Sep 9, 2012; Houston, TX, USA; Miami Dolphins running back Reggie Bush (22) tries to elude Houston Texans linebacker Brooks Reed (58) at Reliant Stadium. The Texans defeated the Dolphins 30-10. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

Let’s be reasonable for a moment and admit very few of us were actually expecting the Dolphins to head into Houston and knock off the Texans.

I mean the simple fact the Texans were 5-0 all time heading into Sunday and this hardly felt like any sort of historic, or even trend-breaking team was probably enough of a karmic check for most people.

But if you’re actually into X’s and O’s, personnel and you know, football things, it also didn’t look good.

So if you didn’t watch the game because you were at work or it wasn’t on, or if you’re like many in the national media who will only check the box score, no 30-10 didn’t look good. And there’s a lot of things that need work on this team, but the Miami Dolphins played a lot better yesterday afternoon than will come through in print or on any 30-second highlight reel.

6 Minutes

For effectively six minutes at the end of the second quarter the Miami Dolphins looked like the worst team in football. That is not debatable. Somebody must have noticed something with Tannehill’s mechanics, because about midway through the second quarter the pass rush switched up and the Texans’ linemen, particularly JJ Watt, started focusing on getting their hands up into the passing lanes to try and get at Tannehill’s low release.

The result was a couple of batted interceptions that gave the Texans fantastic field position and turned into points. Then to top it all off, Daniel Thomas got stripped at the very end of the half and the Texans punched it in for good measure to go into the half 24-3. It was effectively a comedy of errors, it probably made many in Miami lose their lunch and frankly, I can’t remember a worse six minutes in as long as I’ve been watching football.

At 6:16 in the second quarter the Texans tied things up 3-3. By the half it was 24-3.

Now, Toss That Out

Yep, toss those six minutes out. They were awful and I’m certainly not insinuating the Dolphins couldn’t have that kind of stretch again. But it was more or less an anomaly of bad luck, bad execution and a few mistakes rolled into one perfect little gift-wrapped six minutes for the Houston Texans.

The thing is though, the other 54 minutes Miami outscored Houston 10-9. The defense gave up scores with its back against the wall at the end of the first half, but they also managed to bottle up the Texans run game and were able to get off the field on third down pretty well (Houston was 7-17 on 3rd down).

This defense is going to be fine, keep in mind it’s still more or less built to be a 3-4, most of the guys in the defense are still going to be making small adjustments to the new scheme over the first few games. The defense will improve and it’s got the kind of front four that will be able to keep Miami in most games this year.

Yes, there’s still concerns in the secondary. No, Miami still cannot cover a tight end all game and despite the progress supposedly made by Sean Smith, Andre Johnson certainly had no problem getting his numbers yesterday. But all things considered, the defense wasn’t giving up drives that spanned the length of the field yesterday. They weren’t letting the Texans dictate the tempo with their run game.

They were just vulnerable with a short field. Most defenses are.

Offensive

The problem all year is going to be the offense, but frankly there’s some good things going on there too. It’s tough to come out down three scores and stick with the run game in the second half, but this Dolphins team can run the ball as they proved in the first half.

The offensive line is going to be the strength of the entire team by year’s end. That battery on the left side with Long, Incognito and Pouncey is as good as any in the NFL and I said all offseason, even before the Dolphins drafted him, that I think Jon Martin turns into an exceptional tackle. He will improve a lot this season.

If Miami can run a conservative offense, they can protect Tannehill with a strong run game. No, they aren’t going to win their division this year, nobody expected them to, but with a strong defensive front and a good run game this Dolphins team is going to be competitive a lot of this season.

This team is no where near as bad as a lot of people are going to tell you it is.

Frankly, this could be a team that by season’s end has a sense of direction. They’re not ready to compete yet, but after yesterday it’s clear there’s more going on this roster than people are giving the Dolphins credit for. They need receivers and corners, yes. But this Miami team isn’t going to lose much in the trenches this year, they have a good stable of backs and if management doesn’t mentally scar Tannehill he’s certainly got the tools to develop.

Closing Things

30-10 never looks good, but be honest, there was a point in the second quarter when Miami was running the ball well, driving into Texans territory with a 3-0 lead and you may have even let yourself think, “they could win this…”

I think that’s a feeling Dolphins fans will have more than they think this year.

This isn’t a playoff team, but they’re also not 30-10 bad. There are more than a few things working in Miami right now.

Sept 9, 2012; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing (56) intercepts a pass against the Miami Dolphins during the first half at Reliant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Campbell-US PRESSWIRE

Bonus Boost

It came on a bad play, a ball that was deflected high into the air and landed in the arms of Brian Cushing, but what happened next had to put a smile on Dolphins fans faces. Richie Incognito, the team’s left guard and one the consensus nastiest players in the NFL, speared Cushing as he came down with the reception.

For the next ten minutes cameras focused on Cushing wincing, limping, and generally grimmacing in pain in the aftermath of the blow.

What stuck out to me was the irony of the moment, Cushing is a bruising linebacker famous for huge hits (and PED’s) and I promise a time or two he has celebrated blowing up a receiver as he went up for a catch. Nowadays the NFL tries to regulate against hitting “defenseless” receivers, which is what Cushing could have qualified as when he was drilled by Incognito on his interception.

For a guy who can dish it, Cushing clearly didn’t like taking it. In a vacuum, independently of team dynamics, karma played out perfectly in front of us. For once, the big linebacker who makes a name blowing up smaller, weaker receivers was himself blown up by a bigger, stronger player. It was Scott Fracas taking it on the chin. It was bizarre.

Of course, Cushing got the last laugh, the Texans won 30-10. But it did make for a memorable moment.

He earned it back.

Ricky Williams has hung up his cleats after 11 seasons. (Timothy T. Ludwig-US PRESSWIRE)

I’m not going to give you the run-down of Ricky’s career, Brian covered that already, I’ll just focus on what he did in Miami. After blowing Dolphins’ fans minds for two straight 1,500+ yard seasons Williams left the Dolphins high and dry in 2004.

To say the first time Ricky Williams retired was a bad day for Dolphins fans would be understatement. At the point he quit, he was one of the most beloved players on the team and was absolutely integral to Miami’s success.

I still remember where I was the night that Chris Mortensen, the harbinger of doom, announced on Sportscenter mere days before the start of camp that Ricky had informed the Dolphins he wanted to retire. Miami would go 4-12 that season.

It was devastating. The fans lost it, jerseys were burned, obscenities were laced through conversations about the myopic running back and for several years ‘Ricky’ became a dirty word.

Ricky would come back later, fail another test, go to the CFL briefly and then suffer a season ending injury in his only game of the season at Pittsburgh in 2007.

By the time he returned under Cam Cameron Miami was winless, flirting with 0-16 and looking for any kind of spark. Many thought Williams might be exactly that, only to have their hopes dashed as Williams was stepped on by Lawrence Timmons and sent to IR. Most figured Williams was done at that point. Many felt he was getting what he deserved. But either way his outlook was bleak.

And then something amazing happened.

From 2008-2010 when Williams paired with Ronnie Brown, he slowly began to climb back into the good graces of Dolphins fans. Little things did it at first, a touchdown run here, a little burst there. Then in 2009 Williams returned to form. With Ronnie Brown injured he put Miami on his shoulders once again, averaging 4.7 yards per carry to the tune of 1,121 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Williams put the Dolphins on his back at the end of 2009. (Paul Abell-US PRESSWIRE)

I remember the exact moment it happened for me, it was the same for many Dolphins fans, Dolphins at Panthers in 2009. Miami had just that week learned Brown would be out for the rest of the year and Ricky wasted no time assuaging the doubts of Dolphins fans.

Williams caught a TD and ran for one early, but with the game close and about 4-minutes remaining in the 4th quarter, he broke a 45-yard touchdown score to put Miami up 24-14 for good. That was the moment I think Williams finally broke back through.

It may have been before that moment for you or it may have been later, but for most Dolphins fans Ricky rebuilt the faith. Sure there were still jokes about cannabis use, Dolphins fans never forget, but make no mistake about it Ricky made it back into our good graces.

Just look at the abundance of number 34 jerseys you still see at Dolphins games. Look at the negative response many fans had toward the team when Ricky walked (even as he leveled criticism at the franchise). By the time he ended his career in Miami last year, Williams was back in the realm of the beloved.

That’s his legacy. That’s what nobody has ever done. Ricky Williams being popular again in Miami would be like if Michael Vick was able to rebuild the bridge in Atlanta. It would be like Albert Haynesworth smoothing things over in Washington. He screwed the Dolphins, truly screwed them, but by the end of his time in Miami you almost couldn’t help but be endeared to the guy.

There’s just something intriguing, almost mesmerizing about Ricky Williams. He draws you in with infective charisma and a deceptive intellect. He once gave interviews in a helmet because of social anxiety and now he leaves the NFL with a platform he plans to use publicly to address mental and spiritual health.

And I think that’s potentially the essence of why he’s got such magnetism, why you can’t help but like him. We got to watch him grow and evolve in Miami.

Best of luck, Ricky. (Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE)

There has always been something so very human about Ricky, something identifiable. He was a man struggling to live up to his potential and the expectations that came with it. He made mistakes, he ran afoul of the league several times, but he came out the other side a different person. A better person.

More than any fan-base in the league, Dolphins fans get that. You may not appreciate how he impacted the team in the middle of the 2000′s, I sure don’t, but you saw him grow from it.

He came back, he flashed that potential again and we couldn’t help but let him back into our hearts. It was as much for the plays he made on the field as the growth he made off of it.

Ricky’s isn’t the story of a one-dimensional football player. He’s a man who asked us to view him as more than just an athlete and grew into his own skin right in front of us. You can’t gauge Ricky’s career through just a football lens, it does it an injustice.

No, Ricky gave us a glimpse into the reality of the NFL, he pulled back the curtain and let us see that these players are men, not commodities. That they hurt more than just physically and can sometimes buckle under the weight of the scrutiny. Ricky was public about his flaws, sometimes maybe too much so, but he showed us all something we may never see again in the NFL, a truly genuine perspective.

I’ll always have a soft-spot for Ricky. He could have been one of the best, but he’ll always be one of the most memorable.

Farewell, Ricky. And good luck.

Dolphins fans are extremely hungry for a winner.

Dolphins fans are some of the most passionate fans in the NFL, that manifests itself in some fairly interesting ways but at the same time there’s no denying that South Florida is in love with its football team.

It’s because of that fact the last three seasons have hurt so much. Just after the first taste of success in seemingly a decade during 2008, the Dolphins slipped back into mediocrity going 20-28 over the next three seasons and firing the coach that started his career in Miami with so much promise.

Be honest, after Wannstedt, Saban, Cameron and Sparano it’s pretty easy to be jaded about the Miami Dolphins. It’s easy to expect the worst, to temper your enthusiasm and to just assume that no matter what move this organization makes, it’s going up in flames.

As tough as it’s going to be over the next couple of months though, we need to ease up. We need to give Joe Philbin a little bit of leash.

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