OmarK tweeted some interesting Dolphins stats: 2010 Dolphins have an NFL low 27 total yards in punt returns. Pass D is giving up 6 ypa, 12th best in the NFL 16 Qb hits allowed for 12th in the NFL (most of those came against the Bills, who for whatever reason manage to pressure Chad Henne really well) 13th in ToP Offence has 11 penalties are good for #2 in the NFL behind Pittsburgh Offence is avg 5.1 ypp, good for 20th, 49ers were #21 and they fired their Coordinator Defence has 21 penalties good for 10th in the NFL The Dolphins are ranked 11th in points allowed (17) and yards allowed (310.7) per game. Miami is 19th vs. the run, allowing 117 per game Henne's QBR is 88.1 Henne is the 15th rated Qb behind Rodgers and McNabb but ahead of Freeman and Wallace. YBell is 5th in the league in tackles with 29 Beast is 5th in yards and 3rd in receptions. The two things that stand out are Defensive Penalties and 27 punt return yards, and the Offence is punchless, ranking in the bottom third in most productivity stand points, 13th in Time of Possession is not Sparano football.
if it was week 14 you'd be right. I beg to differ, we have those issues and we are STILL 2-1 and 1-1 in the division. Plenty of football to be played. We correct a few of those imo correctable issues.....and we could be in for a championship run
I've never seen a NFL Championship won in week #3.. We are still a young team, as they gain experience performance will improve.
I don't see anything in that list that is damning to a championship run. In general, you need a QB with an 85 rtg or better, a defense ranked in the top 15 and a positive TO ratio (ours is currently +1). If this team can continue to those things they are a legit post-season contender. I also find that with a positive TO ratio and winning the YPA battle you generally win. IIRC teams that do that win something like 90% of the time. The Dolphins are doing that since their offensive YPA is 7.0 and they are allowing 6.3. And before anyone asks, yes we won both games this year where we we won the TO battle and the YPA battle and the one game we lost we lost those battles. Of course there are things we need to do better, but in general, we're doing the most important things well enough and our record reflects that.
Special Teams and YPC avg Rafi, under 4 ypc is not winning football, and we of course always disagree on the value of Special Teams. To me: Special Teams won the Vikings game Special Teams lost the Jets game. Time of possession as well, which is another thing we disagree over.
I list those as areas we should seek to improve, but I don't believe they're imperative They help, but don't have the same correlation with winning. And IMO STs were factors that could have changed the outcome in those two games, but you can say the same thing about other areas. In fact, I would argue that the biggest factor in both of those games was the defense.
Most important stat: 2 wins 1 loss Time of possession is mostly skewed down because of Vikings game, which we won.
The Defense and ST worked together, then against, one another Rafi, in MN Fields 4 of 6 punts inside the 15 yd line meant the Vikes had to make more plays to drive the ball to score, leading to more turnovers. Against the Jets, the poor play of the ST mean the Defense was guarding a smaller portion of the field, meaning less plays, meaning less opportunities for sacks, offensive penalties, and turnovers. The one wildcard in the importance of ST is, later in the year ST does not weigh as heavily as earlier in the season, teams have discovered what they do well offensively, the ST unit itself by then is populated with players who have experience in their roles. And with Sparanoball, ST has to play well in terms of stopping return yards and gaining them ourselves, with a grind it out philosophy every yard gained helps, every yard lost hurts.
Sure, but the impact isn't equal. That's why every statistical analysis has concluded the same thing. That STs has less overall impact on winning and losing than offense, defense and STs. Its important but not as important as the other areas.
