Miami Dolphins In Depth

Dolphins are not ready for the regular season

On the bright side ... the regular season is still two weeks away.

The dim reality ... it's going to take longer than two weeks to make the Dolphins even halfway decent. But it wasn't all terrible.

And, as I wrote in my column for today's Miami Herald, the starters on defense kept the Falcons out of the end zone and showed some progress.

"It looked more like the defense I thought we'd be seeing," coach Joe Philbin said.

Otherwise, this 23-6 preseason loss to the Atlanta Falcons was painful to watch. The Dolphins look like a bad team right now. They play like a bad team right now.

"Don't ask me for answers, I just block," guard Richie Incognito said half-kiddingly, half-seriously. "It's a situation right now where it's preseason and we're trying to find our indentity and you have to go watch the tape and figure out what's wrong. This is the time to correct it.

"We have two weeks to work. We have two weeks to fix what we did wrong. We have to find rhythm on offense and find a way to put the ball in the end zone."

Two weeks to turn things around. For a receiver corps -- tight ends included -- that has shown practically zero improvement this preseason, the only way we see a turnaround is if we see a fresh set of players.

I'm not giving up on the youngsters. But some guys simply are who they are. The fact is this corps has struggle so much that Brian Hartline's chances of making the team have improved while he's been injured and not playing.

No one made plays this night. No one. In truth, there were seven dropped passes -- three by starting tight end Anthony Fasano.

"The coaches told us that coming in, they want someone who is going to start it off for us," Legedu Naanee said. "Nobody grabbed that tonight, we need to get back to work and make sure the next time we have the opportunity to make plays."

Quarterback Ryan Tannhill was not good against Atlanta. He had a 37.9 quarterback rating while he completed only 11 of 27 passes. But you give him the four or five passes that were dropped and suddenly his numbers look more acceptable.

Despite that, Tannehill tried to strike a typically positive chord.

"We did some things better than we did last week," he said. "And we did some things not as good as last week. I thought we improved. The line did a great job.

"We couldn't find a rhythm. We just need to be more consistent in my play and the offense as a whole. We need to be more consistent."

The regular season is coming. The Dolphins are not ready

Live blog of Dolphins vs. Falcons (plus pregame info) here

Guard Artis Hicks is out with a neck injury. John Jerry starts at right guard, as I reported yesterday. Kevin Burnett (back) is not playing so Gary Guyton starts for him. And as I previously read on this blog, Karlos Dansby (knee) also isn't playing while Austin Spitler takes his spot.

The rest of the Dolphins scratches tonight:

David Garrard (knee), Kelcie McCray (foot), Kevyn Scott (leg), Jonas Gray (knee), Burnett (back), Dansby (knee), Lydon Murtha (foot), Tony McDaniel (leg) and Brian Hartline (leg).

The Murtha injury is interesting in that he missed much of last season with a foot injury. It is unknown if it's the same foot but this is not good.

Vontae Davis is scheduled to play so you can now totally discoun the idea he's going to be traded in the next day or so.

And finally, we have a live blog going this evening. I'll meet you in the comments section at kickoff.

Dansby to miss second preseason game, eyes Sept. 9

The Dolphins defense, particularly the starting unit, is expecting a major rebound from the first two preseason games. After those games, coach Joe Philbin made the point that the unit basically hasn't stopped anyone yet in the preseason.

Middle linebacker is supposed to be a major cog in that unit. He's its highest-paid player. He's in the middle of everything. He's barking the play-calls. He's supposed to make the most tackles.

But this preseason has become something of a calm before the storm for Dansby because after playing in the opener, he missed practices leading up to the Carolina game, sat out the game, and missed work again this week. And Dansby, still nursing a knee injury, is going to be out tonight.

Indeed, the Dolphins and Dansby are eyeing the Sept. 9 regular-season opener against Houston as his return to the lineup. He may practice before then but play tonight or the preseason-finale against Dallas? That's not the priority.

That means Gary Guyton and Austin Spitler and Jason Trusnik may all see time in the middle as the Dolphins continue looking for a suitable backup middle linebacker for Dansby.

Tannehill doesn't have ticket buyers excited ... yet

The Dolphins announced first-round rookie draft pick Ryan Tannehill had won the starting quarterback job on Monday. And the lines have been out the door and around the block at the Dolphins ticket office ever since.

No. Not really.

I'm told ticket sales have been steady but there has been no appreciable surge of ticket sales since the Dolphins got themselves a new quarterback. Now, folks in the club's business offices are hopeful that Tannehill can eventually show so much promise on the field that fans truly get excited about the team again and indeed do flood the ticket windows.

But Dolphins fans, who have been through 16 other starting quarterbacks since Dan Marino, apparently want to see the product perform before they plunk down money to, well, see the product perform. This is not a faith exercise anymore for them.

And that is the reason tonight's preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons is important to the Dolphins on multiple levels. Yes, from a football standpoint it is a priority for Tannehill to reward his coaches' decision to start him by playing well. It will make the entire football team feel good about its signal-caller.

But as the Dolphins are a for-profit business the club is also hoping Tannehill shows up bigtime so that fans react, so that the excitement that has been lacking returns, so that ticket sales pick up. "A 70-yard bomb on the first series would be nice," is how one club source put it.

Amen!

Let's face it, football isn't the same when the stadium has wide swaths of empty seats. Fans don't have as good a time and the team doesn't enjoy as strong a home field advantage, which as everyone agrees, is important. In Miami it can be downright depressing when opposing fans arrive in legions and the home fans can't muster the same type of enthusiasm or noise to make life difficult for the opposing offense.

The Dolphins need an injection of good news throughout the organization. They need fans to get excited enough about the team to actually buy tickets and attend games. That will help the team win at home. But it's a Catch-22.

The fans aren't going to come out to help the team win until the team wins.

Maybe if Ryan Tannehill plays exceedingly well tonight, it can be a first step in that cycle. That makes his performance tonight important to the organization on multiple levels.