I don't know if they do though. Again, we were leading many defensive categories by a pretty wide margin the first three weeks of the season- how could you possibly not factor that in? Likewise, we've been down at least 40-60% of our offensive line since that point (up to 100% in one game) plus our QB during almost half that span. We have to compare apples to apples here. For instance, Indy was 14-2 with Manning, 2-14 without him. The world quickly said "they suck without their QB." Yet in Miami, we say "The backup QB should be good enough....losing RT doesn't matter." Which statement is more likely true? Do we expect every backup to be on Foles level or should we give some leeway when the starter (and his line) goes down? News flash- everyone says the QB is the most important piece on the field. That's BS though. It's the offensive line...it's always been the offensive line. It's impossible to win without them. Again, I'm not making an argument for or against anyone. Instead, I'm challenging expectation of what is realistic when your top 5-6 players miss significant playing time. I mean, people here thought we'd win 2-4 games this season and the national media said we'd be dead last in the NFL at the end of the season. You say our offense sucks (30th overall), our defense sucks (30th overall), yet we're about to win our 8th game of the year when perceived better teams aren't hitting that mark. That tells me two very important things- 1) Our team is finding creative ways to win with inferior talent on the field 2) Our coaches are MAXIMIZING the potential of that talent We can't have it both ways....either we suck like our statistics say (30th overall) and Gase has grossly over-achieved OR the statistics don't tell the whole story. There's also a third option though- we accept that injuries have made a tremendous impact and admit that this is a pretty good team playing short handed. Again, many of you said we were a 3-win team. How can you be disappointed at 7 wins and one game remaining...especially with the key losses we've had this season? You're screaming "Fire Gase" because we didn't make the playoffs in a year you thought we'd be the league's worst. (not directed at you cBrad, but the board in general) The problem is people's expectations...not what actually happened.
Never cherry pick statistics. We could look at all those other HC's and guaranteed find cases where they had to deal with significant injuries or other serious extenuating factors. For example, should we ignore Belichick's 1995 season with Cleveland where he finished 5-11 because the owner Art Modell announced mid-season they were relocating to Balitmore? Belichick was coming off an 11-5 season with a playoff appearance, was 4-5 at the time, then finished 5-11. Should we make excuses for him? I could go on. The point is there are tons of extenuating factors that affect win%, and the value of looking at all of NFL history (SB era) is that you get an idea of what the trends are. There is NO evidence our situation was so infinitely worse or even historically bad compared to others. Talk to many other teams' fans and they'll complain THEY have it historically bad in terms of injuries. In almost every case it's just myopic vision of looking only at your team and not at any others. So this is the correct "apples to apples" comparison you want. NO cherry picking. Go the other route and the only viable apples to apples comparison is that there is never any comparison possible because every team is different. Yes you can have it both ways because both are true. Stats never tell the whole story so that's always true, and it's true that Gase has led this team to dismal offensive and defensive performances, yet his win% is higher than expected given point differential. Still doesn't invalidate the argument for using statistics to judge Gase. Knowing the trends is valuable and it's dangerous to suppose you know how to adjust the trend (or expected value) for a specific case. RARELY can anyone ever do that in fields where statistics are used. Vegas had us at 6.5 wins, I predicted 7-9. Obviously there were some predicting far fewer wins and some with far more. That's generally the case given that the standard deviation between actual and expected historically is about 2 wins, so 95% of the predictions should be between 6.5 +- 2*2 wins, or from 2.5 to 10.5 wins.
That’s where I think stats can be misleading. How many short passs turned into big plays because of our playmakers. The problem with Ryan is that he shows some promise but doesn’t have the IT factor. When everything is going well around him, he can do well. When it isn’t he struggles. Invariably a QB is going to need to make plays when things break down and help win games. I just don’t see that enough for him to warrant the money or delay finding a better QB
I agree. BUT here's the part you're still not calculating for. 30th in offense and defense doesn't equal 7 or 8 wins. Let's try this mathematically to see if it's easier for you to follow. Baseline- (30th offense) + (30th defense) = .0468 win percentage on the year (let's just call today a tie for now to get 7.5 wins) Question- what does our win percentage equal if we're 20th in offense and defense? Or even average at 16th? When you look at historical records, you're already looking at an anomaly in the 2018 Miami Dolphins. So I believe it is cherry picking until you can explain how a horrible team on paper wins 8 games...including against some very good playoff teams.
11 out of the 12 likely playoff teams are top 16 in players on injured reserve meaning. We are 20th. Only in Miami do fans demand that we be that 1 out of 12 team and that injuries don't matter
I've done the analysis before and what you want to look at win% vs. point differential. This is the graph: Compare actual win% to expected and Gase is winning about 2 extra games per year than point differential would suggest (as of about a month or so ago.. haven't redone the calculations). I also calculated back then that this was only about 7% likely to be due to random variation alone, meaning it's 93% or so likely something REAL is behind it. I had a discussion with Fineas in Club about how to explain this and pointed out that all you need to get this stat is if you're slightly better than average in close games. In other words if your team doesn't quit as easily, but is otherwise bad offensively and defensively, you'd get the result we're seeing. And you have to admit that makes sense because our team doesn't fold like it used to pre-Gase. So Gase is responsible for a horrible offensive and defensive performance, but he's also responsible for getting the team to keep playing for a win. It's an unusual combination of traits in a HC but it's not a mystery per se.
lol.. I know. How people can STILL keep making excuses for Tannehill is beyond me. 2 INT's already. And those were due to bad decisions, not some collapsing of the pocket. Guy just has bad football IQ. Hopefully this is the LAST game we see of Tannehill in Miami. If it is, there'll be a silver lining to his bad performance.
The grass is always greener under the other huddle. Until this team actually has a line that is offensive only in name and not in playing style, you could have Batman, Thor, and Capt. America in the backfield, and it would not work.
Bill Polian. Says there will be a number of teams lining up to get Tannehill as their starter if we release him
Nope, I just made a case against him in my final season review. To be fair though, I have said consistently week after week that I needed to see the final games to personally know for sure. And now I know- even without everything else we've debated, Tannehill choked once again on the road in week 17. I had my answer halfway through the 1st quarter.
Here's a fun little stat. After adjusting to a common year the worst rating Tannehill ever had was his first game in the NFL while his 2nd worst rating ever is possibly his last game in the NFL lol. And they're nearly identical. His first game ever he had a 39.0 rating which in 2017 would be 39.59, while today he had a 43.4 rating which in 2017 is 40.09 (unadjusted today was his 4th worst). Just found that a bit comical.
Polian? Old washed up white guy who said Lamar Jackson wasn’t a QB? That Polian. Yeah. Not taking his opinion with much weight.
Cool, sounds like we can get a pick from a team for him. A second or third rounder would be fine. Matter of fact, let's trade Gase to another team needing a coach, for a second or third rounder too. Other teams clearly see the value in these guys.
Hopefully it's the Jets. Then we can beef up our DL and crush Tannehill. It will feel so much better seeing it done to him by a Dolphin than getting it done to him as a Dolphin.
Theres a good chance he pulls a Channing Crowder and retires if he we let him go. Unless some crazy team offers him big money, i have doubts he is gonna leave the city for a backup job. He has made tons of money and his family have settled down here.
I would think there is a meaningful way to combine the effect of the number and severity of a teams injuries along with the value of a player receiving those injuries.
I'd be thrilled to get some picks for both Gase and Tanny. I can only hope teams are as eager to have them as you seem to think.
There are two problems: 1) We don't have an accurate way of estimating the value of different positions, and losing a DT is different than losing QB. 2) Publicly available databases on football injuries tend not to even show you whether the player was a starter or not. So while in theory it might be possible if you had all the data you ever wanted, in practice I see no way of doing this.
I appreciate your response. I can see that subjectivity in both establishing a meaningful skill level and position value can be impractical. I didn't see it at first and I suspect many others would just ignore it. I guess attempting to qualify those levels is why these forums are so popular. Everyone can think they're right when there is no definitive measure except our own opinions.
I strongly agree that we need to regroup and build up our trenches and give whomever we have behind them a fighting chance!
I like that we can discuss things here and try and get to the bottom of the Dolphin's issues. If the answer to our problems were easy to figure out, they would have been fixed long ago.
Only you would normalize both games against the 2017 curve. LOL, classic math nerd stuff right there. =)