It may have took a couple days, but finally I was able to watch the Dolphins-Bengals game again, and came away impressed with the improvements this team has made since the start of the season.
For one, Chad Henne is doing much better in not forcing his throws. Unfortunately he did make one mistake which was throwing a ball to his receiver who was in triple coverage. The ball got picked off, but this was Henne's only mistake. What impressed me even more was the fact that Henne's big target, Brandon Marshall was getting double and triple teamed most of the game, and instead of forcing his throws like he did much throughout the first couple of games, he either checked down to his running backs, or threw out of bounds when his other receivers were covered.
The offense seems to be rolling the best when we can get the correct blend of running plays and quick timing routes going. Most of the time we either blow a decent drive with a Wildcat play, or an incomplete pass, or just poor running period. Now it seems that we are able to find ourselves deeper in our opponents territory, but just somehow still only coming away with field goals.
To me that is one of our biggest problems, and it correlates with the rushing woes. It seems that our offensive line has taken a big dropoff from last year, and I'm not sure how many times I can say that because the problem keeps arising.
It's not our running backs fault, the responsibility completely relies on our interior offensive line. Whether it's our below average center in Joe Berger, or the revolving door that is our right guard position, we just cannot seem to get any chemistry at all with this group, and an upgrade is needed in the off-season.
Davone Bess got the start over Brian Hartline, and made the most of it, catching 7 of the 9 balls that were thrown his way. I like Bess in the slot more, but I think Bess deserves to get the start more than Hartline at this point.
I was disappointed with the pass rush that we got on Carson Palmer. Cameron Wake only had two quarterback pressures while the Dolphins failed to register a sack against the Bengals. This was surprising as Cincinnati has one of the most mediocre lines in the NFL.
The transition from Jason Allen to Sean Smith has begun. After getting torched for a touchdown and more by Terrell Owens early on, Allen was switched with Smith not long after the touchdown, and Smith was described by Owens as the "difference maker" in the game. Smith seems to be gaining more and more confidence in his play and should be the starter come Sunday. He also garnered his first career interception on Sunday.
Overall I was pleased with the Dolphins performance on Sunday. While they settle for way too many field goals, that just comes down to the team not knowing what to do in the red-zone. The team's bread and butter formation in the red-zone was the two-tight end formation, and now that we are unable to run plays out of that, Henning has nowhere to go with Marshall being covered, and it being a shorter field, and no extra blockers to stay in and block for the backs. This is something the team will have to figure out if they wish to get themselves back into the playoff race. They simply cannot win games kicking five field goals.
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