefit him, and he'll have all season and all of next offseason to refine his mechanics.

I agree with all of the points made in the above posts. A few things to add though.

Tyler Warren will be OROY.
Enough w/the stupid Danny Nickels shit.
Zaire may not even have 100 tackles this season and that's okay.
I'm getting slightly closer to getting off of JT's ass...He blocked, he caught and he ran well.
A little disappointed in the 4-man pass rush. We need to get more pressure, when only rushing 4.
My god, Lou Anarumo is a breath of fresh air!

I don't like anything about the Phins play, including Tua.

For me, this. Jones is what AR should have had year one. The team played like a professional team and Jones was a big part of that. He is a nice, hard working middle of the pack QB who works his ass off. Easy to root for and perfect right now but most likely not going to take us to promised land. Starting to see something to root for, hopefully.

Harbaugh?

That would be great. Not going that far quite yet. It was the first total game on offense and defense I can remember the Colts playing in years. That alone was huge. For one game actually looking like a well coached team was very nice.

The Dolphins were horrible, so I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic. That said, I was NOT expecting the Colts to play like that yesterday. They looked like a completely different team from last year. Especially on defense. Daniel Jones surprised me, but he cannot take hits like that one he took early in the first quarter. He will get injured. It probably would have hospitalized AR. I'm really excited to watch Warren. I usually hold my expectations on kids fresh out of college, but he looks like he's going to be very good/great. We haven't had a TE of that caliber since Dallas Clark. Anyway, that's enough for now. I was elated during and after the game. And the losing streak is OVER. Glad the site is back up!

[QUOTE=Brylok;327148]TThey looked like a completely different team from last year. Especially on defense./QUOTE]

No more Gus Bradley!

[QUOTE=YDFL Commish;327151]To me, even if this proves to be fool's gold, the above is IT.

I have no idea how anyone inside the complex could justify that fucking dude being the DC last year. No fucking idea. Maybe the pics Ballard has are of him and Gus with the girls and Gus was holding out for some huge off the books severance???

Just seeing us do different things, attacking the receivers, pressing routes. Damn it was nice to see.

Denver did not look very good. Will be great to see if we can keep hot and not go flat while they try to bounce back. If so, I will feel a lot more confident that we are seeing the corner turn.

Agree with almost everything said on the thread. For the most part Jones looked great. I'm guessing we'll find out that Miami's D is really bad this year, which had a lot to do w/ our success. But it still shouldn't take away that this was a promising start. Obviously hope Jones keeps up the high level of play!!

Loved seeing our attacking D as well. Again, time will tell how much of that was our D and how much was how bad the Phins are.

Something that we haven't discussed is teams now how some film on our O w/ Jones and D under Anarumo. We'll have to see if that makes an impact and how well we can adjust to their adjustments.

Very true. I've always admired how Andy Reid use to add 1 or 2 new plays each week to surprise the opponent. Couple that with Mahome's uncanny split second ability to improvise and turn a bad play into a huge gain or even a TD. It was always difficult to prepare for the Chiefs because of that.

Let's hope the Colts continue to succeed and be unpredictable too.