http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...e-miami-dolphins-protection-issues-on-offense Focusing on individual plays from this last game, but data from all three games.
Nice article! RB's and TE's need to tighten up, and the guards and tackles need to get on the same page with these stunt pick-ups. Was Joe Philbin the OC of Green Bay when they had protection issues the year that they lost to the Cardinals in the first round of the playoffs? Did he do anything to remedy their protection issues throughout that year?
Makes Tannehill look all the more impressive that his PFF QB rating is 4th in the league despite it. "Offering an alternative to the out-dated standard, we take into account dropped passes, throw aways, spikes, and yards in the air and further adjust the old formula so it makes more sense and is a more accurate measure." Puts Tanny behind only Peyton, Philip Rivers and Wilson.
He's pulling an Aaron Rodgers circa 2010. For better or for worse. Just hope he survives. Sent from my LG-MS770 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
The one part of it I will disagree with on PFF's passer rating, from an experience standpoint, is the obsession with "air yards". I agree that SOME yards after the catch should not necessarily work in the QB's favor, but much of it absolutely should. From a decision-making standpoint, from a ball placement standpoint, from a timing standpoint, yards after catch is as much a function of your quarterback's work as it is the receivers. If they're really hung up on it, I think they should be tallying receiver yards after CONTACT the way they do with tailbacks. That would truly measure yards that the receiver earned with his ability that the quarterback couldn't have necessarily been counting on when he threw the football.
I think they do account for it CK. They have the %YIA + YIA with and without drops right before the final calculation.
I'm not sure you're understanding what I'm saying. What they're trying to do is credit quarterbacks only with yardage that they threw in the air. I am saying that's a mistake. It will create bias against good decision-making quarterbacks, quarterbacks with good timing, quarterbacks with excellent ball placement. Much of a receivers yards after the catch are a function of these things. What I would prefer them to do is tally up a receiver's yards after CONTACT, not catch. I would also include whatever yardage a receiver produced after an official "missed tackle" that the receiver created. At that point, that's the receiver earning yards. Prior to contact, prior to making someone miss, I think the yards a receiver gets even with the ball in his hands were dictated to him by the quarterback to the same degree as the yards the ball traveled through the air.
Thank you. I keep seeing people here claiming he's holding on to the ball too long and it drives me crazy. Hopefully that will stop now. Do you think the dolphins can solve the problem in time for Monday? Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2
Just being honest, I doubt it. But the Dolphins have won three games despite the problem and there's nothing to suggest they can't win a fourth.
Excellent article. Although I agree the blame is not on Tannehill completely, is he partially culpable for the sacks he could have or should have avoided? Do remember the sack with Tanny facing the side of a blitzer and completely missing him? I have to watch it again and maybe it was too fast but from what I remember, he didn't even try to sidestep him. What I'm trying to say is, a QB who takes a sack in 2.2 seconds but tried to avoid it is different than a QB who takes a sack at 2.2 seconds without ever seeing, or trying, to avoid it. The second one scares me.The first just needs more protection. Are Tannehill's sacks of the variety where there is absolutely no chance for him to avoid them? Did he run into any sacks? Essentially, pocket awareness.
I just feel like Monday is the night we can't afford all the sacks. We will need to make the most of every drive against Brees, and I think a offensive day like against Atlanta will doom us. Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2
I agree with this. Watching Seattle games I have seen Russel Wilson have just as bad protection breakdowns however he is able to still get away from them. IMO this article kind of proves the point that Tannehill doesn't do his protection any favors, they have to have zero breakdowns to prevent a sack, which is nearly impossible.
The point I tried to make in the article was that any sack could be avoided by the quarterback. I'm trying to think of a single sack I have ever seen where the quarterback is completely blameless. I think the only one I'm tempted to attribute that way is a sack I saw in college once where Ahmad Brooks timed the snap perfectly and vaulted over the offensive line, sacking the quarterback while he still had his back turned on the play-fake. Or it might have even been a hand-off, I can't remember. But outside of such heroics, pretty much every sack in the history of the NFL could have been avoided by the quarterback. That's why I look at the tendencies that underlie the sacks. And it's why I say at the end that Ryan Tannehill's standard practices and habits dictate that he SHOULD actually be one of the least sacked quarterbacks in the NFL at the moment. But instead, he's the most sacked quarterback.
I don't see that conclusion at all. What you're not accounting for is all of the sacks that Ryan Tannehill avoided by getting rid of the football the 3rd-fastest in the entire NFL, on average. Dizzying scrambling skills are not the only way to avoid sacks. If that were the case then guys like Peyton Manning would be SCREWED. Instead he's one of the least-sacked quarterbacks in the NFL. As Ryan Tannehill should be, based on how he's getting rid of the football and bailing out his offensive line from needing to actually hold their blocks a normal amount of time.
I am accounting for that. I believe that Peyton Manning would have gotten the ball away in four of those sitautions that were shown. That fact that Tannehill is one of the quickest at throwing the ball away, coupled with the fact that he is not overly pressured, however is highly sacked, proves to me that he is not the protections best friend. Breakdowns happen a good amount of time in the course of a football game. The fact that breakdowns are so successful against Tannehill is troublesome for me when it comes to Tannehill.
Nice article. I don't think our pass protection can get any worse, so I'm going to be a homer and assume it can only get better from here on out! But ya, if not... Tanne won't make it to the bye.
But that's taking it to the extreme. On one end you have a tunnel vision QB. One who absolutely cannot sense pressure. On the other end you have the slippery QBs, ones you can never seem to take down. And in the middle you have the average QB who can slip away from some, but not others. I'm asking, where does Tanny rank? Be easy enough to go back and view all of his sacks so far but unfortunately I've deleted the first two games. I can go back at least to this game when I have time. Not all 2.5 second sacks are the same. 2.5 seconds to a sack from your backside is understandable. Probably not always avoidable by a reasonably aware QB. If you're sacked at the end of your drop from the front side where you don't even try to avoid the rusher because you didn't see him, well if that's a pattern it's a disturbing one. So I'm not talking about "every QB avoiding every sack." Just like every pass arguably should be a completion. Not happening in the real world. We're talking about sacks where evasive maneuvering should be deployed but wasn't. Questioning his pocket vision, not necessarily his ability to avoid the sack. Not everyone is strong like a Ben or Luck to muscle out of a sack. And not everyone is nimble like Dan in his heydey where a simple sidestep avoids a sack and then a quick release. But Dan had to recognize the pressure to sidestep. But if he checks out fine, he checks out fine.
Excellent article. This article should be distributed to all fans and the media that are convinced that the problem is purely on Tannehill's shoulders. Of course we are hyper critical as fans of the team, so it's easy to focus on Tanny's shortcomings while ignoring other QB's that may exhibit the exact same behavior. Great job.
I don't think this is correct at all. Tannehill is taking a tremendous amount of pressure off his protection by getting the ball out so quickly that it doesn't matter that their blocks aren't holding up. Then when he DOES try and hold the ball longer than 2.5 seconds to try and find targets down the field (which every quarterback does), he gets sacked. Ryan Tannehill 29.17% Carson Palmer 19.57% Aaron Rodgers 19.23% Brandon Weeden 16.67% Eli Manning 16.67% Chad Henne 16.67% Andrew Luck 14.55% Ben Roethlisberger 14.55% Jake Locker 14.29% Michael Vick 14.06% Drew Brees 13.89% Joe Flacco 13.79% Russell Wilson 13.33% Cam Newton 13.33% Andy Dalton 13.16% Christian Ponder 13.04% Josh Freeman 12.73% E.J. Manuel 12.70% Philip Rivers 12.20% Alex D. Smith 12.12% Matt Schaub 12.07% Tony Romo 10.87% Geno Smith 10.71% Terrelle Pryor 10.00% Matt Ryan 10.00% Robert Griffin III 9.68% Colin Kaepernick 8.45% Tom Brady 8.33% Peyton Manning 7.55% Jay Cutler 5.66% Sam Bradford 3.70% Matthew Stafford 3.13% That percentage represents the percentage of times a quarterback holds the football longer than 2.5 seconds and gets sacked doing so. In other words, Ryan Tannehill is operating under a different set of rules from all the other QBs in the league. When they hold the ball longer than 2.5 seconds, they will not necessarily be sacked because their blocking is holding up. When Ryan tries to do that, he's sacked 3 times in 10.
I don't quite see: A) How I'm taking anything to any extremes as you say, B) How I've not already answered the question about where Tannehill ranks.
I don't think CK should be questioned here. He has clearly taken a very neutral stance on Tannehill, and is using data to prove that Tannehill is less of the problem than we apparently think when it comes to taking sacks. He isn't saying that Tannehill can't improve his pocket awareness or drawing any other conclusions. The facts are the facts. Tannehill releases the ball quicker than most QB's and has less time than most QB's to throw the ball. That cannot be disputed, and CK does not, nor has he ever shown that he has a pro Tannehill agenda on these boards.
I don't mind disagreement. I'm just arguing the points. For the record so nobody thinks I'm taking anything personally.
Man I love reading your articles. It gives me insight into the Dolphins that you cannot get anywhere else on the web. I wish the announcers would read articles like this, it would make their performance on the broadcast a lot better.
The article indicts the oline imo..Can Tannehill get better at sensing and avoiding pressure, yes, but not if his mindset is to stay in the pocket and get to his reads, if he's doing that and the oline isn't allowing proper time, then he's always gonna be a step slow, give him time, let him see the read, let him have time to sense and see the pressure, and he might be able to elude the defenders better.. Coach was adamant that's Ryan is responsible for some, and that a few are unacceptable, for which I do agree with but this article lets us know that any Qb with below average time to get rid of the ball, is gonna struggle getting rid of the ball.
Facts are the facts, however I disagree with his interpretation of the facts. He sees the fact that he gets the ball out quickly means he is helping the protection. I see the fact that he is sack so often with breakdowns as he isn't using savy (Manning) or athletism (Russell) to bail out the the protection. One reason I think football is so fun to discuss is that it a lot of the times facts are not so cut and dry.
Define "savvy" as you use it. How is Peyton Manning going to hold the ball longer than 2.5 seconds, be on the ground by 3.5 seconds, but have gotten rid of the football with "savvy" in the space between?
I don't think CK is trying to relieve Tannehill of the critisim that his pocket awareness needs improvement. Anyone with a set of eyes can see that Tannehill has taken some poor sacks where he either could have thrown the ball away or stepped up in the pocket to avoid getting hit. What he is proving is that our offensive line is offensive in pass pro, and that Tannehill is facing increased pressure with pocket time far lower than most QB's. This has forced Tannehill to release quicker, because when he doesn't he gets sacked an astonishing 30% of the time.
Well I really don't know what you want Tannehill to do. The timing of these sacks does not give Tannehill time to do all that you want him to do. You want him to drop back, go through his reads, and then scramble out of the pressure, all in under 2.5 seconds and that simply isn't realistic. If you want him to avoid these sacks, then basically he has to drop back and immediately start scrambling because the pressure is already on him. He wont have time to read and throw the football.
I think this issue is the most difficult topic to understand in Ryan's skillset and development..this is something I've talked about all offseason, and I think I'm at the conclusion that we have a Qb who has a mindset of a strict pocket Qb, who's receiver athleticism does not translate into his Qb escapability to the level one would think...I think we have a player improving incrementally, I think the game is starting to slow down a little, and once he can see more of the field, and see his reads quicker, he will have more time to decipher the pass rush and Improve that part of his game. The fumbles have got to be exonerated..experience is key..
In response to my question of whether Tannehill is partially culpable of the sacks (since you reasonably placed the blame on the protection) you say in the article it states that all QBs can arguably avoid all sacks. But that wasn't my question. It's a subjective opinion, on whether a QB could have avoided a sack. So I was asking your opinion since you looked at all 14 sacks and I haven't. Watching Philip Rivers he has a knack of getting the ball away even when contained in the pocket and he has no knees and the chargers haven't been that great on the oline in recent years (especially last year). He's able to buy one step and then flip a ball at the feet of an eligible receiver, so there isn't grounding. I see your stats above about holding the ball 2.5 seconds or longer and getting sacked 29% of the time for Tanny. But does this take into account a QBs ability to avoid the sack at 2.5+ secs? That's what I'm getting at. and the only way to judge is to view the tape and make a subjective observation. That stat alone doesn't take into account a QBs ability to avoid a sack. It just says he was sacked 29% of the time when holding onto the ball more than 2.5 seconds. Watch Philip and he has a knack of being damn near on the ground and flipping the ball away. How many sacks did PFF give responsibility to Tanny? Quarterback responsible sacks? If it's average or below average then good. Last year he was 12th highest. and I know it's early so perhaps waiting until the end of the year to determine this is fine. https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/05/20/neils-nfl-daily-may-20-2013/
Tannehill never does this? Because I can point you to lots of plays where he does get rid of the ball before pressure can get to him.
There were several instances where Thill held the ball for a long time and still took a sack. Let's assume that happened 3 times already this year. That accounts for a 20% reduction in sack count, which makes the overall sack numbers seem a bit less gruesome.
I can probably pull up about 5 plays where it's clear that Tannehill's internal timer is set to about 2.5 seconds and if he hasn't begun his throw by then he's often pulling the ball and scrambling.
I know what he is saying. It has forced Tannehill to release qucker because he is bad at avoiding sacks so he is sacked at an astonishing 30% of the time. Also the blame also lays a lot on the runningbacks and the tight ends. Which is why I use pass protection rather than oline.
So let me get this right. Your theory is that Tannehill releases the ball quickly because he's not very good at avoiding sacks when he holds the ball longer than 2.5 seconds. If that theory were true, then Tannehill's average time to being sacked would not be 7th lowest in the NFL. Check.
I would imagine it would be first for a check mate. What are the sack rates of the people who are lower than him? What does 7th lowest in comparision to 7th worst?
