Hear that?
It's a collective sigh of relief from all the Dolphins fans who were previously suffering from Chicken Little Syndrome.
The sky is NOT falling, the team has not exploded, and...I can't believe I'm going to say this.... Jason Allen played very well.
This game was a story of two completely different halves. The first half of the game, the Dolphins dominated. We ran the ball well, we passed the ball well, our defense pushed Buffalo around, we could do no wrong it seemed. Our line was making some nice running lanes, Brandon Marshall was ON FIRE, and Henne looked very very solid.
The second half started with the arrival of the Buffalo Bills defense. They finally showed up in the game, and made their presence known. The third quarter was nothing more than a few short drives, followed by punts by both teams. No one seemed to be able to move the ball, and the offensive spark that we had in the first half seemed to be dimming a little.
The fourth quarter was a battle, both defenses still were slugging it out, and although Miami was able to move the ball, they couldn't find a way to finish and put up the points. On a pretty good drive, Miami had to settle for a FG by DC$ (Dan Carpenter), to give themselves a 13-3 lead. Buffalo took the ball back, and ran a no huddle offense which stumped the Miami Defense. On a fourth and 11 play from the 31 yard line, Trent Edwards finds Roscoe Parrish wide open for a TD. Tyrone Culver blew coverage on the play, by stepping forward into the coverage while Parrish just ran by him at the speed of light. That brought Buffalo to within 3 points.
Miami once again takes the kickoff, and they are in clock kill mode at this point. Both Ronnie and Ricky managed to grind down the clock down to within 2 minutes, however, an ill-timed penalty results in a punt with under 2 minutes to play. Miami downs the punt just inches from the end zone, and proceeded to hold Buffalo for 3 downs. On fourth and 10, Buffalo intentionally snaps the ball out-of-bounds for a safety, giving Miami a 15-10 lead with 1:32 left in the game. Miami runs the ball for 3 consecutive plays, failing to get the game clinching first down, and Buffalo got the ball back with 29 seconds left. Three straight incompletions later, and a 4th down short of the first down marker, the game is over.
Miami starts the 2010 season with a WIN!!! Fr8 Train's Observations:
- Brian Hartline was absolutely invisible today. Not a single catch, although on at least one play, he had beaten his man for what would have been a long TD, but Henne failed to see him as he was scrambling away from pressure.
- Ricky had 5 more carries than Ronnie, and the yardage was about the same. Ronnie did manage our only TD on a 1 yard run.
- Buffalo knows how to stop the Wildcat...at least in this game they did.
- Why wasn't Tyler Thigpen our #2 QB so he could run the Wildcat? I guess we won't see the TylerCat anytime soon.
- Thank you for Mike Nolan. Defense recorded 3 sacks (Dansby, Misi, Wake), and the defense pressured him for 60 minutes. You have to be excited about the defense, knowing that it'll only get better as the season goes on.
- With the exception of the final punt that was downed on the 2 inch line, Brandon Fields had a HORRIBLE day kicking the ball.
- Brandon Marshall was basically shut out for the entire second half. Buffalo has a great secondary, so that's not a surprise, however, after having 6 catches in the first half, you wouldn't expected more.
- Henne was sacked 3 times, but faced a fair amount of pressure right up the middle. Hopefully that gets squared away.
- JASON ALLEN looked very good! It was against a horrible Buffalo offense, but Jason Allen really REALLY showed up to play this week, which means Sean Smith is going to sit on the bench again next week.
- Both Jason Allen, and Benny Sapp just missed pick 6's. Sapp just miss played a pass that was his for the taking, and Jason Allen just flat-out dropped a pass inside the 10 yard line in the final minutes of play that he could have crawled into the end zone with.
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