I'm hoping this weekend begins of stretch of games where we are very, very wrong about shit. We've done quite a bit of belly-aching this week about The Robot getting benched and us mortgaging our future by putting in a QB fresh off his third major shoulder surgery. As much as we love Captain Balls around here and watch him fondly as he raps his way into our hearts, it's still going to come down to making plays and getting a win - none more important than a home win against the Titans this Sunday. Failing a win on Sunday, all that cuteness don't mean a ding dang and we're back to Square One: rudderless and without a QB. So to say this is a FUCKING HUGE GAME AND WE NEED A WIN is no understatement.
Keys
- #1 with a bullet is the play of Chad Eminenington and whether or not he can get this offense going. He was brought in for this explicit reason and he's a fire-y leader, no doubt. But all that moxie and intelligence won't mean a shit if DBs are jumping our routes and catching his flutter balls for pick 6's, left and right. We have no idea what to expect from Chad out there but that's part of the reason we're a little excited about what that means. How much does he have left? How well has he recovered? Can he really jumpstart this offense?
- Contain Chris Johnson. Watch the screens. Our LBs got shredded last week and there's no doubt Tennessee took notes. We have to find ways to compensate for this weakness.
- Feed The Beast before that dude kills somebody on the sideline. The tension is bubbling and you have to think that Pennington's promotion had something to do with The Beast's increasingly-transparent frustrations. In limited time together during the preseason, Pennington found ways to get him the ball so let's hope that stuck.
- Return of the run game? There's some wiggle room against this 14th-ranked D and the Chad's arm limitations would imply a re-commitment to the run but who the fuck knows with this team anymore? Our identity is murky at best on offense.
- Vontae vs. Randy Moss. VD has to bounce back from one of his worst games as a Dolphin last week. There's no better week to do that than now against Tennessee.
- Get to Vince Young. We haven't played very inspired defense lately (Cincy 2nd half aside) so we'll have to find ways to get pressure on a gimpy Young. He must be rattled and contained from running. He's best making plays on his feet so keeping in the pocket while setting up some exotic blitzes would go a long way towards securing the W.
Prediction: Dolphins 24 - Titans 13. Pennington goes all How Stella Got Her Groove Back and fucks the Titans shit UP. As my friend Chuck said all the way down the stadium ramp, over and over again loudly after we beat them around Christmas 2005:
'TITAAANSS SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK' (upward swing to the end)
GO DOLPHINS!
