Merry Tuesday, everyone!
Anyone watch Monday Night Football last night? I feel a bit sorry for the Dolphins coach. Did he choose his defensive coordinator, and if he did, could anyone tell me why? Watching the game, I have to wonder.
One example: The Steelers had the ball with 15 or so seconds left in the half, and it’s third down on the Dolphins 45. Okay, so you’re probably expecting them to either try to get enough yards to get into field goal range or chuck one deep and pray, so you either play it safe and give them a 10 yard play and let them try a long FG, or play the run and try to make them punt. Nah, not the Dolphins. Offense comes out with 3 receivers wide, and the defense..........has 8 guys right up on the line of scrimmage. Eight guys. And they were all blitzing, they didn’t even try to mask that fact, ears pinned back and ready to get the QB. Going back to math class, if you have eight guys rushing, that means that you have 3 guys in coverage, and that’s against three wide receivers, with zero help whatsoever behind them.......on third and 20..........with 15 seconds left in the half. The results were as you’d expect, QB hits the underneath route since the WR had absolutely zero defenders anywhere near him, and he ran all the way to the end zone. To give credit to the poor defenders who were supposed to be in coverage, they did manage to touch the receiver at the five yard line, but not hard enough to prevent him from scoring.
I guess the coordinator was a something-or-other with the Patriots for a while, so I suppose his resume looked nice. They must like nice resumes in Miami. Yikes.
Around the DN since our last open thread:
You can see Steve Jordan get inducted into the Vikings’ Ring of Honor, posted by Chris. Us......more experienced.........fans have fond memories of the tight end, who spent many years with the team. It’s about time they put him up there.
Other Vikings and NFL news, other sports news, and random oddities and annoyances:
At Vikings.com, see the top 10 plays from the first half of the Vikings season, and watch Brian Baldinger on the NFL Network as he breaks down how the Vikings O-line and Dalvin Cook dominated the Redskins.
From ESPN, here’s the box score from last night’s game, the game I was rambling about in the words up top.
We come to today’s media selection:
Hey, how about a little Steve Wariner to set the tone for the team’s road trip on Sunday. Yes, I’m aware that they’ll travel before Sunday. Just go with it.
We all know the rules, but in case someone is new:
- No discussion of politics or religion
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- While navigating the open thread, just assume it’s sarcasm.
With that, the beer light is on and the bar is open. Belly up & tie one on, don’t tip the cows don’t forget to tip your waitress, and try the sarcastic optimism.