BLOODLUST AND THE NFL

The Miami-Kansas City game mercifully ended moments ago. As a fan, the Dolphins are a painful team to watch when they're trying to come from behind. Jay Fiedler is not a good quarterback. He is adequate at best, and that's mostly when he's handing the ball off. Although it was working, the 'Phins abandoned the running game early and got into a shootout with the emotionally-charged Chiefs. They paid the price. The Chiefs displayed an explosive offense and a lot of heart last week in coming back to take New England to overtime before losing. I had a feeling this would be a tough early season road game for Miami. Kansas City is always a loud and difficult place to play and I was worried the New England game left the Chiefs with the taste of blood in their mouths without the satisfaction of making a kill. Well, they got their kill in the form of an alpha dog named Jay Fiedler. Fiedler was pressured and knocked down and confused throughout the game and heeved up a couple of passes in the fourth quarter that made you question whether or not he was on the take. He just threw 'em up for grabs. Fiedler threw four interceptions in all on the day, two of them might be blamed on receivers not holding on to the ball, but even those seemed to be forced throws. The Dolphin defense did not play well by any stretch of the imagination, but they did do a decent job of containing Priest Holmes, one of the leagues best backs. However, their secondary was pushed around and physically dominated by the Chief receivers, namely Tony Gonzalez, who had a big big day. That, in turn, had the effect of making Trent Green look like one of the better quarterbacks in the league, which he is not. Patrick Surtain, one of the Dolphins' starting cornerbacks was out and his replacement, second year player Jamir Fletcher, looked lost out there, making a bunch of mistakes and giving up several big plays. But it was the Dolphin offense that set the defense up for failure by turning the ball over often and at key points in the game when momentum was there for the taking. The previously unbeaten Dolphins came into this game leading the league in turnover ratio and had only given up 37 total points in it's first three games. Today, they turned the ball over five times and allowed 48 points in a 48-30 loss. You have to question why Norv Turner and Dave Wannstadt decided to abandon the gameplan when what they were doing was working. And, once again, you have to wonder whether this team can beat anybody in the playoffs if they fall behind.