Well, the good news is we’ve avoided the, uh nevermind. Don’t want to tempt fate. Word out of camp is that the defense is ahead of the offense. Which to me is a good thing because our defense has been a problem these last few seasons.
Granted, they are practicing against us so it’s hard to gauge how bad the offense really is, or how good the defense really is. This is akin to the 49ers back in the day when they were preparing for Super Bowl XXIV. Sure, Miami was a juggernaut on offense, but we were pretty damn good ourselves.
Miami’s defense however, was not very good, so for the Dolphins to be practicing against a subpar defense i felt, put Miami at a disadvantage as the 49ers were practicing against a top 5 defense. So, if our offense could move on our defense in practice, we would smoke the Dolphins in the game. Which we did.
Does that apply now? Well, the hope is that our defense has raised its game to the point where the offense really needs to get better to be able to hold its own against our improved defense.
Either that, or our offense is so inept that the defense isn’t really special, just playing against a bunch of stiffs.
I doubt that is the case, because even with Nick Mullens and The Beater, the team wasn’t wholly inept on offense last year, but the defense sure was. Anyhow, onward to the preseason!
Forty Niners Forever 
Whoa..WR Cliff Branch dies today at 71
Man that guy could fly, such a huge contributor for the Raiders..RIP#21 Cliff Branch you will sorely missed..
My brother told me about him when he was drafted by the Raiders, said what a stud he was for the Golden Buffaloes. That was my brother’s frosh year at Colorado (when they opened all the windows in the basement of his dorm and turned it into a skating rink). Geez, that was a long time ago.
Wow. That’s pretty young. Great wideout. 3 rings. Averaged an astounding 24.2 yards per catch in the 76 super bowl season.
The Raiders were one tough football team during branch’s years there. Never was a fan but I used to wish we could play like em.
Should be a Hall of Famer.
Agree Branch should be in the Football HOF!
Big mentor he said was Fred Blintekoff (sp) who helped him adjust to the NFL starting out, not a bad dude to have as a mentor in a HOF clutch receiver..
Chuck, This sums it up pretty succinctly IMO – The Miami Project was born because of the injury to Marc. I don’t think Nick ever took a day off – RIP Sir.
“We lost one of our greats with the passing of Nick Buoniconti. He was a great football player, a true Hall of Famer, but he was much more than that. He was a lawyer and a successful business leader. Most of all he was a family man. The work he did with the Miami Project following the tragic accident with Marc will never be matched.”
—Nat Moore, the former Dolphins receiver and current team VP of Special Projects and Alumni Relations, on the death of Hall of Fame linebacker Nick Buoniconti, who also raised million for spinal cord research after son Marc was paralyzed in a college football game.
Nat Moore. Another great 70s WR. He was a precursor to Mark Clayton and Mark Duper a few years later as a small fast WR who could burn. He even played with them for a couple years iirc.
We also got Freddie Solomon from Miami and he was a little speedster too.
Played some QB in 79 when the team was wasted by injuries. Back when I went to tryouts at Sequoia.
To think, I coulda been smoking buddies with Fred Dean and Freddie Solomon.
Salomon was 6’1 iirc. Moore was like 5’9″
He probably was that tall but he always seemed a little small to me maybe because he was so fast and a lot of other receivers were much bigger(Clark)
I bumped into Dwight Clark and Joe Montana at the Hillsdale shopping center like 3 months after first Super Bowl. Said how they saved the city and made hundreds of thousands of people happy when they beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship. The Super Bowl was gravy. Funny thing was, no one was really paying any attention to them. I was pretty pumped.
But yeah, Clark was a big dude. Joe on the other hand was tiny. I was amazed seeing him in street clothes. Same with Ronnie Lott.
New thread is up.