PREVIEW: Pre-Season Game 3 - Miami vs Tampa Bay

VS.

So, this should be exciting, two Florida teams battling it out for State supremacy, right? Yeah, get real, Tinshaker, this ain't no stomp in the swamp or panhandle scalping. In-state rivalries are reserved for the college game. No one cares about Tampa Bay or Jacksonville when you're a Miami Dolphin fan. Of course, we do play both teams twice this year, so in a way, it's like the other Florida teams have joined our division temporarily. Sure, the first pair of games are just for practice, but the last thing you want to do is lose a game to either one. I don't know about you, but after a certain 62 - 7 loss, I never want to lose to Jacksonville again. In fact, the Dolphins only lost to them that one time. Tampa Bay and Miami, however are tied in head-to-head matchups with four a piece, and while the pre-season game doesn't officially count, a win would give me a warm fuzzy feeling of satisfaction.

You see, I lived in Miami during the early and mid-90s while Buffalo and Dallas were perennial Super Bowlers. And then I moved to Tampa, and had to watch an annual turd of a team win the Super Bowl and have to deal with this bizarro world of living in a Super Bowl city.

So, naturally I have a distaste for anything Buccaneer, even to the point that I hate the fact that my beloved alma mater plays in the same stadium as them. It doesn't help that they tore down the stadium where USF played it's first season and I attended their first home game, an 80-3 blowout during which the Florida Marlins were winning the World Series (I remember watching the football game in person while a bunch of us huddled over a portable tv to see the baseball action). At half-time, a band called Sister Hazel performed their soon-to-be smash hit 'All For You'. After the game, we all partied, and I ended up getting laid. In a word, a pretty perfect night for a college kid, and a memory that could've been relived any time I would drive past that stadium. Instead, they tore it down to build the parking lot for Raymond James Stadium.

But I digress. This game will:

A. Showcase our first team offense and defense for at least the first half, giving them more time to gel and to get rhythm going.

B. Provide Coach Sparano with enough film to make an informed decision on who the starting wide receivers will be (my prediction is Ginn and Camarillo with Bess in the 3 WR set), and who the starting CB will be (honestly, I think it's 50/50 right now between Smith and Davis).

C. Be a blow-out. With several of Tampa Bay's starters out of this game due to injury or court date, and our starters staying in the game for longer, not to mention the fact that ONCE AGAIN the Bucs don't know who their starting QB is (or even which ones will be on the team come tomorrow), I see this being one of those games where if we play up to our standards, this SHOULD be a cake-walk. Tampa Bay has always been a hodge-podge mess of a team that is really only as good as it's players. For a while there they had all the best players in the league and that translated to success. Once those players left, the bubble burst and they have been inconsistent ever since.

Things to look for:

1. Tampa Bay's QBs. With 3 of the 4 TB quarterbacks currently on the trade block, and the possibility that whoever doesn't get traded being the starter, expect these guys to 'try too hard' and make mistakes. They are in the pressure cooker right now, and if we can apply some pressure of our own, good things will happen.

2. Our Offensive Line. Tampa did register 7 sacks so far in pre-season but only one has been by a starter. They are struggling to get a pass rush going from the linebacker position. Look for our starters to own the line of scrimmage and to keep our QBs upright. I'm sure Jake Long wants to have a strong game to recover from last week.

3. The Running Backs. There's two big stories here. First, that Cadillac Williams is once again returning from major knee surgery, a year after doing the same from the same injury but to the other knee. So this guy is running on TWO bad knees. The crowd is going to erupt when he comes out of the tunnel. The other big story here is that Lex Hilliard will get a chance to run behind the first team o-line against first team defenders. If he can continue his fine pre-season against this level of competition, the Dolphins will likely try to make space for him on the roster. If he falters, things will go back to normal with a 3 tailback crew.

4. The Line-backers. I have to admit, this position is giving me nightmares on my project 53-man roster. I honestly don't think I can wrap this area up until I know the make-up of the rest of the team. I don't know if I can justify keeping 4 inside linebackers, so I need to see if Kershaw or Folsom is as good on special teams as they need to be to make the roster. At the moment I'm leaning more to keeping both Walden and Moses as my Roth-insurance.

5. Kick Returns. Ted Ginn Jr. is going to be back returning punts and kicks tonight along with Davone Bess, Brian Hartline and Anthony Armstrong. This is basically Armstrong's last chance. It's Hartline's best opportunity to work his way into being active on game days. And it's the Coaches best opportunity to see if one of these guys steps up enough to allow Ginn to concentrate on being a receiver, or if he's just too valuable as a return man to take him out of that position. It should be an interesting evening.

Those are my points for tonight's game, which, by the way, is NATIONALLY TELEVISED on FOX, so everyone will have the opportunity to watch it. It's weird watching two Florida teams on local west coast TV, but I'm not complaining. The replay is on NFL network on Friday about midday.

I know some fans were worried that the Dolphins game would be interrupted by Michael Vick going 3 and out, but NFL Network's Rich Eisen has just tweeted this: "FOX has nat'l window w/MIA@TB @ 8ET so NFLN has Vick live-look ins from 7-8."  So nothing to fear Dolfans, the game should be presented in it's entirety. 

I will have the laptop nearby during the game but will also have a 3 year old stunt performer jumping on my head, so expect a slight delay between any posts ;)