*** DOLPHINS NEWS ***
Sep 22, 1997: -- Bucs Pound Dolphins 31-21 --
The Dolphins lost to the Bucs in Tampa Bay this evening, by
the score of 31-21 in a game that highlighted Miami's defensive
problems. The Dolphins were able to contain Warrick Dunn's rushing,
but were not able to even slow down fullback Mike Alstott. And when
they should have been making big plays, they were giving them up
instead.
The first half consisted of the Dolphins offense sputtering
miserably for most of the time. Marino was 1-9 on his first 9 throws
and Karim Abdul-Jabbar rushed 10 times for just 34 yards in the first
half. The Dolphins did put together a scoring drive at the end of the
first half, which ended in a Marino-to-McDuffie 10 yard scoring pass,
but the Dolphins' offense spent most of the first half looking
pathetic.
The defense did not fair much better. The only thing they
were able to do well on defense was to contain Warrick Dunn's
rushing. Dunn ended the 1st half with 7 carries for 9 yards. However,
they were completely unable to contain Mike Alstott or to generate any
pass rush on Dilfer at all. Dilfer ended the game without being
sacked once.
He did find Mike Alstott on 2 touchdown passes in the first
half of 1 and 3 yards. In both cases, no one on the defense was
covering Alstott and he was about as wide open as he could get. In
fact, the lack of pressure on Difler enabled him to complete a number
of throws to receivers who were otherwise well covered. Dilfer ended
the 1st half completing 13 of 15 passes.
In the second half, the Bucs continued their dominence of the
Dolphins defensive line by opening holes right up the middle for
Alstott, who ended the night with 18 carries for 95 yards, most of
that through large holes in the middle of the Dolphins' defensive
line.
The Bucs also pulled off a number of big pass plays in the 2nd
half, the most notable of which was a short screen pass to Warrick
Dunn on 3rd and 28, that Dunn turned into a 58 yard touchdown play.
In this case, the Dolphins were caught completely unprepared and were
in a wide open, prevent-type defense. This play was the play that
effectively ended the game for the Dolphins.
The Dolphins offense did provide some spark in the second
half, with Marino engineering two long scoring drives that at least
showed that the offense can catch some passes and work the ball into
the endzone. However, the offensive fireworks was way too little and
way too late to influence the game.
The bottom line was that the Dolphins' defense, while doing a
good job containing Warrick Dunn's rushing, didn't do much else that
defenses are supposed to do. They did not generate an adequate pass
rush, they were not able to keep close coverage on the receivers and
they were not able to cover running backs out of the backfield.
In a week where the offense finally got some touchdowns
scored, the defense was almost totally unprepared to get the job
done.
Also of note was the fact that Keith Sims went down in the
first quarter and was replaced by Jeff Buckey. I did not hear what
kind of injury he suffered, but it appeared to be in his shoulder and
he did not return to the lineup all night.
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Curt Fennell,
curt@phins.com, DOLFAN in New Rochelle (almost)
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