Apropos of nothing, I wonder how long before the NFL gets brave enough to use the vertical set pass protection that has become a staple of Air Raid offenses over the years. I think teams already use it sometimes but it strikes me a lot like the zone blocking scheme in the ground game, to where some teams use it and some teams make a system out of it and the teams that make a system out of it probably use it best. If you don't know what vertical sets are, they essentially involve having the guard-tackle tandems back pedal like a corner for four steps immediately off the snap in pass protection. Kick slide specialists in the NFL don't like it because they believe the offensive linemen lose their leverage this way, getting too high during their back pedal resulting in a weakness to bull rushes. But the thing is, the defensive linemen also lose their leverage and come out high because they have to run something like 4 or 5 yards before they can even make contact with the offensive linemen. So if you coach the anchor step correctly as the players come out of their back pedal, they can re-acquire their anchor and not get bull rushed. The advantage of the vertical set is that you essentially nullify the surprise factor of blitzes and stunts. Offensive linemen have four steps of back pedal to see what the defensive line and linebackers are doing. Offensive lineman might be beaten but it will tend not to happen all that quickly due to a mis-step or mis-identification, something like that. Let's just say I don't think Alabama particularly enjoys playing against it. For as much as Johnny Manziel runs around, he's only taken 8 sacks this year...only one against Alabama.
I think the surprise is that it was Daniel Thomas who got the start and ground game going, and that it was Miller on the field late in the game when we needed to run some clock. With all the hate he gets around here DT deserves some credit for coming in and doing a decent job as the starter.
It just seems to me like we're at the point with Daniel Thomas where nobody notices if he has a poor game running the football, but there are people that will absolutely make sure it is acknowledged every single time he has a good game running the ball. That kind of tells you where we're at with the guy. He ran well against the Bills. He broke tackles which is something I always love. But his plodding approach cost us yards on some of those run plays that Lamar Miller's speed would have gotten us. It's one thing if that sets up the question of vision/consistency versus athletic ability, as in you admit that there are plays blocked well enough that Miller would have gotten a lot more yards than what Thomas did, but you have Thomas in because he's got better vision and you can count on him to pick out those holes. If that's what you have, I get it. But that's not what we have. Thomas does not have good vision or instincts.
DT had a good half, dunno what happened in the 2nd half, maybe it was fatigue. If you're claiming he sucks then you absolutely should make note when he does well. If Thomas has started and been unproductive, concussed, fumbled etc there would've been a huge uproar about it. Miller is much better at turning good blocking into chunk yds but Thomas is better at bulldozing for 4-5 yards, it's a trade off I can understand given the state of the blocking.
Yea I've probably hated DT more than anyone before and since we drafted him but he looked the best I've ever seen him last week. Idk what it was but his vision looked much improved.
Lol if that's the best he can do then...shoot me and get it over with. IMO his best game was vs Houston in 2011, ironically that was when Daboll brought in more of a spread look whereas Sherm seems to be using him more in the base O and giving Miller more of the spread looks. TBH I don't expect much from either guy until the blocking improves. Losing Fasano has been a much bigger deal than I thought it would be, both in run blocking and pass pro. For or all the talent Ireland brought in to help the offense the O is struggling badly. No identity whatsoever, nothing comes easy, nothing good comes easy, to be more precise. Cant run worth a damn, no play action to speak of. We try vertical passing and the OL falls apart, we try quick passes and DBs are jumping the routes, makes it very tough to put a game plan together. If the D/ST can't pick up the slack we are in serious trouble IMO.
But this was literally the only game all year where I think Thomas has consistently gotten 4 or 5 yards. I don't think you can make such blanket statements off a small sample. It kind of pretends that the previous 27 carries just didn't happen. It was the exact same thing in preseason. Thomas had a stretch of two games in preseason where the perception was that he'd turned the corner because he literally had like four or five good runs. Four or five. That's it. Four or five runs and suddenly his previous two years didn't happen. Same thing here. We're talking about 7 successful plays out of 13 total touches. He's shown himself to be capable of putting together some games where he has success. In the Atlanta game I'd say he had 5 successful play on 6 total touches. Against Indy he had 5 successful plays on 9 total touches. But then the other three games we're talking 1 successful play on 19 touches. That's pretty much the definition of up-and-down and it's why he has the same 3.4 yards per carry average he's always had in Miami.
Don't know if anyone has posted this yet but Armando Salguero is reporting that Bryant McKinney will play LT and Jonathan Martin will slide back over to RT as early as this week.
It's the only game all year where Thomas got the start and a consistent dose of carries. I'm not saying he's a good player, I'm saying he played well in the first half of one game. Could be the coaches are fed up with Miller. Or maybe they went with Thomas bc he's more physical and better at getting yards w bad blocking, time will tell. I thought Miller would be a 11-1300 yd back and maybe he will be once we get some better blocking but for now I can see why they might prefer DT.
I'm not really sure I understand this argument. Why does it matter that Thomas was on the field for the first play of the game? Where does the rubber meet the road on that argument? Is it about snap counts? Because Daniel Thomas has had 25 to 35 snaps in 4 out of 6 games (he had 30 in this one). And if the argument shifts to the fact that he had 12 carries, you just got done saying that he wasn't as good in the second half of the game. He's had games with 8 carries before. He had games with 4 and 5 carries before. In this game he gained 21 yards on his first 4 carries (5.3 YPC), 26 yards on his first 5 carries (5.2 YPC) and 39 yards on his first 8 carries (4.9 YPC). Those numbers are better than any other game he's had all season. He didn't have a high average because he got carries #9, #10, #11 and #12 whereas in the other games he never did. He just had a good game, period. It's one data point in what has become a sizable sample pool over his career. I agree with you here.
FACT.... Lamar Miller is a better player than Daniel Thomas when the ball is handed to him. Call me crazy..or revolutionary..but I want the guy who is better at running the ball......running the ball.
What I can't stand is this argument that Daniel Thomas is on the field because he's a better blocker, and that's OK. If that's what you want, put an extra offensive lineman on the field. You could even run the ball with that offensive lineman and I'm pretty sure whatever he averages won't be that far off from what Daniel Thomas gives the team about 1 out of 2 games. That argument also glosses over the fact that Thomas has had many notable protection miscues this year. He's gotten Tannehill sacked twice. He's allowed four more hurries. One such play happened on that 2nd & 8 play that everyone is on about, where even if Clabo had blocked perfectly Tannehill ends up hit as he's trying to throw by Daniel Thomas himself who had been fork-lifted and flung straight backward by Jerry Hughes. That ball does not come out of Tannehill's hands before Thomas lands on him. Whatever would have happened on the play, it wasn't going to be pretty. At best, an incomplete pass which stops the clock and puts the Dolphins into another pass situation on 3rd & 8. At worst, Aaron Williams' coverage of the curl route was so tight he intercepts Tannehill's ball because he is hit as he's throwing it.
And lets face it, we arent a offensive juggernaut. Miller can put points on the board. He can give you those explosive plays..and if he just had the freakin chance..I think he busts a few long TDs. Its the one thing I absolutely cannot get my head around why you arent putting weapons on the field. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
I think its a laughable argument. I mean we are sacrificing offensive fire power for protection..except you are not getting the protection. It is really just confoundingly stupid Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Not to mention you're really showing your hand before the play takes off, because as a defender if I see Miller on the field, I think its a better chance to be a run play and pass vice-versa with Thomas
In theory. But in practice it hasn't really worked out like that. The Dolphins are throwing the football 65% of the time Miller is on the field and 68% of the time Thomas is on the field. Dolphins just pass too much, period. The biggest tip that a pass is coming is that the Dolphins offense is on the field.
Considering the health of Ellerbe and Trusnik, I don't see the sense of cutting LB depth. Also, didn't Freeny get knocked out of the game for a while, or was that against Balt? You add an OL, you cut an OL, that is how I would do it. Especially when one is an obvious glaring waste of space. Jake is now the 8th rated LT, btw.
The vehement discussions were based on Jon Martin and Jake longs play in the preseason, for that I took martins side and told you that Jake was performing worse in preseason, the other discussion was in relative terms, I said that martins plays in preseason was a level above last season and that his play had suprised me from where I was on him from last year, many times I acknowledged that that level would be hoping to be average at best..
Discussions I'm talking about had nothing to do with Jake Long, who has been a categorically better football player in 2013 than Jonathan Martin by the way. Your characterization and recollection of the discussions are off. With that I've said my peace. I'm not going to dig up the posts.
I posted this earlier, after the game... IMO we are a better and more balanced team when Tannehill is under center. We run the ball better (although I'm only basing this on one game of research and not the entire season, so I'd need to go back and research it). However, we probably can't protect Tannehill as well (yeah, i know) when he's under center. So you have an offense that struggles for consistency. Does anyone wonder why our redzone offensive stats are above average? Because he gets the ball out quicker due to the smaller field?
Why is McKinnie liking strip clubs such a big deal to be a topic of discussion? I'll bet there are dozens of players who like them as much or more than McKinnie. Has his interest in strip clubs ever made him perform poorly on the field? I didn't think so.
Your a busy guy, I don't expect you to remember context of everything.. I think it's funny that your inferring that I'm not aware that Jake is the better player... The only debate we really had was that you were trying to tell me how bad Martin was, and how he would not amount to anything, (where we both agree), I was merely stating that his performance was better than Long in the preseason, and that he did improve his game from last year.
Considering McKinnie has only ever played LT in the NFL, and that even at 34 he is better at it than Martin, this should really come as no surprise to anyone.
Was wondering the same thing... probably because of the boat scandal while with Minny. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Minnesota_Vikings_boat_cruise_scandal Watched an interview with Terrell Davis awhile back on NFL AM I think. He said after they won the SB, Elway picked him up in a limo with a garbage bag full of dollar bills and took him to a strip club to celebrate. Shouldn't matter what these guys do as long it isn't illegal and isn't a detriment to the team. His bar fights were a separate matter altogether.
Which is all I cared about, not Ck's dislike of Thomas (funny, he disliked Gibson's signing as well..)but whether or not anything had been tried to fix the sieve (no offense to sieves) like offensive line. If there is anything I can say about Daniel Thomas it is he is not a good enough pass blocker, his blitz pickups are horrible..like Clabo, tbh, he blocks like a *****. Miller must be dreadful at it however
In season with his weight and committment issues, yes there could be a problem, offseason could care less what he does as long as it's legal and he stays in some decent football shape.
There is a salary cap reality here that 'mando does not have to deal with, basically Clabo's deal meant he had to be given a legit shot to turn it around. I am glad however, 'mando, SOMEONE in the media who is not just a hater (the Big Slow comes to mind) calls out the Staff for some of their decisions
Forgot who it was Armando or Omar, said that Ross pulled Philbin and Ireland in the office and they came out nonos happy.
If the guards and tackles backpedal like this in tandem, what is the center doing? Wouldn't that leave huge gaps between the center and the guards? Just curious.
What matters is that DT got the start over Miller and that Sherm made a concerted effort to establish the run, something that most of us have been begging for for weeks. I'm simply calling attention to it bc Thomas has been a whipping boy for some time now and yet when he got his opportunity he turned in a decent performance. Im not making an "arguement", there's none to be made. I'm simply bringing up a topic that IMO deserves some discussion. If the coaches felt DT deserved the start then what was their reasoning behind it and why did they go away from him late in the game when the needed to grind out a first down or two to ice the game?
I frankly don't care what McKinnie weighs (obviously, the better shape he's in the better the player, but ...). What matters is that he doesn't give up sacks and that Martin can slide to RT and start over Clabo. Frankly, it is funny that we entertained McKinnie and never signed him and that we have yet to use the guy Philbin is so high on (Yeatman).
