Say it with me: Jeremiah Smith, Jeremiah Smith, Jeremiah Smith OR trade down! That’s it!
Say it with me: The Saints actually covered TJ Hockenson and when they tackled him, he got hurt. He didn’t catch all 15 targets thrown to him this week! What a concept!
Ok, there was a game on Sunday. I watched it. You watched it. I saw a game that should have been played in the preseason. I am thinking of buying a “Wheel of Disfortune” to spin and see what pathetic mistake the Miami Dolphins will make. Spin one:
Oooh, an 81-yard opening kickoff return***. Spin two: Generate zero pass rush and let the rookie “J.R. Badass” take the blame for not blanking Bengals tight end Mike Giesecki when the quarterback had 5.9 seconds to throw (not his fault). Spin three: Have Chop “Chump” Robinson imitate the “Invisible Man.” Spin four: Have Malik complete more passes to the other team than to his team. Spin five: “Raise the white flag!”
That said, the Phins did not quit; at least some of them didn’t. Some of them are simply outclassed and no amount of coaching will fix their individual flaws. Don Shula went to a Super Bowl with David Woodley at QB and some very fine players (looking at you with love Don McNeal and Jimmy Cefalo). That is coaching. I will repeat myself from another column: Don Shula took a run-dominated offense to the Super Bowl and within 3 years took a pass-dominated offense to the Super Bowl.
The best metaphor for this team is Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde. One play Ollie Gordon runs for 12 and then the next play Malik runs for his life (takes off too soon IMHO) and then…he throws God-awful INTs like Doug Williams’ Tampa Bay INTs. For those of you too young to have experienced it, Doug Williams was a gigantic QB with an absolute CANNON (maybe one of the strongest arms in NFL QB history) but he struggled to throws medium to short routes. These tendencies created a plethora of Doug Williams bad QB jokes. Yes, this man went on to win the Super Bowl about seven years later (after a stint in the USFL). I will tell you a cool story about that on another article. I don’t think OC Bobby Slowik understands the concept of a rhythmic flowing offense. In the one preseason game that Malik played in, he threw some beautiful timing patterns to the TE et al and I was impressed. It was flowing like Pompeii. This has not happened during the real season. Mark Schlereth (who is doing a great job on the color analysis – IMHO) pointed out numerous plays where didn’t see or didn’t throw the check down. Why? Taking the check downs augments the flow! I saw the news today that Hafley says Malik has to be better, I say you must save Malik from himself. Some QBs cannot be allowed to think: this was true of Vinny Testaverde. Jimmy Johnson allowed him to throw 5 INTs in the national championship game against Penn State. One of JJ’s many, many, many game coaching blunders. In another column, I pointed out that the deep shots can help the running game but we have to hit them. Back to Slowik’s ineptness: Chris Bell. This rookie is special but we target him once or twice? Hello! We did a reverse with Chris Bell and BANG! It worked! Maybe some of Chump’s invisibility powder rubbed off on Chris. Maybe Malik could literally not SEE Chris Bell. I did notice the Bengals paying attention to Chop on some plays but he simply doesn’t have the elite pass-rushing skills like Jason Taylor or Superman-like strength like Cameron Wake (simply wow to the 7th power for that man!) to create his own “get-throughs.”
Props to the Bengals: they knew what they had to do to win. Short passes, precise passes and one of my mantras that I heard from someone (can’t remember who) ……”on-time on-target.” Schlereth astutely pointed out “there is no defense for the perfect pass.” Burrow (on virtually any other organization) would be in the “On the way to Canton talk” already in his career. He is THAT dude! The Bengals are the Jets of the AFC central and we are rapidly taking the Jets place as the laughing stock of the AFC East. Let that sink in. I was in attendance at the last Phins playoff win in Joe Robbie Stadium. Methinks Burrow will end up like Marino, taking a team to the Super Bowl (that game was FIXED from the kickoff for the Rams) and losing and then never going again.
I thought Burrow was a terrible QB his first year at LSU(after transferring from Ohio State) and then something changed in him. And boy did it change. The year BEFORE he won the natty and the Heisman, he was in a bowl game against UCF when one of their players cheap shotted him in his face. I thought he was permanently crippled at the time but not only was he not crippled, he came back in the game and surgically dissected UCF. Again, simply wow. Anyone can win when things are going their way but what impresses me in getting hit in the face and then getting back up like Neo did against Agent Smith! I hope something could transmogrify (Calvin & Hobbes anyone?) Malik into Super-Malik!!!!
*** I knew we would lose after the opening kickoff because of this weird fact (I didn’t AI check it because “I am a tad lazy and if AI checks everything for me, me pea-brain will atrophy”): The team scoring on the opening kickoff return loses a lot. Just like in baseball, if the leadoff hitter homers in the first inning, his team loses. Probably a Russian wives’ tale. But I am not Russian. :
In 1974, the Phins lost to the gosh darned Raiders (the Ken Stabler days). The opening kickoff Nat Moore (rookie season from the Gators, methinks) took the opening kickoff to the house. We lost. I was ten and at Disney World, serenated by Rock Hudson, who sang from Cinderella’s castle. When we arrived home, my dad told me we lost. I cried. I cried even more when I saw the play in the photo.
In the 2007 season, the national championship and Super Bowl games both started with a kick return touchdown. Ted Ginn and Jacob Hester. Ohio State and the Chicago Bears both lost. Ouch.
Sunday, the Bengals didn’t score on the KO return but their offense finished the job. The football Gods didn’t strike down the Bengals for almost scoring.
We have to appease the football Gods and upgrade our NFL Shingle before we can even think of winning!
