If the Miami Dolphins are to win on Sunday, then turning back the clocks to the second half of week one will be CRITICAL.
What do I mean by this?
OLD SCHOOL FOOTBALL. Winning in the trenches. Being the more physical team. Running the football. Waring out, and waring down, your opponent.
Sound familiar? It should, because this is exactly how these Dolphins pulled off the week one upset against New England.
Knowshon Moreno and Lamar Miller ran the ball 23 times in the second half, good for over half of Miami's offensive play calls during that time. And it wasn't just running to run, no, it was downhill, physical running that eventually wore out New England to a point where there was no chance they were winning that game.
On the other side of the ball, the Miami defensive front sacked Tom Brady four times. All in the second half.
This team won because of trench play and physical football.
Now, lets take a quick look at the week three lost against Kansas City. I'll do the second half again so you can have a fair comparison, and I'll only look at the plays when Miami was still in the game. Remember, this one got out of hand towards the end.
Number of passes: 13
Number of runs: 7
And don't forget, this was the game Lamar Miller was averaging over 5.5 yards a carry and put up over 100 yards for only the SECOND time in his career.
Which brings us to Sunday, a game I believe Miami has a great chance of winning.... IF THEY FOLLOW THIS FORMULA.
And why wouldn't they? Green Bay ranks 30th.. 3-0.. Second to last... in the entire league at stopping the run. They've given up nearly 160 yards PER GAME. Here are the splits:
Week 1: 207
Week 2: 146
Week 3: 115
Week 4: 235
Week 5: 111
This team, even with Clay Matthews, CAN NOT STOP THE RUN. Adversely, Miami CAN RUN. They rank fifth in the league with 142 yards per game, and have gone over 100 yards each game. And this is with Knowshon Moreno missing the past four games.
Reminder: He may come back this week. He's listed as questionable for Sunday's game.
Think about that for a second. All the talk, as per usual, surrounds the quarterbacks. Can Ryan Tannehill put together consecutive good games? Can the Dolphins stop Aaron Rodgers?
But everybody is missing the real matchup in this game. Trench play will be the difference on Sunday. Mark my words. If Miami can commit to the run, and ware down Green Bay and both sides of the ball, much like week one, then I think this game could surprise a lot of people.
Just food for thought.
INJURY REPORT
The first injury report of the week came out today:
No Mike Pouncey. He's playing on Sunday. The question still remains, however, as to where he'll play.
Randy Starks, Mike Wallace, and Koa Misi will all play as well. I'm sure of that. Expect most of, if not all of the other limited participants to play as well. The only big question mark is going to be Moreno. Right now I'd say its 50/50.
As for Finnegan and Gibson, I'm not quite sure right now. Gibson can be easily replaced with Landry and Matthews. Finnegan is a little harder to replace, though, so lets hope he is good to go.
Four days.
No comments:
Post a Comment