The Dolphins vs. the Top Four Playoff Seeds: A Comparison

Yes, Ryan Tannehill in his third year is not as good as Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, and Russell Wilson.

It seems like this was the goal of this study so this shouldn't be surprising.

 

Avg time to throw is the same??

That stat is something i would like to see expanded on. Do you have a link?

Not that i dont believe you i can see that with Wilson because hes always running for his life it seems....Brady on the other hand seems to stand in the pocket patting the ball for seconds at a time.

 

Can you explain why the qb DVOA would be "significantly worse" relative to his regular season qbr which is pretty good?

Edit...oh I see its significantly worse than the top 4 seeds qbs.

 

I don't draw a big distinction between rebuilding now versus doing it in 2016 or 2017. We probably will wind up rebuilding in another year or two but I want to stay with Philbin so we can stay with Lazor and Tannehill in 2016.

But I'm going to be cautiously optimistic with both the OC and the QB. We have to be honest in our evaluation because both of those guys could wind up being disappointments in the end. DJ has spoken to the weaknesses of Ryan Tannehill and Dez has spoken quite a bit in regards to the pass-heavy play-calling of Lazor. I don't think either guy was speaking for himself. We all see that stuff every single time the Dolphins play. Some people paint it as half full, some half empty but we're all sitting here watching a glass that could hold more water.

I want to see how the offense develops next year but I have a sneaking suspicion that what we'll get will be very much on par with what we already have. I don't believe that Ryan Tannehill is going to be markedly better next year in any particular area. The game in the NFL is not so complex that good QBs don't show themselves early on. Andrew Luck plays like a 10-year veteran. RGIII, Wilson, Dalton, and Kaepernick all played great early on. Even Flacco and Ryan had good success within their first few years. The question is not whether early success can be achieved. I think you can pretty much tell who a guy is after 1 or 2 seasons. Does he have confidence in the pocket? Is he a gunslinger? The question is whether the player's ceiling is high enough--it's about whether his passing, scrambling and game management is so good that the offense can be structure around him alone.

Tannehill has strengths and weaknesses now which place him high on the list of "other guys" but in my view he's probably never going to be a dominant player like Rodgers, Brady, Luck, Manning, etc. Wilson is not elite in terms of being a passer in my opinion but he does so much else that he earns his place amongst the league's better QBs. In my view, he's probably the best scrambler there is in football and it's not a fluke with him. I generally don't buy into the Cam Newton and Colin Kaepernick type QBs but in my view Russell is just so much better he's legit.

This is why I think the Dolphins needs to stick with Tannehill for the foreseeable future the way that Cincinnati has stuck with Andy Dalton and the Falcons are likely to stick with Matt Ryan. None of those 3 are or will ever be elite QBs but they are sufficient to win in the regular season and with a quality running game and defense they can (I believe) win Play-off games as well. I don't think any of them will ever be Super Bowl winning QBs but I'd be happy if the Dolphins just got back to being a consistent Wild-Card team.

While sticking with Tannehill, I think it's obvious that the offense needs to be more balanced. We need a stronger running attack which means being more physical on the O-line, being able to run between the Tackles, being able to run the ball in the 4th quarter and being able to hand the ball to a 2nd guy (in addition to Lamar Miller).

 

so the team was pass happy with Sherman, and they are pass heavy with Lazor, perhaps it is the coach?

 

This all feels about right to me.

We all want our team to be successful. The only way that we can do that is get out of the trap we've been in over the past 20 years. Always trying to fill holes and never staying focused on the big picture. Good teams have good players. The best teams build through the draft and sprinkle in some key pieces with FA. Besides explosiveness, which has been deficient from this franchise since Marino left, what has been the biggest opportunity? In my opinion its situational football. This is not only a coaching issue but even more a personnel issue.

Good teams have a variety of weapons on offense with specific skill sets for different situations. I have seen a few people reference Dallas as a blueprint on how to make your team better by building the OL. The truth is that Dallas is good because they have a variety of weapons on offense and their defense has played significantly better. They didn't build an OL first. (nor did they in the early 90's) They had playmakers in place and then strengthened the trenches to get those playmakers to an even higher level. They have all of the pieces.
- Solid QB
- Workhorse back that can do it all
- Elite #1 WR (Bryant)
- Deep threat (Williams)
- Slot WR with short area quickness (Beasley)
- Elite pass catching TE

With those weapons they can do a variety of things at any time but most importantly, they can utilize their personnel relative to the current situation. Whether its a 2 minute drill, 3rd and short, 3rd and 1, or red zone offense. Can we say the same things about our offense? We lack a short yardage RB and a red zone threat at WR and TE. We lack a dominant #1 WR that fights for the ball and can run the entire route tree. So many good teams have all of these elements and the ones that don't either have an elite playmaking QB or top of the line defense or both.

Which brings me to Tannehill. We talk about the OL so often and how they don't protect Tannehill but how many times has he held the ball too long or stood in the same spot like a statue? Quite a few sacks were more due to coverage or him not moving well in the pocket. I love when he moves around, rolls out, or runs the option. We need to do more of that. I saw a step in the right direction this year in those categories and it seemed that the games that we won, Ryan moved around more with roll outs, designed runs and option plays.

Add a #1 WR and some situational weapons. Move Tanny around more and the offense should flourish. As for the defense, we have some work to do there too but the offense has been the downfall over the past 15 years.

 

I agree. Its hard to get a read on some players on occasion, and Tannehill is one of those, but there are many signs that point to him not being the guy. After seeing just a few games I predicted he'd be a starter for us for a long time, though I wasn't sure if he'd be great like Brady or decent like Bledsoe or Jay Cutler. And I was OK with that at the time. Now I still think he's a starter in the league but I'm not OK with having our own version of Andy Dalton or Matt Ryan. Even if we get the right team around him and he has some mild success, this is NOT going to be a fun ride. We'll never get away from the blame game or the bickering.

Look at this chart, which shows DYAR rankings in each of these QBs first 3 years, the only "elite" QB that didn't have a top 10 DYAR ranking within his first 3 years starting was Joe Flacco. Another predictor I like is how many games of 10+ AY/A do you produce? Those are generally wins. Wilson has 4 just this season alone. Most "franchise" QBs have produced significantly more games of 10+ AY/A than Tannehill over their first 3 years. Tannehill only has 1 this season and only 2 in his first 3 years, which is in line with Bledsoe and Eli Manning but still extremely low relative to most "franchise" QBs. As far as I have seen the only "franchise" QB with less than 2 in his first 3 seasons is Sam Bradford. At this point we need to hope that Tannehill is one of the outliers. And even if he is, which is already extremely unlikely, his ceiling is likely a Drew Bledsoe, or a Joe Flacco if we're extremely lucky. Whoop-dee-doo.

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Link?

 

The dolphins qbs were sacked 46 times, which is ranked #23 out of #32 teams ( below average ). Denver #1, NE #5, GB #10 all ranked in the top 10 in fewest sacks allowed; Seattle is ranked #20 but with an exceptionally mobile qb. Not sure if your data is off on "percentage of qb pressures" and "% of pressures resulting in sacks", or if splitting the effect amongst two stats has diluted the signal, but the important point is that we certainly do not have comparable pass protection with the elite teams in the NFL.

http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/team-quarterback-sacked-per-game/2014/

Also, it's important to note that winning teams are constructed differently. At the modest cost of getting 2 starting caliber guards, I'm pretty sure we can get top-10 performance at the QB position---a much lower cost/risk than spinning the wheel on a new qb.

 

Or maybe you've shown that instead of being passengers elite QBs take an active role in how good their protection is?

 

I'm not in any way advocating that we should move away from Ryan Tannehill in the short term. He's obviously our guy for the next several seasons. Not until we have a better team around him will (A) we know his true upside or (B) actually be in a position in which we could plug in another QB and see improvement.

In my eyes, we need a better WR corp and a more competent running game. I don't mind Charles Clay with Dion Sims in rotation but when you look at Hartline and Wallace you see two guys who are each 1 dimensional. Hartline is a possession guy who can help you keep the chains moving but he's never going to have more than 3 or 4 TDs nor will he ever get much YAC. Wallace is a small-frame guy who is relatively fast. He has a downright awkward running style and limited lower body strength which in my view makes it hard for him to run clean and crisp routes. Tannehill doesn't throw well to Wallace for several reason not the least of which is the uncertainty involved in Wallace getting to a specific spot. Hartline and Landry can do that comparatively well which makes it a lot easier on the QB's having to predict where to throw.

Look at Lamar Miller as well. He's a medium-sized RB with good speed. He's not a great receiver. He's not the most physically powerful guy out there. In my opinion, Tannehill gives us a chance to be competitive while we upgrade the talent. Are we better at WR and RB than we were 3-4 years ago? YES. Without question we are. However, we're still far from being where we want to be which does not include Hartline or Wallace or have us being so reliant on just Lamar Miller.

I think had we fired Philbin, you'd see a lot of people going back and looking at how many improvements we've actually seen in this roster over the course of the last 3 season. The amount of work that remains to be done however is a credit to how badly this team was formed over the last 5-6 years.

 

This is what I preach, RT17 doesn't seem to have that ability to get through and inspire his OL to protect better, it's not that NE has all-world OL (for god sakes they traded their best one away, L. Mankins), it's that Brady inspires his OL to protect better and play at their very best.

 

I wouldn't use the word "inspire."

But if you watch Andrew Luck you see how a real QB slides away from pressure. That dude is operating like a 10-year vet while Tannehill often looks like he's still a rookie.

We hear it every year when it comes to draft time when someone needs to sell their prospect, "this kid can slide away from pressure while keeping his eyes downfield." It sounds simple but 95% of QBs can't do it at the NFL level.

At the end of the day I don't know how athletic Tannehill really is in terms of moving around in the pocket and sliding away from pressure. In a very realistic sense, Luck is more athletic when it comes to playing QB than Tannehill probably ever will be. Tannehill looks like a WR who's been moved to QB.

 

Can you post the avg time per drop back by any chance? Thanks

 

Again, separating the signal into two statistics to dilute the signal. The important signal is our # of sacks vs the typical ( average? ) for the top playoff seeds---on that score there is a clear difference ( average of 28.75 vs 46 ). That difference only widens if you exclude Seattle.

Why do that? I would submit that in Seattle's case you have an outlier in terms of extreme mobility. You can try to replicate that combo of passing skill/mobility in another draft pick ( good luck ) or sink modest resources into 2 legitimate guards ( All-Pros not necessary )---the latter has higher chance of actually happening I would submit. The point is I think we have something of somewhat rare value in Tannehill, to me the best resource allocation is to upgrade the guards next year, maybe give him one big play weapon at WR and then see how high he ascends. If that fails, then by all means we can think of moving on.

Actually though we really should be looking at sacks and pressures per pass attempt, these bulk stats can be misleading.

 

T'hill's pocket presence has improved to about league average. I've seen quite a bit of movement in the pocket this year to find throwing lanes.

 

The Luck comparisons should probably stop. The guy is on another level in so many ways, I just don't think it's a fair scale here. It's like comparing other 25 year-old DLinemen to JJ Watt. Anyways...

I'd be curious to see how Tannehill operates with someone who's actually dominant. Like Marshawn Lynch, or Demaryius Thomas, or Gronk, or Jordy Nelson, or Randall Cobb. The top 4 seeds have all-pro type players at impact positions. We have guys who are just solid or a little above average. Guess what...an entire team of slightly above average players will not get you to the promised land. You need guys who the other team has to gameplan around, who dominate their matchup almost every week, who make plays out of nothing. The only player on the Dolphins who fits that description is Cam Wake. That's it.

 

Without comparisons you can't have a forum and you can't learn so I don't know what to tell you on that.

Luck is just an example of how things like "sliding away from pressure in the pocket while keeping your eyes down-field" can and should be done by a quality QB. We can note the differences in Luck and Tannehill in that regard and it's done through making a fair comparison.

There's nothing evil about that unless you're so scared of Tannehill's deficiencies that you write them off as the product of outside influences. That's where you start treading the line between systems thinking and flat out making excuses.

Speaking of Indy. That team is garbage if you haven't noticed. They wouldn't be above .500 if not for Luck. He is EVERYTHING to that team and thank God for them they play in such a horrible division. The defense is highly questionable. There is little semblence of a running game. The WR position is bad outside of TY Hilton. The two TEs (Allen and Fleener) underachieve given how big both of those guys are--Neither has lived up to their draft position. Colin Cowherd was on the other day saying that if Luck had been on the Bengals that they'd have won the game and I completely agree. If Luck were on the Dolphins, the O-line wouldn't be such an issue and the team would surely be in the Play-offs.

In one bit you guys say that Luck is just better than Tannehill and that it's not fair to compare them (which is weird to say IMO). But then you start blaming Tannehill's inadequacies on all the guys around him.

The real question--if you want to put your number crunching to good use--would be, 'how can we quantify a QB's contribution to pass-protection and the number of sacks a team accrues?'

I would say that until Albert got hurt, the Dolphins probably had a superior O-line to what's currently in Indy. Yet, Luck makes that O-line look more than adequate each and every single week.

 

With the RBs we have its hard not to be pass happy.

 

This is a very accurate post, unfortunately with this topic it seems like we are going to have the same 4-5 guys who become enraged with the least bit of RT criticism. It's a very long offseason and round and round we go.

Most of us are pointing out what we perceive as flaws (real deep balls, awareness in pocket) and it's met with an unbelievable amount of yea but's. Ryan is a top 12-15 QB with the arrow pointing up imo, but he needs to show the ability to elevate a team and be a playmaker before he breaks into the handfull of franchise QBs we have in the NFL.

In short??? I like his growth thus far but he still needs to get better despite what's around him.

 

See, here's the thing...I agree with THIS post. This is reasonable, and seemingly a far cry from the some of the posts going on throughout the season. I know I was frustrated by what seemed to be posters blaming Tannehill for everything, and other units on the team getting off without so much as a whimper. I don't think any of the Tannehill "lovers" on here think that Tannehill is perfect, or has nothing to improve on. We just wanted a more equal discussion of the team as a whole, and not simply scapegoating Tannehill. So, in responding to things, I know I often came off as seeming to think that Tannehill was perfect. That was not my intent, nor my belief.

 

Yep, I thought Miller did very well this season. Was frustrating to see the gameplan shift away from him so often, but it was hard to really complain about it, when teams would hit him two yards deep in the backfield in the second half of games, it made sense that the coaches were unwilling to call too many run plays, when the defense was seemingly shutting it down. I think alot of our struggles on offense come back to the not great play of the oline.

 

The sack yards lost, however, were good for 3rd worst in the league (per PFR, AFA listed as 2nd worst), and as far as I can tell also 2nd worst in yards lost per sack. That'll drag down AYPA, especially considering the INT% was pretty good.

 

And then PFF gives us this:

 

I wonder if that also shows "no significant difference."

 

Right... and Coach Joe is an excellent driver. Er, coach.

 

I guess we're more or less together on Tannehill them. I like how far Tannehill has come and I'm happy to have him leading our team at the moment. However, I'm also smart enough to acknowledge that he has weaknesses. What worries me is that after 3 full seasons as the unquestioned starter, we've continued to see the same flaws--issues that at this point will probably not get considerably better with time.

Think about this...in 32 games now, Ryan Tannehill and Mike Wallace have never had an outstanding performance that I can recall. I'm speaking about the type of performance in which Mike is catching multiple passes deep down-field. In 32 games, we've only seen Tannehill and Wallace hook up on deep balls a handful of times and I'm not sure any of those have demonstrated great chemistry. I can't think of a time when Tannehill has hit Wallace in stride. We actually just concluded an entire season in which that never happened.

At this point, I don't see the hope in that pairing. I see no evidence to support the notion that those two guys should even be on the same team.

I'm currently in a "make the best of it for the next 3 years" kind of mentality when it comes to Ryan Tannehill. There is no sense pretending he's going to be Rodgers or Brady. That'll never happen. But there's no sense in starting over or giving up either. That would be a huge setback.

 

If we are going to give this credence, then we have to start calling Lamar Miller one of the best backs in football.

 

''The 210 combined sacks, hits and hurries they allowed were most in the league and they weren’t much better in the run game. The musical chairs that saw Mike Pouncey to guard and Ja’Waun James to left tackle had a detrimental effect and it was brutal to watch them''

thats got to be two years strait finishing in last place..man thats brutal..

 

Sure, but the knock on Miller is that he is not durable and seems to have a shoulder injury every season. Also he is a terrible receiver. Not sure what the break down on Miller's runs are yet in regards to running behind the interior or exterior of the OL.

I also think Miller benefits from the read option as teams spy on Tannehill and seem to hesitate at times, which aides them both on runs, which is what the RO is supposed to do. For instance on Miller's 97 yard run against the jets, the LB was spying on Tannehill and late getting over. Miller was beyond him by that point.