It was in vogue last year to crap on kaepernik, we now know that team was set up to fail by the front office, and for some very odd reason they didn't run the same offense that fits his skill set..really odd. I've watched kaepernik very closely as well...i feel he can play at a higher level individually when the situation calls for it, I feel he's not so dependent on other variables, he's a playmaker..I believe I could construct an offense around his skill set that can win it all.
Hes got an interesting skillset with his ability to run the read option and to scramble, but i just feel like tannehill does more for the dolphins offense than kap does for the niners. Granted thats out of each players hands, but the dolphins offense functioned pretty well running through the qb (11th in ppg, i believe) while the niners are more of a run first team. I just feel that Tannehill has performed better while carrying our offense than kap has just being a peice in the niners offense. Maybe you're right though, kap was playing in greg romans offense that didnt properly utilize his skillset, and both players have dealt with poor offenseive lines. Next year will be telling for both players.
I think we have a diff opinion on how much QB play is affected by team play and vice versa. Imo if you swap Dallas' and Atlanta's OL Ryan is deep in the playoffs and Romo is on a stretcher. Likewise if you put Leveon Bell in Miami or San Diego they're playoff teams while Miller/Matthews would have had Ben sitting at home for the post season. Degree of difficulty in QB play is very important and imo Tannehill's job has been as hard as any of the top QBs.
Imo RT passed CKap in year 2 and isn't looking back. For all his physical tools Kap is simply not a good passer.
I agree completly. This maybe a bit extreme, but i even thought kap looked alittle like RT during our first 3 games this year when in critical passing situations. I saw plenty of open misses by kap this year in the games i watched. Definitly prefer tanny as a passer.
SF went the easy route, read option, simple reads, etc for a couple years. Philbin went the opposite route, made Tannehill a pocket passer from day 1 and let him take his lumps.
I loathed sherman when he was here, but his approach to turn tanny into a pocket passer and have him learn the hard way looks like it has paid off.
SF had a dominant D and run game, a title ready team. So I don't blame them for their Kap approach, much like Seattle has kept it simple for Wilson. OTOH we were going nowhere so there wasn't much pressure to fast track Tannehill, and as you said, despite the criticism it has paid off.
I will agree that ryan has dealt with the worse surrounding team..not sure what were arguing, if your trying to tell me ryan has shown a level of play that is close to Luck, Wilson, Berger, or Flacco then lets just agree to disagree.
who said kap was a better pocket passer than ryan, surely not me...the qb position is more than dropping and throwing..and I simply cannot hold Kap responsible for a team that was infested with bamboozlement from the top, they cut that coaches balls off from the get..no way you can have a team that way, no way..
I truly hope that the reverse coaching job your speaking of was a true technique and is the primary reason why ryan refuses to leave the pocket and do something on his own..either way, its time for him to play the game more than just from the pocket.
How, then, do you figure that Tannehill's performance improved a great deal from 2013 to 2014, despite that there was no significant difference in his offensive line play?
He hasn't shown the playmaking ability of those guys, as much as those guys...can't argue that, and I'm a big supporter. Can he? Sure as hell can. Look at how much better Flacco got this year, and he's been in the league how long? I still, however, say that the throw he made to Wallace in game 1 against the Patsies was massive...completely sick play that won't be remembered because Wallace stepped out of bounds. He has it in him, of that I'm confident...can he let it out consistently? Nobody can say...'cuz he hasn't yet. Side note: I think Flacco's going to be a fkn BEAST in the next few years.
Yeah, if you don't think Tannehill has shown he can play at a level close to those guys then we def disagree. Minnesota, Denver, Oakland, Chicago, dude was killing it. Ben, Luck, Wilson, those guys have improvisational skills that RT lacks but overall talent and skill set? He's very much close to them imo.
No one should try to focus on what you saw, but all of the objective measures of offensive line play showed no significant difference between 2013 and 2014, yet Ryan Tannehill's QB rating increased by more than 10 points, with no lesser emphasis on the deep passing game in 2014 than there was in 2013. That suggests that there is a great deal of independence between offensive line play and quarterback play. It's not as if the latter is hinging on the former anywhere near completely.
Are you honestly arguing that the line didn't play better when Albert was healthy? If so, you just proved why your statistical only approach is wrong.
Even if it's true that the line played better when Albert was healthy, Tannehill's performance was slightly worse during that period than it was when Albert was injured. So, that would argue even more strongly in favor of the independence between the line's play and the QB's performance.
lol. Tannehill had a rough couple of games in the beginning getting used to the new offense. From Oakland till Albert got hurt he was a Top 10 - Top 5 QB. Your aggregate numbers shine a very bright light on the folly of a statistical only approach.
What you think about any certain approach is of no concern to me, but at this point you're down to a sample size of five games (Oakland through San Diego), and Tannehill played no differently during those five games than he did in a five-game stretch in 2013, when his offensive line was supposedly worse. In fact there was a stretch of seven consecutive games in 2013 in which his performance was no different than the entirety of his 2014 performance.
And yours shine a light on the shortcomings of small sample size (particularly ones with an arbitrary start-point: "Oh, that's when he got used to it all of a sudden. Nah, it wasn't the fact that he struggled against three strong defenses."). Your 5 game sample size includes matchups against only one playoff team, a west coast team that looked like it was asleep on the road, and 3 of the very worst defenses in the NFL (Oak, Jax, Chi).
If the oline is so meaningless to quarterback play, why do teams bother to pay people on the oline any sort of large contracts? If it doesn't matter about the oline, I would pay every player the absolute league minimum. As a GM, I'd save so much money, that I could invest elsewhere on my team. I'd be left with the trashiest oline, every year, but it doesn't matter, right? The oline doesn't help the QB play better.
No one said the two were completely unrelated, but rather that there is perhaps more independence between them than many people may think.
Nice try. The "whatever you say" caricature of someone is far more consistent with the approach you're advocating, whereby the numbers are neglected in favor of a single person's supposedly expert, authoritative view of the game. The numbers are verifiable, whereas someone's supposedly expert opinion is problematic because there is nothing that can verify either 1) that person's level of expertise, or 2) whether he's aware of and is able to control for his own biases, if any.
Perhaps...but you've been pushing this idea for awhile that Tannehill plays the same no matter the oline. I don't think it's a very honest look at the game of football. Clearly, a good oline allows for longer developing plays. If your QB is getting hit on pretty much any throw that takes longer than 2.5 seconds, your going to see accuracy issues, and your probably going to see low ypa creep in. You'll probably see more quick hitting plays called, without attacking downfield a ton. Think of it like this: If you stick Tannehill on the field with no pass rush and oline, and he's simply throwing at receivers, he'll drop the ball wherever he wants. Now put him out there throwing to his receivers with a pass rush, but no oline. What's going to happen in that scenario? It's a drastic example, but it goes to what I'm saying.
Offensive lineman are paid significantly less than QBs. Ryan Tannehill will get 3x more averaged guaranteed money than Branden Albert.
Longer developing plays aren't necessarily a good thing in the NFL. Quarterbacks in the NFL show an overwhelmingly poorer performance in terms of QB rating on throws that occur after 2.5 seconds, than on ones that occur before 2.5 seconds. And the small minority of QBs who perform better on throws after 2.5 seconds don't perform significantly better on those throws -- the improvement for them in that regard is minimal.
You mistook my comment is an above average NFL QB, and that is handicapped because of how bad our line. However, I assure you there are 30-40 other guys that contribute more to losses than he does. That is the point.
Sure? Comparing Tannehill's salary to Albert's had nothing to do with anything. Why are linemen taken in tbd first round, if they are seemingly not that important? Why does any lineman make more than the league minimum?
Yep, I've seen you post this before, and I'll respond as I have before, but never gotten an answer. Is it your belief that there is a difference between a QB who gets longer than 2.5 seconds due to a lack of pass rush, therefore having more defenders in coverage, and a QB who gets more than 2.5 seconds because his oline is able to neutralize pass rush when blitzed, so he sees fewer defenders in coverage?
Lineman are taken at a much lower rate than QBs in the first round. The best lineman are making what an average QB makes.
Again, I'm not comparing linemen to QBs. I'm comparing linemen to cost. If they really don't matter, they wouldn't even make what average QBs make. If they don't matter, they would simply get paid the minimum, because they would have almost no value.
There were only four quarterbacks in the league in 2014 who had better QB ratings when throwing after 2.5 seconds than they did when throwing before 2.5 seconds -- Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Brian Hoyer, and Ryan Fitzpatrick -- and the average difference in QB rating for those three QBs on those grounds was 7.8 points. On the other hand, the average decrease in QB rating in that regard for the other 23 QBs in the league who threw at least 50% of their team's passes in 2014 was a much larger 18.9 points. With all of that considered, it's going to be difficult for an explanation such as the one you proposed to be plausible.
I'll phrase this like you did your question above: do you see a difference between saying QB play is less related to offensive line play than many people may believe, and saying offensive linemen don't matter and have no value?
What I'm getting at, it's that isn't it normal that if you hold the ball longer than 2.5, you are going to be trying to avoid pass rush? You aren't giving any stats that speak to that. You're simple saying, after 2.5 seconds, ratings drop. Yes, in general I agree. It's WHY they drop that I'm interested in. It's not simply that after 2.5 seconds quarterbacks forget how to throw. It's, I think, that after 2.5 seconds the defense has started to collapse the pocket, OR the defense dropped so many guys into coverage that the QB has no one to throw to, and starts to get antsy. It's not the same if you have a play designed to take longer, and your line can block that long.
But that's not what you've been advocating. Anytime anyone points out poor oline play, you say "Quarterback X didn't play any better with good oline play than without." Or, "Quarterback X didn't play any better with good defense." Or, "Quarterback X didn't play any better when getting good RB play." You've been pushing this notion for awhile that the QB isn't really affected by other parts of the team.
