Can we skip the last week of the season?

I hope everyone had a wonderful and busy week, too busy to watch Sunday's embarrassing collapse by the Dolphins vs the Detroit Lions.  The Lions scored 17 points in the last 5 minutes to secure a 34-27 victory.

Bye Week

Due to the holidays, Tins Fins is taking a Bye Week.  I have no chance of watching the Dolphins/Detroit game until Monday or Tuesday anyway, and I'm sure others are in the same boat as me.  Thus there will be no live chat either on Sunday.  

This game couldn't be any less important to us anyway.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

Live Chat: Dolphins vs. Bills

Dolphins inactives: WR Marlon Moore, TE Mickey Shuler, TE Jeron Mastrud, T Matt Kopa, G Eric Ghiaciuc, DL Chris Baker, DL Ryan Baker, and CB Nate Ness.

Bills inactives:  Third QB Levi Brown, FB Jehuu Caulcrick, TE Mike Caussin, OT Erik Pears, OT Colin Brown, C Geoff Hangartner, NT Kellen Heard, and DE John McCargo.

GAME PREVIEW: Bills vs Dolphins (Week 15)

The Dolphins need to win all of their remaining games and have 2 or 3 teams lose a couple games here and there to squeeze into the playoffs.  The odds are against them.  I think most fans are more concerned about next year at this point.  And they should be.  The Dolphins simply aren't ready to make the push into the playoffs and beyond.  They aren't healthy enough - bottom line.  They haven't the depth.

Live Chat: Dolphins vs. Jets

Dolphins inactives: TE Mickey Shuler, T Matt Kopa, T Vernon Carey, C/G Eric Ghiaciuc, NT Ryan Baker, DL Chris Baker, LB Ikaika Alama-Francis and CB Nate Ness.

Jets inactives:  T Vladimir Ducasse, DL Marcus Dixon, LB Jamaal Westerman, CB Marquice Cole, S James Ihedigbo, third QB Kellen Clemens, TE Jeff Cumberland and TE Matt Mulligan

GAME PREVIEW: Jets vs Dolphins (2nd meeting of 2010)

Usually when these two teams meet, there's a certain 'up in the air' feeling about it...like anything could happen.

If any Dolfans out there feel confident heading into this week's matchup, however, they clearly have a large monthly pharmacy bill.

The Dolphins, already weakened at TE, CB, DL, OL, and QB, now face the Jets top pass defense minus Brian Hartline and with Brandon Marshall not at 100%.  They also have a giant hole at RT with Vernon Carey about to miss his first NFL game in 5 years.  Add this to the inability of the offense to function last week, and I don't see the Dolphins pulling off an upset here unless Miami scores two or more defensive touchdowns.

The good news, I will be spending Sunday's game at home on the Live Chat after a pitiful experience last week - at least if we lose this week in shambolic fashion I can go to my room and cry.

My prediction:  MIA 10  NYJ 17

Hangover time...again.

Well that was unpleasant, wasn't it?

The Dolphins last second loss to Cleveland in a 13-10 sleepwalk of a game brought them back down to 6-6, and back down to earth after a glittery win last week.

If it isn't obvious to everyone in Dolphins Land now that the offense of the Dolphins, from the play-calling to the O-line to the talent, is one of the worst in the league, then the blind is surely leading the blind.

The Defense did just about everything they could to give Miami every chance to win the game, and time and time again, they failed miserably.  Davone Bess, Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown cannot do it all on their own, and the Dolphins won't even give them the requisite reps just in case they can do it on their own.  

When the game is on the line, who should we target...the steady Bess?  The TD scoring Fasano?  The Ground and Pound (and ball protecting) Ricky and Ronnie?  Nah, lets target Roberto Wallace and Marlon Moore over and over again. (For the record, Anthony Armstrong had 6 catches for 97 yards and a TD yesterday for the Redskins, remember him?)

As I said two weeks ago, the front office has raped this team of talent on the offensive side of the ball, as they did the year before on defense.  Think back. They got rid of Andre Goodman, Renaldo Hill, Vonnie Holiday and eventually Matt Roth.  This year it was the year of the Offense, removing a very strong O-line core in Jake Grove, Justin Smiley, and Donald Thomas and possibly placing Nate Garner on IR immaturely.  They got rid of Ted Ginn Jr, Greg Camarillo, and Joey Haynos.  In fact, the team's personnel turnover was pretty huge for the 3rd year of this regime, and it's not looking to be that much less next year.

I'm beginning to argue with myself for the current regime to end.  I know that means starting over, but I think starting over may be better than to continue going down the wrong path altogether.  Sooner better than later.

Live Chat: Dolphins vs. Browns

Dolphins inactives: WR Brandon Marshall, TE Mickey Shuler, T Matt Kopa, C Eric Ghiaciuc, NT Ryan Baker, DL Chris Baker, LB Channing Crowder and CB Al Harris.

Browns inactives:  QB Colt McCoy, WR Jordan Norwood, WR Carlton Mitchell, WR Demetrius Williams, TE Alex Smith, DE Jayme Mitchell, DE Brian Sanford and LB Scott Fujita.

Post Game: Dolphins vs Raiders

Well it's been a long time since the Dolphins won a game this convincingly and it's been a long time since they did what I personally wanted them to do.  Sunday's 33-17 victory puts them back over .500 yet no closer to the playoffs.  They still need the Jets or Patriots to collapse and lose a lot of games in order to have a chance.

However, After my post last week on what the Dolphins should do for the rest of the season, it was startingly refreshing to see them take my advice, first giving the team back to Chad Henne who had his best game of the season, playing the youth of Nolan Carroll, Marlon Moore, Johnathan Amaya and Chris Baker and other talents like Patrick Cobbs and Tim Dobbins, players who offer something different as well as much needed rest to the starters.  And of course they finally returned to the running game, putting up a massive 190 yards on the ground, their best output of the season.  In fact, statistically in every category that counts it was their best game of the season.  Question is, is it a sign of what's to come, or just one of those anomaly games where a team just clicks while the opposition just folds?

To me, I don't think it's all on the opposition - yes the Raiders are struggling to win games, yet they battled it out quite hard at times in this game and made a lot of plays.  But ultimately when the Dolphins had their chances to make plays, they did.

I would like to give out a game ball as well as a leftover Turkey bag of gizzards for this game in honor of Thanksgiving weekend now gone past.

Game Ball - Davone Bess, 6 catches, 111 yards (almost had more but his drop can be forgiven as he got laid out on the play) and a shocking 47 yard punt return from a player who hasn't returned a punt more than 10 yards in 2 years!  He showed that he can step up and be the #1 WR when the #1 WR is out of the game.  The question is, why doesn't he put up these numbers when Marshall is being double teamed?

Gizzards - Vontae Davis.  5 tackles to lead the team, and at least 3 missed tackles.  Davis started the season like a pro-bowler and has in the past 5 games looked like something that got scraped off of the bottom of a horse-trainer's shoe.  I don't think I've ever seen such a sharp decline in performance in all my years of watching football.  Between Jake Long giving up sack after sack, Jared Odrick being on IR and Davis' recent woes, the SpIreland first rounders are not paying off. 

Live Chat: Dolphins vs. Raiders

Dolphins inactives: WR Brandon Marshall, C Eric Ghiaciuc, OT Matt Kopa, TE Mickey Shuler, QB Patrick Ramsey, SS Reshad Jones, DL Ikaika Alama-Francis, DL Ryan Baker.

Raiders inactives:  QB Kyle Boller, WR Chaz Schilens, RB Michael Bennett, CB Chris X. Johnson, LB Jarvis Moss, CB Jeremy Ware, OG Daniel Loper, WR Nick Miller .