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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Has Porter done enough to stay on the field?

The biggest story of last week's lockerroom, after the loss to Washington, was Joey Porter complaining loud and long about not being on the field in overtime when the game was on the line.

At first, it didn't sound right that Miami's signature free agent signee wouldn't be in the game when Miami needs him most. It sounded like a coaching staff out-smarting itself. But further review tells us that Porter agreed to come out when he was approached about the idea earlier in the week.

Dolphins coaches, not wanting to over-extend Porter after he missed the entire preseason after knee surgery, told him he would come out in nickel and dime packages. Porter agreed.

"I got the heads up going into the game I was going to play in certain packages,'' Porter said. "But I didn't think about it until it was happening and when it was happening, they were finding a way and a mismatch and that was getting us in nickel and running the ball against us. And it was alright to deal with it in the first half but as the game got on the line, me being the competitor I am, I don't ever want to be on the sideline when the game's on the line."

So why did Miami coaches decided on this tact? They were forced to by Porter not knowing all the nickel package assignments he's supposed to know. So Miami coaches had no real choice removing a player that didn't have the best understanding of the assignment from the game.

What were they supposed to do -- let Porter remain in the game and not know what he's supposed to do?

It's up to Porter to understand that it is his responsibility to learn the playbook and give coaches no option but to put him in the game.

"I can't blame anybody but myself because if I new the playbook like I'm supposed to and me missing the preseason, if I had known something like that would happen, I would have tried harder to be on the field," Porter said. "I'm going to do whatever I can to put myself in a situation so I won't be in the situation I was in last week."

That, of course, leads me to this question: Why wasn't Joey Porter trying his hardest BEFORE this happened? Why didn't he know the playbook BEFORE the problem arose?

Your thoughts?

[BY THE WAY, I WILL BE BLOGGING LIVE DURING THE GAME VS DALLAS. STOP BY]

17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good question. If he wasn't practicing, what was he doing during his free time? I hope he has the smarts to play in Capers defense.

1:02 PM  
Blogger j dizzle said...

You gotta be kidding me!!! This is no rookie!!! So what you're saying is the Coaching staff couldn't find any plays to get Porter on the field ?? Washington ran the ball directly down our throat!! What happen to " Fail fast forward" I would've rather see the guy out there learning while playing than to sit here now and say well he didn't know the play!!! # 2 the guy was practicing the whole week before the game no one realized we should get Porter familiar with the nickel and dime packages!!!! Its bad enough he hasn't learned the plays on his down time , but its horrible the coaches haven't been working very hard to get him up to speed on ALL defensive packages during PRACTICE!!!!!

2:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Porter had a very weak performance. Look at his indivual and asst. tackles. He held people until Zack smacked them. He did not blow anyone up all day. Did Pit see this weakness developing in him.

3:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Porter will be great for 4 or 5 games this year and next and then no more. He needs a few more games to get his mojo back.

3:42 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Um...I don't know if you can base his performance on his stats if he was only playing in Nickel and Dime packages. Certainly not enough to say he had a "weak performance". He had at least two tackles behind or at the line of scrimmage. He also stated during the preseason that the injury was going to set his development back. He's the least of our problems.... if he is in fact a problem.

4:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Disappointing that J-Peezy doesn't know his full assignments since he had a playbook and attended practices and meetings. I think it speaks more to the type of player he is than anything else. He is an instinctive aggressive, energy type of player. I don't think he's the type of guy to look at a playbook and have full understanding. Not to say he is dumb, but he's probably the type of guy who learns and memorizes by doing. In short, he needs practice and game experience. He missed all preseason and he's in a new defense. Come October we'll have a better idea of just who we signed last winter.

4:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is not a very informative blog. Remember Armando, the web world is different from the print world. e

7:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is the stoop above me talking about? I had no idea Porter is not up to date on our playbook. That's umbelievable information I really haven't caught up with anywhere else.

What was Porter doing all offseason when he wasn't beating up Cincinnati's tackle in Vegas?

8:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You wanna know what Porter was doing all off-season? He had surgery and with that surgery came rehab and with him being a marquee free agent he did more rehab than studying so he could get on the field in week 1. plus the fact he couldnt get on the field during Pre-Season because of it when MOST of the new players on defense learned the system. use some common sense before you start bashing someone.

12:48 AM  
Blogger Moby Dick said...

I hope Porter is just rusty and needs more playing time.

I don't know why, but Miami has a long history of getting expensive free agents that came here to get fat and lazy (and then left to suddenly regain their old form).

2:01 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I would love to see SOMEONE else on this blog site actually stand behind our players,our coach, and our team for more than one game. Guy had a lot going on, and now he is a lazy, stupid, monkey see, monkey do kind of player? Give me a break. I have had to rehab a knee recently, and it is a bunch of work for someone who isn't pushing it every day to get back sooner than expected. You tell me what players, or coaches are going to want to come here to this kind of crap? This isn't the Philadelphia Eagles, or the NY Jets, this is the DOLPHINS. Come hell, or high water, we should be behind our team. No, don't be a mindless rah rah towner, but give a guy at least one game of slack before you rip him apart. Jeez.

6:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Porter wasn't on the field because the Dolphins went into Dime and Nickle packages. In the Dime only Zack remains on the field and in the Nickle Zack and Crowder remain. Joey didn't know enough or was simply not as good as Crowder.

What really should be of concern was the way the Redskins spread the defense with 3 and 4 wideouts and then ran right up the gut. The Cowgirls were watching that film and I bet you will see a lot of runs from the spread formation. It worked particularly well when Bell went down because Tillman is not a physical safety and avoides the box.

We all saw how quickly Mueller went to the waiver wire to get a couple more physical safeties. The whole world saw that glaring weakness and it will be exploited.

There is hope... In the office pool I picked against the Dolphins. At least 80% of the time when I do this the Dolphins win.

9:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Salguero never fails to astound me with his stupidity.

10:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The fact Porter missed all pre-season with a knee doesn't mean his brain was sprained and he couldn't study the playbook. It is truly sad that Porter showed no professionalism in this regard -- and then has the balls to admit it openly.

WTF?

10:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mando, love your blog! As always, very informative and well-written. I am now eager to see how fast Porter gets caught up.

10:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

if i was porter's teammate, i wouldn't be very happy about him not having learned the playbook. He had plenty of time to do so. I don't want a player playing beside me if he doesn't know what the heck he's doing...no matter how good he is. It's Porter's fault and that's the end of that. let's hope he learns from it and gets better.

12:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm biased, I remember him from his days at I.U.. He has repeatedly made bad on-field, and off-field, decisions: poor clock and game management errors in each of the first three games; bad personnel choices. I'm sorry, I think we are into another Wanny era in Dolphins football. I know he's likeable, I just don't know if he can win as an NFL head coach. We need another two drafts to be able to compete, personnel-wise, with the elite franchises. We had forewarning when he asked for input from the media, upon becoming the new coach...are you freaking kidding me? I want a coach who already knows what needs to be done without welcoming suggestions from a bunch of pundits who tell you they know everything about every single aspect of every single sport, without having played in any of them. He even tried the old college trick of trying to bench players in the pre-season as motivation...big flop. Be afraid; be very afraid. He's wasn't the correct choice...time will tell.

6:12 PM  

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