Dolphins game thoughts

[barrett]

Great win today. Great overall defensive performance. I wonder when a QB last had less than %50 completion against us.

Demeco Ryans was probably worse this week than last week. He whiffed on a number of tackles (including Bush and Henne dead to rights in the backfield on separate plays), and he got washed out of plays numerous other times. This is the biggest single hole on our defense right now. I really hope he plays better.

Cushing was solid again and is also one of our better pass rushers when they send him.

Barwin was much better. Not sure what was different, but he got more edge pressure today. Reed played some but I did not notice him either way. Braman had a good special teams play. And Mario can simply be pointed at the QB and told to run in that direction really hard and fast and it works. The guy is like a defensive forest gump. But he has an impact which is what matters.

The DEs were solid again. Miami obviously saw Smith getting upfield on tape because they took advantage of it on a lot of draw plays. But he was a great interior pass rusher again getting lots of pocket push. Watt is a stud and makes plays in every different area of the game.

Quinn looked like a pro bowl guy out there. Solid in the passing game, and an amazing job tackling. Manning was solid as well. Joseph was very good, not lock-down good, but good enough to be the best CB on a plus defense. Allen was terrible. Jackson looked good in moments but has a lot of Reeves in him (in place but never making a play).

The OL struggled in the redzone and that got the whole offense bogged down. No push up front in the first half drives that stalled. We also had to drop back more since the bootleg/running game was not as sharp. Not suprisingly we struggled more in pass protection than we have in a while.

JJ was good and so was Johnston. Anderson got in for a handful of plays but had little impact. AJ was AJ.

Tate was really good. Not quite Foster good, but there are about 2 dozen teams that would love to have him as a starter. Foster hopefully is improving not getting worse. Casey seemed to have trouble finding a man to block on a few plays, like the goalline play Dansby blew up.

Schaub was very good. There was not always a ton there, but he was very good and very smart in a game we had to screw up in to lose.

Great win and 2-0. And I still feel like our best football is in front of us.