Following Sunday’s loss by our Miami Dolphins to the Cincinnati Bengals, I asked the following question:
What are your overall takeaways from this afternoon’s fourth game of the season between our Miami Dolphins and the Cincinnati Bengals?
What are the positive and negative takeaways from this afternoon’s game, as they apply to the team overall and to individual units or players?Below are some of your answers and thoughts on the game-
Finsane1 is ready to see what a backup QB has.
McCord Pleeeeez FinsUp!!!
jmworacle says this is going to take a big given Grier and all of his missteps. Also, trade down from that #1 overall if we get it.
Thanks to Chris Grier’s incompetence it’s going to take a few more years to clean up. If the ‘Fins get the number one overall pick my advice would be to trade down.
StanleyDoyle1 has some short-term issues and one big long-term issue at QB.
The short-term issues are obvious and not a problem for someone like me who picked them to finish 2-15.
- Youth & inexperience.
- Lack of talent at certain positions (QB, Edge, WR, maybe DT)
- I’m encouraged by the OL. Go out and sign the top RT in free agency, draft a G, and you’re set.
- A few rookie stars in the making at LB and maybe WR with Bell.
But long-term, the issue is the management and coaches:
- Picking Willis has proven to be a major error in judgment. He’s not the answer, he’s not even enough to form the question. But they picked him, and invested a ton of cap-space in a guy who would fight to be a number 2 on another team. They went with the safe and familiar, and it has blown up as a disaster. What does this tell you about their ability to identify and build talent?
Draybch77 would like to talk to the person responsible.
Who payed Malik to slide when he broke free for what could only be described as a possible touchdown?
Phoenix6 wants to know if anyone knows where the big guy is.
Did Kenneth Grant even play? Haven’t heard his name in any post or comment…
Zen4Phins says there are positives and negative but that we could still run over the division.
Positives: Rookies played well again today. Sounds like I’m making excuses but Burrow (with limited pressure), Chase and Higgens are a tough ask overall for this defense and they contained those 2 for the most part. 1td 99yds, 8 rec, 14 tgts and 1 was for 45 to Chase. Ollie was awesome again. Scored 24 pts and rushed over 200yds. Oline has been healthy in the early part of the season finally.
Negatives: Rough day, in the rear view, for Willis. I gotta believe he’ll see it, work hard to fix it, and succeed. Not a qb on our roster all year so far that would fair much better in my opinion. Take the underneath all day if he sees or wants it and we move smoothly. Special teams opening kickoff coverage teleported us to the griddy dance early. 3rd down and redzone defense struggled and Burrow looked comfortable.
Some time off and a chance to go undefeated in Division play!
MiamiItaliano is out on Willis but hey, well still have that rodriguez kid.
Negatives: Malik Willis is definitely not the guy. Probably gets benched after another poor performance against the Jets. Then they have to keep the guy on the books next year because his dead cap hit is $39.3 million. They still have Tua’s dead cap hit at $31.8 million next year lol. Also, J-Rod is not good at coverages yet. Burrow threw around him like he was a kid at recess. And the offense tried to pad stats in garbage time, barf.
Positives: J-Rod did have 11 tackles.
I Hate Sports, is, I think, trying to tell us something about the starting QB.
biggest issues during today’s game
- Willis Interception
- Willis Interception
- Willis Fumble
- Willis Accuracy/Timing
- Willis Decision Making
gertdoggy sees the road to the Super Bowl getting that much more difficult.
Well we probably lost the first round bye in the playoffs with this loss.
FinsUp88 sees a qb that needs to get back to what he showed last season in a limited sample.
Overall, I continue to love the effort and fight this young team continues to show and build upon. I thought our secondary fought hard and faired very well against top tier wideouts today, liked seeing that. The defense continues to improve and communicate better, the stops will come eventually, they seem to be building the D the right way.
Willis is killing the offense. He is pushing on nearly every pass play, when I am sure the coaching staff had continued stressing taking what the defense gives you. He has opportunities to use his legs and seems so reluctant to (this is what I was most excited about with him, using his legs to extend plays and drives). He is passing in available options continuously for the big shot and is killing drives and momentum, while keeping our defense the field for too long. I understand the talent in our skill positions isn’t elite and separation is limited, but he needs to take the open play when it’s there and use his legs to keep the defense honest when nothing is there.
If Willis can even touch what he looked like last year in GB, we should be close enough for a win here soon, this team fights too hard to not get it done soon.
Well another disapointing outing for at least some of the team with many of you sounding like you are over the whole Malik Willis experiment. I suspect that we will be looking at that experiment for the rest of the season barring an injury. Luckily many of the rookies continue to look good and show growth from game to game which should give us all some hope going forward, beyond this current season. As always thank you to each of you who took the time to join in on our Phinsider Question Of The Day.
