The Buhner.com Blog

Eh, I just feel the need to speak about my beloved Dolphins this week.  Got to catch maybe half of the game off and on through the day (mostly first half, then portions of the 4th quarter) thanks to Cole being “needy” (ie. insisting that I watch him play with toys - not necessarily needing someone to play with).  Since he was content without a television on but requested some of his programming once I did try to put it on, I was sans TV when we were up in his room or in the spare room playing trains.  Attempting to put the TV loud in our bedroom and listening to the game echo through the hall was thwarted by Cole enjoying playing cars on his car bed - and Hot Wheels on hollow plastic just doesn’t allow for overhearing of televisions down the hall.

Regardless, I enjoyed my time with my oldest boy and it’s not like the game was an exciting one or anything, at least from an offensive standpoint.  The Dolphins played conservative on offense (well, kind of) while allowing their defense to step up and keep them in the game.  The Miami defense is confusing - there are times that they shine and look like one of the top 5 defenses in the league, and there are times where they wouldn’t stop a Division III school.  It may be an issue of fatigue or psychological - they tend to give up points and big plays off of turnovers a lot.  Granted, when you give a team good field position you’re generally going to give up points more often, but if you can stop a team at their 30, you can stop a team at your 30.  The amount of veterans (and by veterans, I mean guys that could have been on Tecmo Bowl rosters) on the defensive line is going to contribute to that though.  Keith Traylor is in his 16th season, Jeff Zgonina his 14th, Dan Wilkinson his 13th, Kevin Carter his 12th.  Hell, Jason Taylor (9th), Vonnie Holliday (8th), and David Bowens (7th) were drafted in the 90s.  Of the younger linemen, only Matt Roth (a second rounder from last year’s draft) has seen any playing time, with Frederick Evans (7th rounder this year) and Kevin Vickerson (7th rounder last year) not seeing the active roster at all this season, Rodrique Wright (7th this year) out for the season, and Manuel Wright (5th round supp last year) sitting at home, still crying and talking about quitting football after Coach Saban was mean to him.

I’ve sidetracked in the middle of posting this to look over the Wannstedt/Spielman era draft history, but that’s another rant for another time.  The point is that the team looked very good yesterday - great defense, sometimes from unexpected areas (Yeremiah Bell is slowly becoming one of my favorite players on the team), and an offense that stayed relatively conservative (outside of Mularkey’s hardon for trick plays) so that prone-to-mistakes Joey Harrington was able to complete passes and hit various receivers and hand the ball off to Ronnie Brown enough for him to be effective but not so much as to kill Ronnie Brown or to become completely predictable.  Harrington showed the ability to react well to the blitz and read the field decently well, and make good enough decisions as to when to throw the ball away and when to actually run for a first down when no one was open.

Harrington is growing on me more and more, and it was probably the best thing for his career to end up in Miami.  The Dolphins are actually going to have a serious decision to make in regards to Joey - attempt to keep him around and admit an error in the trade for Culpepper, or let him go and keep their fingers crossed that Culpepper (when/if he gets healthy) is going to be that step above Harrington, which he should be.

I’m not sure what to make of this team.  Harrington doesn’t give me any confidence in the quarterback position (not that he’s played badly, but moreso the fact that I can’t feel that he can be the guy to turn to down late in the game yet) and the team itself hasn’t been consistant enough to lead me to believe they’re going one way or the other.  One thing is for sure though - this is a much better team with Harrington under center than with Culpepper, and that if anyone (Saban, Culpepper, Mularkey, whomever) had the balls to step up and say that Culpepper wasn’t ready for full blown NFL action to begin the season (which no one really expected him to), then the team might be sitting at 5-4 (or even better) right now instead of 3-6.