Fans hold the Key

[fishface]

If ever there was a game where Dolfans have an opportunity to be a truly effective 12th man, this play-off game against the Baltimore Ravens is the one.

Joe Flacco has shown himself to be a better than average rookie QB this season, managing the game well for the Ravens and not getting flustered into bad decisions very often.

However, that was the regular season. Now it's the play-offs when everything speeds up another notch and the stakes are winner takes all.

Against a Baltimore team that frankly manhandled the Dolphins earlier in the season, Miami is going to need every bit of edge thay can get to emerge victorious on Sunday. And that edge, in my opinion, is a totally pumped up Miami Dolfan base going into this first play-off game for seven years. Is that right, is it really seven years?!

In the game against San Francisco, Miami for the first time in years experienced a true home field advantage as the crowd noise completely threw off the Niners offense in that 4th Quarter. That was absolutely amazing, a thing I hadn't thought possible in Dolphins Stadium, but the noise was apparently deafening.

On Sunday the Dolphins are going to need that same level of support throughout the game to disrupt and frustrate Flacco. This amazing Miami Dolphins squad have given us their all this season. Time to give some back!

[Zacko54]

I will be yelling on this side of the world, hope they hear me,

[mdbw]

It's also important because the Ravens and Joe Flacco frankly won't be expecting it. Whenever they have played in Miami the Dolphins have had no home-field advantage. There were still orange corners in the upper deck when Baltimore came down here in Week 7, the fan base hadn't jumped on board yet. Also, last year the stadium was practically empty when we won our only game of 2007. And in 2000, our last home playoff game, coincidently against the Ravens, the game was blacked out because there were still seats available at game time.

Furthermore, Joe Flacco is a rookie QB. If crowd noise can throw him off, it will be huge. He played at Delaware, he is absolutely not used to this type of atmosphere and if Miami fans can get loud enough, I think he will prove that.

Look at Baltimore's road schedule this year: they only won one game in a hostile road environment and that was recently at Dallas. And that had nothing to do with Flacco, McClain and McGahee ripped off a long run each at the end of the game to put it out of reach for Dallas. The other games: at Indianapolis, at Pittsburgh and at NY Giants.

In those three games, Flacco was 64/102 for 597 yards, 2 TDs and 5 INTs.

So, the crowd NEEDS to stay loud to throw off Flacco. Another key will be our offense jumping out to an early 2-score lead. If we can do this, then it gets the crowd into it, and slowly starts to take away the Ravens running game as they are trying to play catchup, which thus forces Flacco into critical passing situations.

Thus, leading to the third and most important. We MUST stop their running game. If we can do this, we would have to turn the ball over multiple times (which isn't very likely considering we only turned it over and NFL record 13 times all season) in order to lose the game.

GAMEPLAN: Make Flacco beat you. Crowd the box, and blitz like crazy. And on offense, we need to just do what we've been doing, clock controlling safe throws mixed in with time consuming runs. I also think it will be important to test them deep with Ted Ginn early in the game.

[marinomisser]

good analysis both of you guys. way to puts the stats together MD. You are right that the stadium will be a different place this Sunday. Dolphans will be pumped up not only to have their team in the playoffs for the first time in 7 years, but also because of the huge turn-around this year. Wish I could be there to lose my voice. I kind of see it as my job when I am at a game to be as loud as possible. If those guys out there are going to give max effort, so should I and together, we might win some games. That's as much as a fan can feel a part of the game.

[FinsFan]

I will be yelling on this side of the world, hope they hear me,

The yell that was heard round the world?