I hate the Panthers....

Dolphins 24 @ Panthers 17 : I hate the Panthers!! Earlier in the week I commented that Ricky Williams is probably a better all round back than Ronnie Brown. I think tonight he took a big step towards proving that. I also mentioned when I was making my pick that there was a good chance the Panthers might get too excited about the reasonable success of their passing game last week. And surprise, surprise, here I am, 0-1 to start the week. God damn it!!! Jake Delhomme threw 42 passes and completed just 19. Why? For the love of god why are they so desperate to give him the ball and let him throw games (literally) away? You have DeAngelo Williams in the backfield. Let me reiterate that. You have DeAngelo Williams in the backfield. He got just 13 carries, which he managed to convert into 122 yards. This guy needs more touches. And yeah, I know they have Steve Smith on the outside. When he gets the ball he's great. Trouble is he only catches around 50-60% of the passes thrown his way. I can't remember the last time Williams muffed a hand off. If DeAngelo was playing somewhere else, say Pittsburgh or Baltimore, the guy would be chasing Chris Johnson for total rushing yardage. Anyway, a good (and important) win for the Dolphins. 0-1 for me this week. I hate the Panthers.... But I'm not finished completely with this game. I wanna give some extra credit: Davone Bess (Dolphins) -- His stats weren't great for the game, but he made some great catches and worked really hard to get open for his young and inexperienced QB. That's great team play. Bess is a trooper. Lex Hilliard (Dolphins) -- Who? Rookie RB had 4 carries for 24 yards. He ran hard on those carries and will likely get the first bite at sharing the workload with Ricky Williams for the rest of the season. Keep an eye out for this one. DeAngelo Williams & Jonathan Stewart (Panthers) -- How tempted they must be to run over Jake Delhommes foot in the parking lot. "Oops, sorry dude, the parking brake just slipped off..." I hate the Panthers.

The moral of the story? Play to your strenghts people!!!

I just want to make one thing clear. After all the abuse I've thrown at the Panthers for giving the ball to QB Jake Delhomme, I'd like to point out that Delhomme is not the problem. In fact, Delhomme is a reasonably good QB. I can think of at least 10, probably way more, QB's who have started for NFL teams over the last few years that weren't a patch on him. And that's discounting rookies. The trouble is, Delhomme is not the kind of guy you give the ball to and say "Go win us the game son!" He's the kind of guy you ask to throw a few dropbacks, run some play action with and generally just keep the Defense from zeroing in on your run game. Like Kerry Collins did for the Titans last year. Like Sanchez did for the Jets this last weekend. He's their to compliment the strong running game. The issue is not with Delhomme, it's with the play calling. When you have two running backs of the calibre of DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart, you don't throw the ball 40+ times a game. You don't even thrwo it 30+ times a game. Let's not forget that last year Williams was third for rushing yardage, 1,515 yds, and if you add Stewarts tally, 836 yds, then they combined for over 2,000 yds. On average Williams carried the ball 5 times less per game than Adrian Peterson and yet racked up a much better average, 5.5yds per game to Peterson's 4.8. The only person with over 100 carries who comes even close to that is Derrick Ward (182 carries, 5.6 per carry). And that's before we get onto Williams's touchdown tally. He led the league last season with 18 rushing TD 's. Tack on another 10 from Jonathan Stewart, who was tied for 8th with Peterson amongst others, and you have 28 TD's generated from the running back position. Turnovers? 2 fumbles. Both by Stewart. (It's worth noting that the league high was 9 by... well, you guessed it. Adrian Peterson). These numbers are solid. What they point to is a one-two punch from the running back position which is unparalleled in the entire NFL. And that's what gets my back up. Why suddenly turn around and abandon what got you into the playoffs last year? Why waste an offensive combo that has the potential to go all the way to the promised land? Last year these two carved Arizona to pieces in the first drive of their playoff game. And then it steadily went down hill as the Panthers tried to lean on the pass, and instead turned the ball over 6 times for the QB position. Now yeah, that reflects badly on Delhomme and it's a game he'd want to forget. But you can't blame the guy if his coaches are determined to thrust the ball into his hands and make him perform miracles. So in summary, it's not Delhomme who should really be worrying about his job. It should be John Fox and Jeff Davidson. That's where the real problems lie. The moral of the story? Play to your strenghts people!!!