THIS JUST IN. DOLPHINS HAVE SIGNED WIDE RECEIVER GREG JENNINGS.
The schedule is out. And there some good things and some bad things. The bad things are compounded by the fact that Stephen Ross–and not the NFL–made them bad. More on that later.
Let’s start with the good, for all the Dolphins Truth naysayers who claim that we never have anything positive to say!
It’s good to play the bad teams on the road. When we have to play the really difficult teams, we need every bit of help we can get, and home field advantage helps. Playing a difficult team on the road makes the situation twice as hard.
Remember having to play in Denver last year? At Detroit in the loud dome?
This year, our toughest opponents have to come TO Miami, and that is a good break. Going TO Washington or TO Jacksonville or TO Nashville will not make us cringe. We don’t need home field advantage to beat those sorry teams.
But we do need (and appreciate) home field advantage to play the Cowboys, Ravens, and Colts. Our two hardest road games will be at Foxboro (we know we have to play there once a year) and at Philadelphia (which could be an easy Dolphin win given the nonexistent Philly offense).
So I feel we caught a big break here by not wasting home field advantage in games that we can easily win on the road.
Another positive is that we play 4 of our last 5 games at home. The only time we have to leave Florida in December is to go to warm-weather San Diego, so we won’t have to face the elements (unless San Diego has another wild fire like in 2003). The Chargers, all of a sudden, are amid rumors of Philip Rivers leaving town, so who knows how good they will be. The Dolphins’ staff has plenty of time to prepare for December and to take advantage of cold-weather teams coming down to play in our humidity.
Now for the bad. And it could get really bad.
Our Thursday Night Football game this year is IN Foxboro. The Patriots are hard enough to beat at home. But to beat them at home in a Prime Time game, with the crowd pumped up? This could be near impossible. In addition to it being a Prime Time game, it’s on Thursday and on the road. Meaning the Dolphins have to
travel on Wednesday and get virtually no practice time in beforehand. Meanwhile, the Patriots play at home the game before. They play in Foxboro Sunday, stay home, and get another home game right after. It makes for some unfair scheduling.
The Dolphins begin the year with two road games. I just hate when the NFL does this. A team should not have to wait until September 27 to get a home game. There’s just no reason for this.
Miami only gets ONE home game in the first 5 weeks of the season. Our pretty new stadium and the billion- dollar awning will sit empty for the most part, hosting only one game between now and October 25. You read that right. From now until October 25, the Dolphins have ONE home game.
Don’t be fooled by the “home” game on October 4. Remember, that game is being played in Europe because Stephen Ross did not want the Dolphins to play at home against a fierce division rival. We can’t blame the NFL for Mr. Ross’s preposterous decision on that one.
Mid-season, the Dolphins go on a three-game road trip. Again, this is absolutely ludicrous for the NFL to do this to us. 3-games away from home in a row should NEVER happen in the NFL. A team can easily lose all focus when travel plans have to be made three weeks in a row.
The London game is bad enough, but it starts at 9:30 in the morning. Thanks, Roger Goodell. You and Stephen Ross foist a European game upon us, and that’s bad enough. But you cowtow to a bunch of soccer hooligans and begin the game on THEIR time, not ours. Ridiculous. Football is not meant to be played in the morning.
I’m sure all the West Coast Dolphans will love waking up at 6 am to watch this farce. Thanks, Stephen Ross.
There is absoultely no reason for the NFL to start so late this year either. Why begin on September 13 for the first Sunday games? Makes no sense. Why not September 6? On the other side, the season seems to drag when Week 17 falls in January. I know the NFL is all about ratings and expanding its product, but soon the
Super Bowl will be played in March, not February, if they keep this up. A January Super Bowl is a thing of the past.
I’m not sure why the Week 3 home opener is to be played at 4:30 instead of 1:00. The Buffalo Bills will have an advantage if they get to play in the cooler evening weather instead of our scorching afternoon heat. I don’t know why Stephen Ross continually disgards whatever advanatges we have.
For the 2nd straight year, the NFL’s Thanksgiving ratings will plummet downward as no AFC team is involved. AFC fans have zero interest in watching. The NFL never seems to learn that only Packer or Bear fans care about the Bears-Packers “rivalry.” The rest of us will would rather watch a Smokey and the Bandit rerun on TBS. But if you made it the Packers vs. ANY AFC TEAM, we would watch. It’s always best to root for the NFC when they play our AFC rivals. A mild rooting interest is better than nothing. And two years in a row, the NFL has given us nothing.
Roger Goodell simply doesn’t get it. We are all fans of a specific team first and foremost. We are “football fans” second. Of all the people on earth who love football, every single one of them has a favorite team. No one’s favorite team is “football in general.” Goodell simply does not grasp that.
GAME TO WATCH:
Houston at Miami. Week 7. The Dolphins have never defeated Houston. No matter what bozo QB or inexperienced coach Houston threw at us since they joined the league, no Dolphin coach has ever beaten them. In Week 7, we’ll learn a lot about the Dolphins. Houston has one of the worst offenses in NFL history and they “should: be luky to win 3 games htis year. Miami MUST make a statement and shut out this JV squad.
Screw Greg Jennings…… just another warm body ala Brandon Gibson, Rishad Matthews, etc….. they better not think he’s any kind of answer. One year and gone.
Plus, another guy who the media will say “Joe Philbin knows him well and coached him in Green Bay, etc” Big deal ! Philbin was the offensive coordinator there who wasn’t allowed to call plays or make decisions. Philbin knows Greg Jennings as well as Bryan Teegardin does!
Admin – Minor note: the Titans are based in Nashville; not Memphis.
Thanks, Mania. I stand corrected and have changed it in the article.
Admin has it right – Stephen Ross continuously removed the advantage of heat and/or humidity of South Florida from the Dolphins’ games. I think he’s actually gone on record saying he wants them to play in better conditions, or something like that; which is completely idiotic.
On a related note I CAN’T STAND waiting until 4:30pm for a HOME GAME. That’s f*cked up. Even on the West coast, their games start at 1:30 LOCAL TIME. Yes, we on the East coast have to wait until 4:30, but that’s because of a time difference.
On top of that, it’s our home opener! So all day we’ll be chomping at the bits for no reason….it’s already making me agitated.
Really annoying and just another reason why I can’t stand this owner.
Curious what people think about the bye being in the 5th week. Personally, I like the bye in the 2nd half of the season because it could help with injuries that have built up over the season.
I guess in this case, if there are injuries early on it could help out (like last year’s Ellerbe and Moreno – assuming the injuries aren’t season-ending of course).
If we had a decent coach, I suppose an early bye would provide the opportunity for early reflection and changes to the schemes; doubtful with Philbin.
Under Shula, seems like we always got the bye much later, when we needed it most. I think the NFL has little respect for the Dolphins these days, and they give us crappy byes, terrible schedules, the worst refs assigned, etc.
the aforementioned error about Memphis was noted by another reader.
I am 100% in agreement on the idiocy of:
a) playing home game at 430pm in september
b) only getting ONE of those home games before Halloween just about
c) playing a divisional game in the UK! wtf? would they have Dallas play Philly in London? Never
d) the short week to the TNF game at NE….well, guess they wanted to take away any dream of ending the unbeaten streak of Brady up there when he plays a full game against us.
e) the MNF game vs Giants followed by short week and one of 3 longest road trips in NFL to SD the next week (other long ones are SEA/Miami and SD/NE)
f) it gets depressing when you realize that Miami plays EIGHT OF ITS FIRST 11 GAMES AWAY FROM MIAMI!!
But on good note…..I actually like the Jennings signing..THAT is the type of veteran to add to a team rebuilding on the fly…one that lacks ego or baggage
Luckily, most of those early road games are against winnable teams, so we’ll see how it plays out. Philbin has won three in a row a few times here, but he’s never taken us to that elite status of winning 4 or 5 in a row. We need that.
I also hadn’t notice that our long road trip comes after a MNF game, so we’re losing a full day to travel on an already short week. Good point, Duhe.