October 8, 2007

Texans 22, Dolphins 19

I'll start with the obvious. Trent Green suffered a grade 3 concussion during the game, making a pretty ballsy cut block on Travis Johnson, a 315 pound defensive end. Afterward, Johnson taunted Green while he laid on the field unconscious. It was obviously in poor taste, but it was also a pretty low cut block which easily could have broken Johnson's legs. This is in no way to excuse what he did, but if you saw the play, you could understand why Johnson was upset. Green is a great guy but I don't want to ever see him on the field in uniform again. I fully support him staying on to mentor John Beck, but I don't want to see the Dolphins players on the field in a circle, praying for him. We all knew this day would come. He has had a great career and he should count himself lucky he did not become, in Jason Taylor's words, "scrambled eggs".

And now the game. The game was technically not lost until Kris Brown booted the 57 yard winner, his third 50+ yard kick of the game. Good for him. Moments earlier, Cam decided not to kick from 56, which would have at least forced overtime. He actually put Feely on the field and then called a timeout to ice his own kicker and decided to punt. I'm not going to question his decision not to go for the field goal, I just question his decision making in general. He needs to be decisive and go for it or not. All season long he has been making these questionable calls. In the Redskins game, he didn't call a timeout as time was expiring at the half. In the Jets game he squib kicked to their backup returner for a half because he wasn't convinced his team knew how to tackle. This is the kind of indecisiveness that typically separates head coaches from offensive coordinators.

He has been a good offensive coordinator though. Ronnie Brown had his third consecutive 100 yard game. Between Ronnie Brown's jump in production and LaDanian Tomlinson's plummet, Cameron has definitely shown a knack for nurturing elite running backs. Overall, the offense was decent aside from the usual suspects. Ginn bumbled the handoff on the play Green got hurt on but later got his first decent catch of the season and a 50+ yard kickoff return.

With Zach Thomas back, the team showed some ability to stop the run (If it is lead by Ron Dayne) but the secondary was once again exposed as being crumbelievable. They were unable to stop any of Schaub's throws, even with Jason Taylor getting 2 sacks as part of a somewhat improved pass rush. At a certain point, you have to wonder how much Nick Saban had to do with the Dolphins defense being as successful as it was.