What do we look for on Sunday? Patterns. I am trying not to remember when the Baltimore Ravens scored numerous touchdowns against the Miami Dolphins during the first Brian Flores’ game against the Ravens. Remember what happened the next time we played the Ravens? Coach Flores saw the pattern of their offense and devised a weapon to stop it. Blitzkrieg city! We pushed the Ravens around that night. What patterns will we see on Sunday afternoon? And will we learn from them? Will there be Raiders running
wild through the Fins secondary? Will Mr. Jeanty be hopping through numerous holes? Can our big Jonah re-energize himself and push the Raiders d-line around? This is start of the search for a new set of patterns.
This leads me to three simultaneous processes that will occur during the game. Forgive me for the analogy that I must spring on you now. Please. These processes will be like the rivers at the Three Rivers Stadium where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers merge to form the Ohio river. Again, forgive me for even mentioning the Steelers (one day I will share my list of teams that I hate but now now).
To complete the analogy: River one is coaching, River two is the player talent and the Ohio River is the Miami Dolphins as we see them right now. If one of the two source rivers recede then obviously the final product falls. We must have BOTH! This phenomenon is exactly what happened to Don Shula. I won’t go through the excruciating details of the fall of the greatest football franchise EVER. IMHO! If I dwell on it, I will get myself down. Hope and memories keep me going. The 17-0 season!!!! Andra Franklin and A.J. Duhe beating the hideous Jets and Richard Todd in the Southern Orange Bowl Swamp to go to the Super Bowl! In addition, I remember the pure excitement of Marino and the Marks Brothers. Sheer greatness! If you are too young to have seen it, I am sorry. To see the juggernaut Chicago Bears come into the Orange Bowl only to be destroyed on a Monday Night was the stuff of fairy tales. Many of you know the Monday night loss of the Bears was their only loss of the entire season as they would not lose again on their way to winning the Super Bowl. I will discuss that season ending pain (the suckiest January ever) at a different time as we progress. Enough looking back…for now.
The question at hand is what on-field talent and coaching ultimately need to be improved. Some of you know intuitively that American football is the greatest game ever, not counting Yahtzee. Ha. Did you know Yahtzee was a game created by a woman on a…….yell it out….YACHT! When I learned that last year, I kicked myself…hard. What makes football the best sport ever is that we can grab the ball with our hands without a group of little guys pointing to their hands (Mommie, mommie he touched one square picometer of the ball…please give me a free goal) and there are 22 MEN on the field all at once and they make it look easy (usually) and those men crash into each other with full force (yes it’s brutal). I marvel at the team sport aspect: I truly think if you took last year’s SB Champ Seattle and had them play the best players hand-picked from each of the 31 other teams and gave that team only 2 weeks to prepare, Seattle would beat them handily. IMHO. I will explore this phenomenon more closely during the season.
Back to the Fins, we cut loose Tyrel Dodson for the prospect of Jacob Rodriguez and cap room. Jacob will be a damned good player. Remember the last time we started a rookie Texas Tech linebacker, HOFer Zach Thomas? I was not sold on him because he was making “routine” inside linebacker plays during preseason. The NFL unemployment line is LITTERED with hundreds of LBs who could read runs and flow to the ball. That skill is common amongst that group of men. However, I was at Joe Robbie Stadium (I will always call it that) at Jimmy Johnson’s first game against the Patriots. The NE staff must have been thinking what I was thinking “He is a common linebacker making common plays, let’s run a reverse and expose him.” Shawn Jefferson was sacrificed to the football gods on the play and Zach Thomas sent him “Woozyheadville.” Zach was like a sidewinder missile with target lock when he knocked out Jefferson. I literally screamed in ecstasy just like I did when Bryan Cox (not the ORIGINAL Lecktor ) sent that jackass running back Harvey Thomas to “Woozyheadville” while he was with the Chiefs.
So the Fins are putting “future permanent pieces” out for a trial by fire in real games. Jacob Rodriguez will make mistakes, all of our awesome rookies will. The “mistakes” that we can’t live with are not hustling, not learning the basics, not growing. We can live with mistakes from a future pro bowl linebacker who happens to play next to a current Pro Bowler, Jordyn Brooks. He will learn quickly and he will see the patterns of offense that we all have seen. If you recall, the year the Patriots went 17-0, they played the NY Giants and beat them 38-35, I do believe. After the Giants beat the Patriots like 4-5 weeks later in the Super Bowl, they said playing the Patriots in the regular season gave us a HUGE advantage for the Super Bowl. The Giants saw the patterns of what the Patriots did. Seeing the patterns and stopping the patterns are two different things but that Giants team had the right talent and coaching to beat one of the greatest teams of all time (yeah, right). The challenge for GM Sullivan and Coach Hafley is to put the best mix of players and coaches so that they can recognize patterns and defeat them. Go Fins!
