It was rainy.

It was muddy

It was ugly.

But it was a win.

            Final Score:     Dolphins - 10         Buccaneers - 7 

Starting with last nights game, I have decided to add a new feature to the our site here.  If you haven't guessed by the title, we're going to call it "First Downs, Fumbles, and Further Review". Its pretty simple actually.

After each game, we'll go over some of the players, the calls, the rulings, and decide if they were good (First Down), bad (FUMBLE!!!), or in between (Further Review).  I'm hoping to get a lot of feedback from you, as you'll see things I don't, and more than likely, you won't agree with me 100% of the time (but i'm working on that).

So, without further Adieu....

First Downs

Paul Soliai was a MONSTER!!!!!!  Let me say that again.  M-O-N-S-T-E-R!!!!!  He forced a fumble, recovered a fumble, controlled the line, was in the QBs face all day, and man handled everyone.  WOW!  I was not expecting that.  I can’t say enough about his performance.

Nolan Carroll was also everything he has been advertised as so far.  The 5th round pick (Ginn Pick) was all over the secondary, he had a few pass deflections, and didn’t make a bad play all game.  Nolan also returned a kickoff for 27 yards.  Nolan has a lot of potential as a KR, as he’s got sub 4.4 speed.  Unless Ginn manages to void his trade somehow, Carroll is a lock for the 53 man roster.

Nate ‘Lock’ Ness also had an outstanding game.  Two forced fumbles, 4 tackles, and 2 pass deflections in the end zone.  You can’t ask for anything more than that.

Ronnie and Ricky looked great.  For some unknown reason, both played deep into the first half, despite the wet muddy conditions.  You’d think with Ronnie’s injury history we’d want to keep him away from as many land mines as possible, but luckily he walked away unscathed.

Patrick Turner showed up, and let us know that he isn’t giving up that #5 Wide Receiver position without a drag out fight.  His first reception was from Tyler Thigpen for a beautiful 34 yard gain.  He later added a second for another 10 yards.  He looked very good.

Marlon Moore, the guy bearing down on Patrick Turner, also turned in 2 catches for 44 yards, and he also had a beautiful 34 yard over the shoulder reception for Tyler Thigpen.  Moore and Turner are in a heavyweight fight for that #5 WR position.  Its doubtful anyone else is in this fight.

Tyler Thigpen got to show his stuff.  He played a full about 3 full quarters, and looked pretty good.  He finished 10 of 19, for 145 yards, including those two 34 yard strikes to Turner and Moore.  He didn’t commit and turnovers, and was responsible for driving the team down on both of their scoring drives.

Sean Smith continued his habit of getting interceptions in the preseason when he picked off Josh Johnson.  He has yet to record an INT in the regular season, but he looked like he’s picking up where he left off last year.  On Tampa’s lone Touchdown drive, Smith played a little too far off his opponent, and the result was a 13 yard TD pass.  Smith was playing way off, and he had safety help, so we’ll notch that as a mental error.

Fumbles!!!!

Ted Ginn Jr made an appearance on the field today and in his usual pattern dropped 2 passes.  Wait.  Wait just a second.  We traded Ginn, so that means….BRANDON MARSHALL dropped both passes that came his way.  Both of them were very catchable as well, so Marshall deserved some of the boos he received from fans after the 2nd drop.  It’s just preseason, and I’m not concerned at all about him, but fans were hoping to see a big play by their new WR, and instead left without a whole lot to be excited about.

Vontae Davis unfortunately saw the same trend as last year as well.  While he is clearly the more physical of our two second year DBs, the Bucs continued to throw at Davis over Smith.  Vontae’s low light of the game was a 30 yard reception where he had decent coverage, but failed to look for the ball, and it cost him a big play.  Vontae has a habit of either making a big play or giving up a big play.  He’s got 3 more preseason games to get that under control.

Upon Further Review 

The defense that has been getting all kinds of great press from training camp looked “decent” when it was on the field today.  Wake, Odrick, Misi had consistent pressure on the opposing QB, and the DLine did a great job of controlling the line.  For those of you that expected the first game to be full of sacks, you were probably disappointed.  No one recorded a sack, yet there were several pressures, and knock downs to be sure.  Mike Nolan isn't going to show his hand or his exotic blitz packages in any game where nothing is on the line.  So lets not read too much into this.

Koa Misi played consistent tonight.  He was getting a lot of good pressure, and looked pretty decent in coverage.  Some people say he played great, while others (like me) describe his play as consistent but not flashy.  You didn’t walk away from this game thinking, “OMG Misi is going to be a KILLER!”  Instead, you walked away thinking “hmmm, lets see how he develops.”   Really, what more can you ask of a rookie, so I’m not worried about him.

Chad Henne played well despite his 5 for 11 stat line.  His passes looked crisp, and were on target when going down field.  His receivers couldn’t hold onto the ball while playing in the wet sloppy rain, and thats not his fault.  The one knock I’ll put on Henne was that he needs to learn to not try and check down when his intended target is obviously being mugged at the line of scrimmage.  Gotta find another play there.

Pat White.  Paging Pat White.  Hello?    Despite getting a ‘ton of reps’ in practice this week, Pat White barely sniffed the field.  He finally saw the turn first hand with 2 minutes left to go in the game.  Pat White had a 100% completion rate, as he handed off a single pass to Lex Hilliard, and then took two knees.  Three plays is all he got, and two of them were kneel downs.

Fr8 Train's Final Score

Look, many people are going to freak out because we didn’t blow up offensively, and we struggled against Tampa Bay.  I’m not one of those people.  I understand that this is preseason, AND the very first game of preseason at that.  If this were the third game of preseason, then I’d be concerned, but it’s not.

I have been pretty vocal in saying that I expected Pat White to be ‘showcased” during this game.  Well, I was clearly wrong.  I was very surprised, and a bit confused.  I’ve decided that it’s either a last attempt at a wake up call for Pat White, OR, Pat White is going to see his own three quarters of play in the second preseason game.  It would make sense.  Give Thigpen almost a whole game to show his stuff, show he can manage the game, not make many mistakes, and drive down the field, and then give Pat White the same opportunity to do the same in the following game.

Without question, one of those 2 quarterbacks will be gone by Week 1.  At this point, Thigpen clearly has the highest trade value, and maybe, just maybe the coaches are trying to remind teams of that.  Of course, then we’d be handcuffed to a recovering Chad Pennington, and a very shaky Pat White in case if injury….. Given that Pat White was a second round pick just a year ago, and a developing project, maybe the coaches want to trade Thigpen.

I hope not.  I would feel a lot more comfortable with Thigpen as a backup then I would with Pat White, but I’m willing to go  on a little faith, preferably if he shows SOME kind of passing competency in the next game……but….(shudder)…. I’m still not 100% there yet.

Got an opinion on the matter?  Sound off.  And Bring it.