It’s probably hard for some of the readers to see the positives in Sunday’s loss. Heck, Sunday afternoon (after several refreshments) I didn’t see them very well either. It’s after reflection that you try and make sense of it. We do our fan thing where we dissect every aspect of the game with the scalpel of hindsight. We look at the bad plays and try and figure out just which one sank the ship, and we look at the good plays and think which one we should have run one more time, etc.

I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anyone out there on that field that was slacking. Every one I saw in a Dolphin uniform was trying their a$$es off. We didn’t always make the great play, we didn’t always do the great feat, but every Dolphin on that field busted their a$$.

There simply wasn’t enough time, enough draft picks, and enough reasonably-priced FAs to fix everything that was wrong here in one offseason.

Nothing to be mad about, nothing to gripe about. We are already worlds apart from the team we were.

Is the secondary mediocre-to-average? Yes. Andre Goodman has a tendency to give up big plays, even when he makes a good one once in a while. Renaldo Hill continues to be in the right place at precisely the right time…and continues to display hands of absolute granite. Mike Lehan didn’t have a good game at all. Will Allen is solid, and Yeremiah Bell is everywhere, but even he was out-fought by the beast that is Andre Johnson. Jason Allen’s cameos against their return team are a HUGE indication regarding his willingness to do what they want, or ability to show them what they want. This guy is as physically talented as any DB we have; for him to not be in there in our base set says a lot about what he’s doing in practice IMHO.

Okay, that’s enough gloom. We are a year removed from absolute NFL-talent poverty. We have a LOT of positives from Sunday that we have in the bank.

We have a full stable of decent RBs…ALL 3 scored TDs on Sunday. We have a luxury at the position that we can exploit, not only during the year, but in the offseason. Say R & R get around 900-1000 yards each, and in spot duty Cobbs picks up 300-400 at a good clip. He’s shown he has hands, and has some speed. His size is a plus. Teams might be willing to deal for a guy that has shined when it was there for him to. He’s also an excellent ‘plan b’ should RW34 relapse as so many seem to believe he will.

We have a QB with a 98.8 rating, and 5 TDs against only 2 Ints. His last performance, 19/25 for 284 yards. That, my aqua brethren, is simply getting it done in excellent form. Penny has been fantastic, and precisely what the team needs.

Yeah, I know, I still can’t believe it, either.

Joey Porter, when used correctly (as he is now), is as disruptive a force against opposing QBs as there is in the game. He blew right through a double team (remember, he’s a LB) by OLinemen to chop up one pass play. Keep going, Joey…6.5 sacks in 5 games, and five of the next six games at HOME.

Instead of the gloom of ‘oh, we should have won’, why not sit back and enjoy what changes BP and Co. have wrought. When we were down 23-21 and came back to score in the closing minutes to go up 28-23, I knew. Last year that game ends 23-21.

We knew there’d be growing pains! We knew we still needed a few players! It is a real testament to the job Sparano and Staff have done that we’re sitting around moping that we’re not 3-2. He’s brought hope back to us. We EXPECT to win, and have the game plan to do it, most times. Only the lack of talent at a position or two keeps us from being elite right now. We are a CB, S and WR away from being a very good football team, a playoff team.

That is simply amazing. Last season we were a CB, S, S, S, S, WR, QB, TE, DT, Coach and Assistants away from being an NFL team.

One little five month interval and we BELIEVE we can beat anyone if we play smart, and the players do, too. That alone is the biggest change. I’m proud of the team for how hard they have worked. We are no easy win on anyone’s schedule.

That’s worth at least a RahRahRah out of me a few dozen times this Sunday.

It’s Great…to be…a Mia-mi Dol-Phin Fan…

Light of Truth not as Harsh as it appears
Written by Pawfectgent
Monday, 13 October 2008