Breaking Down How the Dolphins Used Mike Wallace in Week 2

Ok, people never change. All similar events are exactly alike. Everyone on the team is petty and a liar. The media never invents narrative. Our staff is so inept, it never occurred to them to get their $60 million Wr more involved in the game until he got so angry about it. If a player is mad it can never be with himself, it must always be at the staff and/or teammates.

There. I think like you all do now. I'm sorry for everything I said. Carry on.

 

Yeah without the gifs and photos it was ... flaccid.

Now it's good to go! Now, if only you charted every single one of his routes ran .... :P

 

actually i have to disagree with you here. if you read teh conclusion CK clearly states that the cost to get Wallace involved was worth it.

 

The article is excellent. Thanks for the hard work. Your use of quality .gifs really raises the bar on play analysis, and I wish it's something more writers would do.

 

The fact that its claimed there was a "cost" is part of the problem.

 

It's called outcomes-based journalism.

 

"Free" can also be considered a "cost". Playing with words is fun.

 

ps

"The above play resulted in Wallace’s first catch of the football game. The question we have to ask is whether the Dolphins placed such an emphasis on getting the football to Wallace that quarterback Ryan Tannehill ignored a more appealing option to his left."

Granted there was emphasis in the game plan on Wallace, but how does that preclude Tannehill from scanning the field? It sure looks like he visually cut the field in half and had no idea that he had a man wide open down the left sideline, as per that last graphic- otherwise known as locking on to his receiver. I doubt that his eyeballs darted far to the left on that play while his head didn't budge in that direction. But hey, he had a helmet on, who can tell...

Tannehill is playing very well and it's great to see, but if he keeps on doing this then sooner or later it's going to catch up to us and become a problem. All of this kind of stuff can be swept under the carpet after a win- after a loss it will be a different story.

 

What?

 

Or it could be Wallace was the first read on that play and was open

 

Exactly what I said earlier.

If your primary read is open you throw it.

If your primary read is covered like white on rice, and you force it to him, meanwhile 2 other receivers are butt naked on the other side of the field, then we have problems.

 

OKay, lets put it this way. Did Tannehill miss a wide open Miller? Answer honestly. Yes he did. That was 6 if he threw to him. Did Tannehill maybe have in his head to included Wallace? Maybe. Does it really matter to argue over such a thing? No. Tannehill missed a wide open guy. It happens. We won, something for the film study which maybe we run it again and score on the play.

 

Great article CK. Our beat writers wouldn't recognize quarters coverage if they were at an arcade. Its so refreshing to get analases from someone who actually knows the game.

 

Okay, not that I have a need to get in on this, but for those claiming he missed a wide open Miller, is Miller STILL wide open if Tannehill I s looking that way. One would think that the safety would react to Tannehill tracking that target and adjust his coverage accordingly. That safety is reacting to what he is reading from Tannehill. If RT looks at Lamar, that safety plays it differently, so yes, Lamar was open, but there is more than one factor to consider and thus, you couldn't even have a scientific experiment about it since there are too many variables to consider.

As others said, Wallace was the primary read, he was open, and Tannehill executed as he should have. And oh, by the way, we eventually got a TD on that drive, so I am not sure why this is a big deal.

 

Bible quotes, picture of you in a zoot suit, be more of a condescending *** to your twitter followers?
Just spit balling here.

 

The resulting TD is irrelevant- separate issue, it doesn't matter. The issue, at least as I see it, is whether or not Tannehill should have scanned the field or gone to Wallace directly- and I agree in a lot of ways that if Wallace was the first read and was open and Tannehill went to him, then so be it.

But there is an issue regarding, to use a term mentioned earlier in the thread- opportunity cost. What opportunity was sacrificed, could Tannehill have had his cake and eaten it too, so to speak? Could, or should, Tannehill have done a quick scan and seen Miller open for the big play? Is that asking too much of him?

I'm not trying to be too hard on Tannehill, I would just have preferred that he scanned the entire field on that play.

 

I think it's safe to say he had a bit of tunnel vision on the play and I don't just chalk it up to being Wallace vision, I'm not sure his experience level is that of a guy who's gonna be seeing the entire field at this point..I also don't think there's anything wrong with breaking down all players (every level) flaws when we think we identify them..

 

Well said.

 

"One Trick Poney"

I bet the Stiillers are missing him right now.

 

One could certainly make that argument considering he had his best year when the stillers won the superbowl and he balled out in the biggest game of the year..

There is no quantifying how a safety/corner minds works when a good receiver who has elite speed enters the equation, imo it changes the whole dynamics of a defense and challenges any and all spacing concepts.

 

Watching them, I think the Steelers are missing the fact they don't have a line more.

 

Or that Charles Haley called a game where their first 20 passes traveled an average of 4 yards last year.

 

Well that's their problem right there...they have a retired defensive linemen calling plays...

 

If he scans longer than he did though, chances are Wallace isn't open any longer and perhaps the safety does recover and is involved with Miller. I disagree that the resulting touchdown that ended this drive is irrelevant. Yes it was on a different play than this one, but the end results is still the maximum amount of points you can get on a drive (excluding two point conversions, before the nitpickers show up).

And as shown earlier in this thread, if getting Wallace involved early prevents him from checking out of a game (as he has admitted to doing in the past), than the loss of six points on that play, for the net gain of six points and an involved #1 receiver for an entire game does exactly what ck says it does...outweighs the supposed loss of that play.

While I am not 100% convinced that Miller is guaranteed six on that play and that Tannehill missed him, let's say for arguments sake that that is the case. Realistically speaking, considering how the game played out, it worked out enter that we DIDN'T score that early. More time was swallowed by our offense on this drive with the net result being the same and less time for Andrew Luck and Co. to come back at the end.

Again, too many variables to definitively as one way or the other, which renders the arguments of both sides moot, but I can't fault Tannehill for a completed pass to his shiny new toy that he barely unwrapped the week before. It got Wallace rolling on a career day, the game was won, and points were scored on this very drive. Wins all around, in my estimation.

 

The TD is irrelevant. The point is maximizing efficiency of what we're talking about, Tannehill on that particular play, not what happened later in the drive.

For example, if the OL played like crap in a game and we won the game, does it really matter that they played like crap? Sure it does, because it's a sign of a problem on the OL that should be fixed, so in the future we have a better chance of winning games. If the OL played at the same crappy level and we lost the game, then and only then does their crappy play matter? Is that not kind of obtuse logic? I'll never understand that line of thinking, and I don't want to.

What if we lost the game, we didn't score on that drive and in hindsite that apparent gimmee touchdown to Miller open on the left sideline would have won the game? Then and only then the RESULT of that failed drive and lost game would lead you to believe that the PROCESS of how Tannehill does (or does not) scan the field is then relevant to you? Makes no sense, unless you want to rely on luck, hindsite and unrelated outcomes in determining the relevance of the issue at hand.

WADR your argument is somewhat analogous to saying that if someone drives drunk and manages to get home safe, then everything is ok. It's not- the next time that drunk driver might kill himself or someone else and the driver's behavior should be modified. Same principle here, although in a lot less serious vein. It's just football.

 

One play does not constitute an issue. Especially considering, Wallace could have been higher up the progression than Miller on that play.

 

It constitutes the issue at hand, whether or not Tannehill should be expected to scan the field on any given play to look for maximum opportunities.

 

Do you have any opinion on which of Wallace's many different routes he is most effective at?

 

I can see them in my iPhone. So thats good.

 

So one play equals an issue? A play, i might add, that none of us knows if Wallace was the read before Miller or not.

 

I thought the Stack WR formation was just to confuse the coverage but I just learned it can also get Wallace hidden behind the other WRs to get the CBs off pressing him. It's a really great way of getting him a free release and better timing on the routes and throws. Thanks CK. Great work.

 

One play certainly equaled an issue to you when you found a picture of Tannehill darting his eyes and jumped to a massive, and incorrect, conclusion about what that picture represented.

For me as per my point, this is a continuation of an issue, having watched Tannehill lock on to receivers last year. He seems to be getting better at it this year, but he's still doing it.

 

No. The picture i showed proved there wasn't an issue. I took an isolated innocent that showed what many considered to be a chronic problem to be false. What's happening here, is you're taking one incident that you don't have all the info for (where Wallace & Miller were in the progressions) and declaring it to be a consistent problem.

 

The picture that you're referring to proved nothing.

 

It proved he wasn't looking where everyone thought he was, which proves he didn't lock on.

 

On one play. No one is saying that Tannehill locks on all the time, that would be foolish. So if you're saying that Tannehill didn't lock on on that one play, ok...

 

Actually it has nothing to do with the staff, as far as I'm concerned, which designed a play that got both guys open.The question to me was did Tannehill make the right choice?