Dolphins and Hartline are talking contract

Maybe I have missed something. Are you saying Cecil Shorts is available to be signed via free agency? Nelson and Driver are available too? What exactly is your point?

All your post and video did was prove my point as to why Hartline should be signed. Green Bay has a plethora of WRs which creates nightmare match-up problems for the defense...Jennings, Driver, Nelson, Jones, Cobb, Finley...the depth of the position created opportunities. It wasn't b/c Green Bay had a #1 and a #2 and that was it.

I am amazed at what seems to be this anti-Hartline argument. We suck at WR so all we have to do is get rid of the best WR on the team last year who averaged 14.6 ypc and 8.46 ypt, pay big bucks to a 30 year old coming off injury the past two seasons and use a high draft pick on an unproven wideout and we are set at WR and Super Bowl contenders...WTF kind of strategy is that? Obviously Miami's FO doesn't agree with it b/c they are talking contract with Hartline.

Of course, there is also the very real possibility Flynn is a much better QB right now the Tannehill. Those were legitimate NFL caliber throws and the way he sold the screen was outstanding. Based on their play in college and NFL Flynn easily gets the nod up to this point. After all, he led LSU to a National Championship. Tannehill led a team that was ranked #8 in preseason to a 7-6 record and out of the top 25. The two starts Flynn had against Detroit and New England were better games than any two starts Tannehill had in his 16 starts. Flynn didn't lose his starting position in pre-season, some guy named Russel Wilson took it from him. No shame in that. Chances are Tannehill rides the bench if it came down to a Flynn-Tannehill duel. For crying out loud Tannehill couldn't beat out David Jarrard this year. He earned it by default.

And yes you are right 1 TD on 74 receptions by Hartline with Tannehill as QB. Pre-Tannehill, Hartline averaged 1 TD every 21.6 catches, and not by pro-bowl QBs I might add.
The past two years Davone Bess had 1 TD catch every 16.25 catches. With Tannehill 1 TD on 61 catches. What is the common denominator? Tannehill

I am not saying Hartline is the type of player that turns a 10 yard pass into a 60 yard TD with his speed. That isn't his game. I will say he can certainly catch more than 1 TD a year with good QB play.

But seriously, I really don't see your point. You have thrown out WR's that are NOT free agents as a way to prove we should gut the position we have the least amount of depth on our team and...? When Miami has over $40 million in salary cap space...makes no sense imo. While many of the fans who claim paying Hartline $5 million per year is too much think it is a good idea to pay Sean Smith $7-$8 million per year...

All this "Hartline sucks" position appears to me to be fans fell in love with Tannehill. I get that, he looks like Opie on Mayberry RFD and if a team doesn't have a QB the team will most likely not make the playoffs and definitely won't be a Super Bowl contender. It is a QB league, not a WR league. And watching how well RG3, Luck, Wilson, Kaepernick, Newton have all done over past two years from the get go has probably left some fans in a state of denial that Tannehill is just as good as those guys right now and if he only had the supporting cast...blah, blah, blah. Rather than just acknowledge that he is a rookie and not at the level as the previously mentioned players Hartline has become the scapegoat. But seriously, anyone who doesn't think a player that can gain 1,083 yards on 128 targets, average 14.6 ypc, and 8.46 ypt while having the 27th ranked rookie QB throwing him the ball while having the opposing teams best DBs in coverage against him can't help this team move the ball down the field and worthy of being resigned...WOW!

 

Stop.

You loathe Tannehill. You have before we drafted him. Its silly, but that's fine. However, its gotten to such an irrational degree that in your effort to justify your hate, you've had to fabricate a fantastical love of Hartline. Here's the deal, you can hate Tannehill AND admit that Hartline can't do anything with the ball in his hands which makes him at best, average. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

Quite frankly, even though your insane Hartline worship was created to justify your Tannehill hate, its actually doing the opposite of what you want. Your defense of Hartline is so bizarre and not based on reality that it shows just how much your Tanny hate is emotionally based and therefore illogical.

 

With any luck, Teflon Jeff lowballs Hartline.

 

Wrong.
I was pretty clear I didn't want to draft Tannehill. Did he play better than I thought? Sure. Am I sold on him and have I "fell in love" with him? Nope not at all.
Yet I can still tell Hartline is average, at best.
Dude is allergic to the endzone.
Couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
And cant run for more than 10 seconds without falling down. He's kinda like my 1 year old. She gets going to fast for her own good and ends up face planting.

 

I remember four dropped TD's off the top of my head. It might have been three. But it also may have been five depending on your definition of a drop because one he had control and was stripped by a defender as he went to the ground.

Again you are misleading. Perhaps part of the reason he was the 27th rated QB was because.....wait for it....he had no-one to throw to. Nothing boosts your QB Rating quite like touchdowns.

We can play this game all day, but in the end I'll always win. You haven't refuted anything I've said yet. You've just tried to change the conversation entirely to other players.

What was Hartlines excuse before Tannehill? As I said the ONLY common denominator at this point is Hartline, and as I showed you NOTHING about his production changed other than targets.

Refute my facts or admit you're wrong.

Also devils advocate...is it possible he was only target limited times in those games because the man doesn't have the athletic skills to get open against top tier competition? His route tree is limited. Even in his big games (Oakland especially) he repeatedly ran the same route and one route based off of it.

 

The one thing I can always count on with your posts is the arrogance in which you think you are clairvoyant. If you aren't responding to me by trying to explain what another poster really means then you are trying to tell me what I think and feel. I know who really are...Chloe! Chloe the Clairvoyant. I always wondered what happened to you.

 

Cmon man, even your avatar has a picture of another team's QB, a team that beat us last year. It's like you're still bitter we didn't draft Kaepernick and are taking it out on Tannehill.

 

excellent move... re-sign Hartline

 

That production came when he was the number 1 target, I'm guessing he will no longer be a 1 come next year. Second, we should look at his play over his career not just last season. Assuming he returns to the number 2 or 3 spot, I think his production falls accordingly and paying him 5 million becomes an inefficient use of cap space.

If he were a budding star it'd be different but IMO he's just about maxed out. He has the smarts, route running, football IQ etc already. What he's missing is physical capability and that doesn't improve with experience. He's similar to Fasano that way. Then you have guys like Sean Smith and Chris Clemons who have great physical tool but need to improve mentally and technique wise. They are better bets to improve significantly in their second contract and more deserving of pay raises and extensions IMO.

 

Lmao. Im seeing people take out 3 years of him being what he will be for the rest if his career, a complimentary WR. Last year was an outlier for The Hitman and I don't buy using 1 yr as a basis for what he's worth in a multi year extension.

 

Don't buy it.

 

Looks like the section of this post where you attempt to make an actual point was deleted, on accident I'm sure.

 

I mean, I was going to ask you why you think it was an outlier. I'm sure you wouldn't have provided a viable answer other than he's Brian Hartline and you don't like him. So I decided to save you the trouble of thinking.

 

the more i think about it, the better it is for us to just let him walk. if you pay Hartline 6m/yr, one of two things will happen next year (assuming we sign a Jennings or Wallace). either Hartline will remain our #2 and our offense will always be limited (i can foresee a lot of games where teams double Wallace/Jennings but leave their best corner on Hartline, which means he'll be pulling more Houdini acts than not). or Hartline gets beat out in camp by Matthews or one of the rookie WRs that we draft and now we're paying our 3rd WR 6 mil/year. him and Fasano are similar, both average at what they do, but at least if we bring Fasano back he wont cost much.

 

Well how about $4M a year then? That's Kevin Walters money. Your going to have to pay a lot more for Jennings or Bowe or Wallace. If you use 2 picks on WRs in the first 3 rounds you could have used one of those to fill other needs like CB or OL etc. It just makes more sense to me to keep Hartline at a reasonable price than to create more holes to fill and hence continuing the never ending cycle.

 

What you call arrogance is me actually just simply reading what you write and making a judgement based on the words you choose to type.

You do, in fact, dislike the fact Tannehill was drafted by us. I'm not divining anything there. Its recorded on this site. You think he is a subpar QB.

You think Hartline is an excellent WR. That is also here for everyone to see.

I'm attempting to ascertain the "why". Hartline's stats and performance have been at best average by all manner of judging these things. Yet, you and the other apologists contradict yourselves quite consistently about the topic of Hartline and Tannehill. You say there's nothing wrong or lacking from Hartline's performance, yet also say that Tannehill held Hartline back. If there is nothing lacking with Hartline's performance how can you claim he was held back? I mean if he was excellent, then where are the areas that he was held back by Tannehill?

Was it yards? No. He got more yards with Tannehill than any other QB he played with in the NFL.
Was it targets? No. He got more yards with Tannehill than any other QB he played with in the NFL.
Was it TDs? No. He got the same amount of TDs regardless of which QB he played with in the NFL.

Either there was a lacking area of Hartline's game (that you blame on Tannehill or Santa or whoever) or he played lights out for the first time in this league (with the sub-par Tannehill as his QB)?

 

How nice of you

Its an outlier bc he's never produced at that level before and when he takes his proper place on the depth chart he's unlikely to produce at that level again. I'm not bashing the guy per se. But my worry is that over paying him will impact our ability to improve the offense as a whole. If we can get him for 3-4 mill then great, but 5-6 million is too much for a guy who has maxed out at average.

 

I am getting the sense you are a legend in your own mind...I don't dispute that Hartline only had the number of catches per game he had. Those are facts, they are what they are. No need to dispute those. So is putting up 1,083 yards on 128 targets, 14.6 ypc and 8.46 ypt which are good numbers when the 27th ranked QB is throwing you the ball. Yet there is an attempt to dispute those by a weak attempt to subtract his best games and then use those numbers as facts......do that with "any" player and it distorts reality.

That is interesting you rember 4 or 5 dropped TD passes b/c Hartline was only credited with 4 dropped passes all year and was only targeted within the 10 yard line 4 times all year. I guess those were all in the end zone, but I am sure I would have remembered those so I call B.S. on that. Can you provide specific games and context?

And I guess when I pointed out the Hartline averaged 1 TD every 21.6 catches pre-Tannehill while Marshall was primarily targeted in the red zone and this year he caught 1 TD on 74 catches, while Bess averaged 1 TD on every 16.25 catches over the past two years and this year caught only 1 TD on 61 catches that doesn't dispute facts? Okay...I do believe this is called FUZZY logic or just plain denial.

Yet, the only fact you just included in this post is that RT was the 27th ranked passer. And your argument is QB rating doesn't really count b/c QB rating is really WR rating in disguise? That isn't really a fact, that is an opinion and not a well supported one.

Here is a fun fact for you. Since Hartline obviously crushed Tannehill's QB rating I will subtract those statistics form Tannehill so we can get a better reflection of the QB he was this year.

Only "3" of Tannehill's interceptions were when he was targeting Hartline. One came against Houston when the ball was batted in the air and intercepted by Cushing so it never made it Hartline. Another was in OT against the Cardinals when Tannehill was hit throwing and underthrew Hartline on a Go route by at least 20 yards. The third interception came when targeting Hartline was also against the Cardinals and on a "BAD" read by Tannehill. Toler watched Tannehill all the way and simply stepped right in front of Harltine who literally ran into Toler's back he read Tannehill so easily. Should have never been thrown. So here is Tannehill's rating subtracting Hartline's production:

208 comp, 356 att, 58.42%, 2211 yards, 6.21 ypa, 11 TD, 13 int...71.73 QB rating...which would have put RT #31 in QB rating just behind Henne, but hey, at least still ahead of Sanchez.

Let's be kind and subtract the 3 interceptions when targeting Hartline and Tannehill's rating is 75.24...still ranked #27 and a slight drop from his 76.2 QB rating.

But let's be really kind and assume "all" of Tannehill's interceptions were the fault of Hartline I don't think is too much of a reach in some of these posters minds...

208 comp, 356 att, 58.42%, 2211 yards, 6.21 ypa, 11 TD, 0 int...86.94 QB rating...which would have generously put RT at #15 in the QB rating just ahead of Cam Newton...of course, we would want to ignore Newton's rushing.

So back to the point of this thread imo which is Miami in negotiations with Hartline why wouldn't Miami want to resign a WR when the position is as shallow as it is and he averages 14.6 ypc and 8.46 ypt?

 

His production really isn't an outlier. When you look at his stats in depth, he's produced at the same level he's always produced. His targets just went up. That's a function of not playing with Marshall and playing as the top receiver in an offense. You bring in Greg Jennings, move Hartline down to a #2, he would still see a healthy amount of targets. Especially if Tannehill improves and we pass more.

 

Seriously Chloe STOP IT, just STOP IT! Quit trying to speak for me. Let me guess, every girlfriend you have ever had has left you b/c they think you are controlling.

 

If that is relevant, then go ahead and plug Vincent Jackson's stats in instead of Hartline to see what Tanny's QB rating would have been with a #1 WR that can do something with ball and get open in the endzone.

You keep making these claims that Hartline coulda done more if not for Tannehill, then fine, prove it. Show us all the times Hartline was open in the endzone and Tanny didn't throw to him. Show us all the times Hartline was wide open and could have run to daylight and Tanny ignored him.

Better yet, show us on all of his catches where he was considered wide open. Or didn't fall down and break one. Or got real separation? Or anything a real #1 WR does to help his QB?

 

If we can get him for 4 million I'd be OK with that. It's not the bargain we had with him as a 4th rounder but it's fair value for a dependable player.

It'd be even better if we can find a number 1 in FA, a number 2 in the draft, keep Bess as the 3 and use that 4 million to bolster another part of the team, CB or OL as you pointed out, DE, RB, or TE also.

 

Wait a minute....you don't think he's an excellent WR?

Ok fine, change your tune then. Your entitled. But pray tell, what is your assessment of Hartline now?

If you are going to continue the name calling, let me know in your rebuttal so I can make up one for you.

 

Bitter, no. Do I wish Miami would have...**** YES!!! What Dolphin fan in their right mind wouldn't want that?

The reason I have Kaepernick in my avatar is I am a Nevada alumni, hence the picture of him in a Nevada uniform as well. Kaepernick is by far the best player who ever wore a Wolfpack uniform. I will forever be grateful for what Kap did at Nevada and a huge, huge fan. I also think Kaepernick is a "phenomenal" player. But my favorite team remains Miami which it has been for the past 40 years.

I am also a believer that a player should "earn" the praise on the field of play. What I saw this year was an inconsistent, rookie QB. I hope I am wrong, but I haven't seen the qualities in Tannehill in college or the NFL that will make him a great QB which means Miami still doesn't have a solution at QB. Truly, I do hope I am wrong. It has been a long time since Marino retired. I will gladly get on board with Tannehill when/if the play deserves it.

Why does thinking Tannehill was the bigger factor in Hartline only catching 1 TD than Hartline being the factor in Tannehill only throwing 12 not make me a Dolphin fan (not that you said that)? They are both wearing Dolphin uniforms. I think Miami needs to add more depth to the WR unit, not deplete it by not resigning the most productive player on the unit. And I actually think Bush, Long, Fasano, Hartline, Bess make a good enough core one offense with our defense that quality QB play would have probably gotten Miami into the playoffs this year. Not a #1 WR. That was the party line for the Chicago Bears. How did that turn out? Cutler actually had a slightly worse year with Marshall on the team. Championship teams are not built around a #1 WR. Good to have but it is depth that matters more imo. QB is, by far, the position most important factor in getting to the playoffs and making a run at the Super Bowl.

Obviously, Tannehill will get his chance to make me eat crow. I would love have several helpings when it comes to him....we shall see. But this thread has been about Hartline and I think I have done a good job of presenting the reasons why I think Miami should resign him.

 

His targets doubled, and his production doubled. Except his TDs of course. Will he see 130+ targets again? Who knows. Maybe. But as of now, it's outlier.

 

I don't think he saw 130+ targets. PFF had him at 118.

I'm quite confident he'll be at 100+ even with a Jennings opposite him. Considering the fact that he's shown he can produce at this rate even with the increase in targets and better competition across him, he's pretty much proven this is who he is.

 

there is no way in hell he see's 100 targets with Jennings here

 

If all three of Hartline, Bess and Jennings are equally able to remain healthy, I don't see how. This would mean either passing a lot more, or ignoring Bess on the same level he was forced to ignore the endless succession of players who were the 3rd WR last season because they couldn't get open. There is a good chance we'll also have a better receiving option at TE this season too. That could also take targets away from the WR corps as a whole, which would mean some from Hartline.

 

The problem with Hartline is wha he does with the ball after the catch. The other problem though is, he gets open, and he and Tannehill have chemistry. I'd much rather see him as our#3 than our two though.

 

I think we will pass more and Bess will possibly see less passes come his way. If you look at Philbin's history as on OC and HC, more often than not the top two receivers had 100+ passes come their way. That would be Jennings and Hartline.

 

I disagree.

 

So who is right?

http://www.kffl.com/player/18206/nfl/utilization/brian-hartline?uyear=2012

ESPN has him at 128

But I do agree. He is who he is. Whether its 65 targets or 130. A good productive WR who won't score a lot of TDs

 

Hartlines problem is that he is a 2-3 million reciecever who might get $4 mil on the open market but wants $6 million from Miami.

 

Well, let's look back from 2011 to 2008, shall we? It's easy enough on PFF.
2011: targets for top 4 WRs were 96, 93, 54, 54.
2010: 120, 85, 82, 61.
2009: 109, 107, 60, 28
2008: 132, 110, 53, 29

So, the last 4 seasons he was at GB, it was half the time. 2008 and 2009 were dominated by Driver and Jennings. 2010, Driver was slowing down a little, and Jones and Nelson were developing into bigger roles, it was a really nice balance. Sort of the same in 2011.
In 2012 after Philbin left, it was 102, 93, 71, 58.

Tight ends targets would factor in too. So there we see:
2008, Donald Lee: 49
2009, Finley 71, Lee 52
2010, Quarless 32
2011, Finley, 91
2012, after Philbin, it was Finley, 85.
In his one year as a head coach we saw our top targets being 118, 96, Fasano 62, All our 3rd WRs: 65.

After looking at that, I don't see enough either way to convince me whether or not the top two WRs in a Philbin offense are likely to get 100+ targets each. If anything I'd say it depends on how the talent balances out and if the top 2 get over 100 apiece it will be out of necessity. In those 65 targets our #3s got last season BTW, it amounted to 31 catches between Matthews, Binns, Gaffney, Moore, Armstrong and Naanee. That calculates to an awful catch pct. 48% If that would have been one player, he'd have had the 8th worst catch pct in the league.

I'd say looking now at all of that, Hartline and Bess shouldered far more of the load than Philbin would have preferred in an ideal scenario.

Hartline and Jennings could both get 100+ targets, but if they do, it would indicate to me that the #3 WR and/or the #1 TE were not playing very well.

 

I don't think it indicates that our TE or Bess aren't playing well. You could have a balance like 2009, with less passes towards the Tight End and more toward Bess.

 

Be that as it may, if we go into 2013 with Jennings, Hartline and Bess as our top 3 WRs and all remain healthy, and depending on who we have playing TE, I would not bet that Hartline is getting 100+ targets again this season. I'd say the odds are against it. Then again, I wouldn't bet he won't either.
I think Coach Joe prefers to have the ball spread around, if possible, rather than having to depend on 1 or 2 receivers getting most of the targets. Last season, had Chad Johnson not gotten into trouble and played 16 games for Miami, I really doubt Hartline would have gotten 100+ targets either. Or Bess getting 96 either while missing 3 games. Had Bess not missed those last 3 games there's a 50/50 chance he'd have led the team in targets. Both of them averaged the same number of targets per game. Actually at the time Bess went out, Hartline led him by 4 targets through 13 games.

 

We'll see. I think he most likely will. If not there, he should be close.

 

JMO but it seems like the Front Office has probabaly made contact with certain players and agents and have some groundwork laid out with them but are keeping the piggybank full for the start of free agency.