Here's the link: http://www.thephinsider.com/2013/8/5/4589506/football-outsiders-dolphins-q-a The last Q & A is the most intriguing and pretty harsh, to say the least. I still have faith in Philbin, Ireland, Tannehill and the whole Dolphins organization to turn it around, but I am a certified homer, so I might be pretty biased. I still think though, that RT17 has the tools to be a good QB and am hoping he will improve this season by a good margin, regardless of what the stats say, but we'll find out soon enough. Either way, I'm just happy that FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!
Another self acclaimed "expert" that thinks he has a system that can predict the ceilings of prospects. A stat monkey system at that. Spare me.
This organization needs a total paradigm shift. Steven Ross needs to understand that orange carpets, celebrity shareholders, and veiled threats to move the team mean nothing down here; championships mean something. Jeff Ireland needs to take his stylized brand of ineptitude to another team. They need to find a bona fide franchise quarterback. This may sound self-serving, but perhaps they might benefit from having an analytics department help them with all of the above. (God knows it's helped San Francisco, New England, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., etc., etc.) Another mediocre season accomplishes none of this, and I think Dolphins fans want and deserve much more than mediocrity.
I struggle with the two knocks on Tannehill being that he didn't start enough games in college but is also a finished product. Those seem contradictory to me.
Have you looked at Philly in the last 5 years? Not exactly my model for success. And I'd say Steven Ross has moved us away from the orange carpets shareholders etc. I think he's learned that lesson. 25-28 teams also need a bona fide franchise quarterback. We're in a better position than most, although its not a solved puzzle. We might not be flying to heaven, but the sky isn't falling. This time of the year on the forum is so painful.
Stopped reading at the underlined, that is OLD news, i'm talking not even slightly relevant anymore.... man its **** like this that will make having a winning season feel so great. Like the heat winning when everyone is hating. except 1000% better.
Hate to tell ya sport but Tannehill showed plenty of signs of taking the next step to be an elite QB down the stretch last year. He can make every throw, he just needed and still needs better targets. I dont mind analytics but with Football Outsiders theyre frankly just not very good scouts and their opinions on college athletes is one I can live without. As for Ireland, I like some of things hes done recently (such as locking up Jones, drafting Dion Jordan, signing Wallace) but I can take it or leave it with him. Ive seen better and I've seen much worse. But one thing that wont be happening is making every thread about Jeff Ireland.
The flaw in such projections revolves around football not being like Baseball in that physicality changes over time, for example Gibson may have been a dud in St Louis, he could shine in Miami. This is why I chuckle at stat monkery trying to enter football, the game does not work like what the stat nerds of MLB think it does.
And consider this, by their metrics, Keller had a great yr, reality is..he had a crappy 2012. In keeping with loyalty to numbers and not what happens on the field, comparing Keller to Fasano, of course it is a push...but if you watched the games Fasano was a massively flawed, slow, non playmaker..period. This is going to be a fun season.
Agreed, I keep tooting Keller's horn, the guy is a significant upgrade. The one thing that is keeping me up at night is: who is going to catch the TDs when we are first and goal? We can't run it in every time. Maybe Brandon Gibson? Keller? Mathews? Wallace and Hartline gt us to the red zone, but they are not big TD producers there. Tannehill needs a target there big time
no its the damn truth , my word some of you just refuse to see the truth about Sherman an Tannyhill like some of us have been trying to tell you these guys just flat out suck they were horrible in the big 12 and it was most people's opinion that they suck so shy cant some of you see that Tanny and Sherman are not the answers . its plain for everyone else to see . I want to win and want both guys to succeed but come on now folks if Tanny was to be our savior he would have showed more then just flashes. Tannyhill is not as good of a qb as Sage Rosenfels but he is better then Cleo Lemon but not by much . if outsiders can see that a team has talent and will be good then they would mention it . but they saw what some of dolphin fans saw and it isn't going to be R.T. Sherman was a horrible play caller at A&M SO WHY would he suddenly be great here ? just the honest truth whether I like it or not .
I make part of my living in Analytics in Sports, and Statistics overall. I Swear by advanced Metrics in Basketball, and proven their worth on this board and others. Let me repeat what I have repeated a million times before. I can devise formulas to suggest which player was more productive. I can even see some of the advanced team metrics as having considerable value. But using analytics to formulate and form a football team is pretty dumb. As a statistical rule, what gives them value is an increase and exponential inflation of the sample size to actually develop a trend. What kind of sample is 16 events (games)? It's stupid. I see a guy push advanced metrics to formulate his football opinion, I tune them out immediately.
Add in, athletic performance declines over time, in the NFL it happens quickly, so trying to do a 4 yr sample is also not likely to work either. I do think there are measurable trends, otherwise..DVOA..."snicker"
Have this pub's predictions been proven true in the past? Is there a reason to put much into these statements? I don't want to dismiss them outright, just seems like there are a lot of holes in their logic. Wanted to know if they were respected for their analysis.
What I see is a lot like the Heath Evans thing except worse. This guy is clearly a jaded Dolphins fan. One of the Fireland type crew. He admits that he's lived in Miami for a long time and goes to like 5 Dolphins games a year, etc. Think of the implications of that. His presentation of the data is very unbalanced. However, the shame of that is I don't believe he has bad data. The data jives with a lot of what I think is correct. Personally, I don't know either how much of an upgrade Dustin Keller is going to be versus Anthony Fasano, if any at all. There's little stuff he talks about that has the ring of truth to it, like the truism that rookie corners do not tend to perform well statistically even if they're talented in the extreme. It's just too bad he has to present everything in such an unbalanced manner in order to propigate his agenda.
As a long time Dolphin fan, I want this team to be a success. I just don't yet buy into the idea that Tannehill and Philbin are the long term answer as this teams QB and HC. I admit that I was not in favor of the Dolphins drafting Tannehill in the first round of the 2012 draft. I also wanted Fisher to take the job and the fact Philbin had no previous head coaching experience at any level of football was a major concern for me. I hope I am wrong about both Tannehill and Philbin, but to me they have to prove in 2013 that they were the right selections for their positions. If this team doesn't go at least 9-7 in 2013, I think that will be the end of the line for Ireland as the Dolphins GM. If Ireland is no longer the GM, I doubt if the next GM will want to tie his future job security to Philbin or Tannehill. The 2013 season is the most important season for this entire franchise in decades. Win and fans will once again start showing up at the stadium to watch the games. Another sub 500 season, after spending all the money they did in free agency, will lead to a further reduction in season tickets sales going forward.