I agree with you and that is why the only offensive playmaker I would like to see them draft in the first round is Gurley. I have no interest in any of the WR's in the first round except for Cooper or White and neither of them will be available with the 14th pick. Gurley is still recovering from his leg injury and he probably won't be available early in the season, but he is probably the best RB to enter the league in the last several years. I also agree that Tannehill is never going to be a franchise type QB. He will be fine if he has a solid offensive line in front of him and a strong running game, but I don't think he will ever be the QB who can carry the offense on his talent alone. He is certainly the best QB the Dolphins have had since Marino, but when he is compared to the top tier QB's in league history, he appears to be only mediocre in comparison and he needs a strong supporting cast around him to have much success in the league.
My buddy who I watch every game w/ reminded me that during every game I was always b****ing about not having a big target in the end zone. To have a threat like Cameron w/ his size, athletic ability and hands. Oh my.
I hate to say that I'd be okay with the Dolphins taking a RB in the first but I'm open to it for the first time in awhile because of how the draft looks at this point. The problem is that so many high-round RBs turn out to be disappointments (Richardson) or only partial fixes (Ingram) for a team's need at the position. You can't get by with one guy, you always need multiple guys but then again, we sit here with Lamar Miller so we're covered. I said before that 1st round WRs should be guys who can produce 1,200 yards for you. Well firstly, WRs like Parker, Funchess and Strong aren't those types of guys, so I agree that if Cooper and White aren't there at #14, then the position of WR is going to look like a reach. But I think the same 1,200-yd expectation is true for RBs. A RB taken at #14 should be a franchise guy, someone who doesn't need much extra help in the backfield. Gurley and Gordon are those types of guys. I agree that Gurley is both size and speed. Gordon has huge holes to run through and he's fast but Gurley has the type of physical presence that makes him very hard to tackle. You watch his games and there is a lot of contact, Gordon not nearly as much. Gurley is a physical freak and the ACL doesn't scare me much, and he's definitely the type of guy that could take over the majority of carries and let Lamar Miller be the 10-12 carry per game type of guy the stats say he should be. Plus, the move makes sense because it's going to be very hard for Tannehill to improve on what he did last year with 66% completions and 4,000 yards. That's was a very solid season but a QB like Tannehill better have a damn good running game or else the team will stagnate at 8-8. I also have said numerous times that with three 1st-round picks on our O-line and big money contracts already given to Albert and we assume Pouncey, we're not in a position to fill O-lines holes with a Guard at #14. That just shouldn't be our M-O at this point. If it is, we're idiots plain and simple. Whether it's the rise of Turner, another year with the Satele/Pouncey combo, a veteran or a mid-round pick, we have to find our Guards without going high in the draft. So if you ask me, it comes down to WR, RB, LB and DB. Trae Waynes at CB will be hard to pass up because he's a need. All the WRs and LBs I see at available to us will be reaches at #14. All the elite LBs and WRs are going top-10 this year. Most of those LBs are passing rushing OLBs anyway. We could very well be the first team in the draft to take a RB which means we'll have our choice. That's not so bad.
I gotta be honest, I hate the idea of RB in the first round. I keep hearing about this guy Gurley but bottom line he's injured. Ireland made a career out of drafting injured players for the Fins who don't see the field...Taylor, Jordan just to name a couple. First round guy for us MUST BE an instant playmaker game 1 for us....FOR ONCE! I may regret saying all this regarding Gurley but we can't make mistakes in this draft
Greg is right. In order to compete in a very tough AFCE the Dolphins have to be able to run he ball more consistently.
I wasn't arguing that, he's right, I just don't want to draft a guy who's not going to see action the beginning of the season.
I'm just looking around the roster right now and I'm starting to think maybe RB is the pick that this franchise wants to make? I can't imagine us taking much outside WR and RB to be honest. We resigned Delmas so we have our FS/SS combo. We have Grimes at CB1. We have 4 names that could wind up competing for the other spot: Aikens, Davis, Taylor and McCain. That's a lot of depth at DB if we were to take a guy like Trae Waynes it's getting a bit crowded and how is a CB any safer a pick than WR or RB when it takes such skill and experience? Yes, Aikens may slide to Safety. Yes, McCain is our Nickel guy but still, if Waynes is the pick, we're letting him battle Davis and Taylor for the starter position. To me, that spells almost too much depth at the position. It's almost like we're wasting roster spots and just hoping someone gets hurt so we don't look stupid. It certainly seems to me that we are in a position to sign a veteran, not go chasing a 1st round pick at CB. And even then, we've taken CBs high in the draft and they usually take several years to develop. When I look at LB, I see the same issue...way too much depth to start drafting high. And I don't see a tackling machine at 14 anyway that would warrant that high a pick. If we consider Jenkins a lock to play OLB behind Wake, we're looking for 2 other guys and we already have Jordan who's a possible OLB, Misi who we know can play OLB well and possibly slide inside, Tripp who looked like the prototypical undersized guy we could stick at MLB behind this ridiculous D-line and lastly Sheppard who is another option. We just signed Suh to a $114M deal so we can ease the pressure on our LB-corp. Do we need a 4-3 LB bad enough to take one at 14? Is there even a LB good enough to draft at that spot? We can't go O-line...I've said it a million times. Too many high picks is not how you build a competent O-line. We need continuity, not this constant string of high draft picks. That's called plugging holes and it's a bad draft day philosophy. We know that. We can't draft TE with Cameron on the roster nor is there one deserving of the 14th pick. We can't draft QB with Tannehill on the roster nor is there one deserving of the 14th pick. We're stuck looking at WR and RB and if you ask me, Gurley and Gordan are way more talented and would be impact players much more so than WRs like Parker, Strong, or Funchess. The nice thing is that we might even be able to trade back a few spots and still land one of those RBs. I think Gurley is the guy we need because of how he compliments Miller's skill set. He's big and breaks tackles. That's what we're looking for. Both have speed, Gordon probably moreso, but do we need Gordon when we already have Miller? That's debatable but still, RB is starting to look pretty damn nice considering what's going to be available to us and what our roster currently looks like. And again, Tannehill isn't bringing us an AFC title by himself. His arm is not taking us there alone. We NEED to be better in the red zone and there is no simpler way to do that than be able to run the ball well. People talked all year about becoming a more balanced team, a more physical team and one that resembles the league's best. Well, Seattle can run the ball. NE can run the ball. Dallas can run the ball. Denver could run the ball. Every single one of those teams either featured a great player or made their RBs into known commodities. If you want to win in the NFL, you'd better be able to run the ball and stop the run first. Suh helps with the latter but we are still not finished building a running game. Miller gets us between the 20s but we need a bigger, more physical RB and we need to be able to run for the tougher yards so that Tannehill doesn't have to dink and dunk everything. I hear all this talk all year and then when the draft approaches, it's all WR, WR, WR. Sell the farm to move and take Cooper! If you're actually a fan of football and a fan of winning games, then the thought of running the ball more doesn't scare you. I'll gladly watch the Dolphins rush their way into the Play-offs.
I don't care how the first 6 or 8 games of someone's career goes...let me put it like that. I want to make sure we get the player(s) that fit on this team and give us the kinds of things we need. I don't like injuries. Trust me, it bugs me, but the ACL isn't what it used to be in football. Once Gurley is back, he'll be fine. The problem also exists with the alternative (Gordon) who is more of a speed back who had huge holes to run through this year. He's not a horrible pick but as I see it, he won't have all those big holes in Miami, plus we already have a RB with speed in Miller. What we're looking for is a bigger, more physical guy who can break tackles and hopefully still break of big runs. That's Todd Gurley in a nutshell.
I am alla about being balanced, more running, finding a compliment to Miller, etc. But I'd be disappointed with a RB in rounds 1 or 2. If there's no DB or LB worthy of pick 14 trade down. More picks/cheap players over the next few years is good idea.
The odds are very against the Dolphins' running the ball any better than they did last year, no matter what you add to their running game. If it wasn't for Russell Wilson's contribution to Seattle's running game, which obviously represented a very unusual contribution from a QB, the Dolphins would've had the best running game in the league in 2014. Moreover, Ryan Tannehill's performance in the passing game was a function of neither the running game nor the offensive line's performance, as measured by sacks. This perception people seem to have that the running game and the offensive line need to improve to make Tannehill more effective, though plausible in theory, isn't supported by anything objective, and I wouldn't go into the draft thinking I need to improve either of those areas if I were running the team, personally.
Yeah, I know but you have to take someone and I'd rather come away with the best RB than the 3rd, 4th or 5th best WR. Plus, we can probably trade down AND still get Gurley. That's what so insane about all this. People only frown upon the RB in the 1st round because (A) as of late there have been several busts and (B) most teams who draft them are horrible. I don't see Gurley or Gordon as being busts, nor do I think Miami is horrible. I've shown how a RB not only fits with what Miami needs but also makes sense based on value in the draft. People are inevitably going to start taking RB in the first again. If anything, it's the teams that already have good talent should be doing it and I think Miami classifies. Do me a favor and just go back to Matt Ryan's first few seasons in Atlanta and recall what Michael Turner and that running game did for that team.
I can imagine a lot of possibilities. I read your entire post, but I disagree with the assessment at MLB. Yes, after Suh it's less of a need, but it's still a hole, and I don't see the argument for saying we wouldn't pick up Kendricks for example in the 1st. If we trade way back in the 1st and Collins is still there, I could even see them taking him at safety. Point is, there are a lot of picks other than WR and RB that make sense for us in the 1st. Also, how much of our running game needs are the RB vs. OL? We don't necessarily need to draft OL in the 1st, but giving Tannehill protection and opening up running lanes may be a better investment than going after a top RB prospect. I don't know.. just saying we have a lot of holes and a lot of moves in the 1st would make sense.
Are you speaking generally or are you analyzing real football here? We need to run the ball better late in games so our offense can win football games. We lost SEVERAL games that way this year. A better running game fixes that. We also need to run the ball better in the red zone. We got there a lot yes, so I'm sure the overall yards look good for Miami but we aren't very good at running in between the tackles to convert the TD. No offense, you're right about a lot of things, but I think you're speaking VERY GENERALLY and you need to sharpen your focus in terms of the running game. We need to start thinking about situations and about why the team couldn't ring the bell in certain times in order to win close games.
If the Dolphins were to improve their running game, they would be a historically efficient running team. Just not a realistic expectation.
Totally agree honestly. If and when we trade back the game really changes for us. If we're sitting there at 25 I pretty much agree. We could add almost any defensive player in the mid-20s and feel good about it. However, I'm also a bit sick and tired of this notion that a good running game doesn't need a good RB. We either need to get elite linemen to block or we need to go find ourselves a GOOD RB for the first time in a long time. Maybe we all got spoiled having Ricky Williams in his prime and then Ronnie Brown who was incredible before his injuries but that kind of running doesn't just happen. Notice how the Patriots can get that kind of running attack maybe 2-3 times a season when they face a weak defense like Indy. If you want to run the ball in a dominant fashion all year you'd better have a Demarco Murray or a Marshawn Lynch kind of player. It's not just about blocking...we see that in Tannehill's sack totals. Tannehill would make the best O-line in football look bad. Meanwhile, Luck makes one of the worst O-lines in football look good. Having the right player to motivate and compliment your O-line is imperative. At some point we need to find a legitimate RB to compliment Miller. As I said before, Knowshown could've be a golden nugget for us had he stayed healthy. THAT was exactly what this team needed and I think we would all agree that our team just looked like it was on a different level during that first game last season.
No, they'll get there because of the already efficient running game, improved defense, and Tannehill.
You can find a lot of objective evidence nowadays that supports the idea that the importance of the running game in the NFL has decreased dramatically in recent years. Atlanta's drop-off since Michael Turner has been entirely a function of having a very poor defense, and defense, unlike the running game on offense, is still important in the NFL.
Yeah, if we're in the 20's, picking up Gordon/Gurley isn't a bad pick. I guess we'll get some more clarity on our draft strategy if Tannenbaum can fix what I think is the most glaring hole of all right now, and that is OG, in FA. We just saved $7 mil from Clay. I will be very disappointed if they don't use that money to either fix one of the OG positions or maybe one of the others. If we don't fix OG in FA, but fix another hole instead, then all we really have at OG is a prospect with Turner. In that case, it starts to make sense to draft OL in the first (hate to say it). I just hope that's not the situation we're in. You really want to draft playmakers in the top rounds, not fix "blue-collar" positions that many teams find ways of filling with lower round picks.
LET THIS BE DIRECTED AT YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO SHARES YOUR OPINION because I don't want to keep saying it and I have no interest in arguing with you over things that are not well quantified. Let me leave you with some very basic questions then that aren't very statistical but yet have a lot to do with winning football games; questions which probe areas of football which are almost never quantified in clean, clear statistical ways...and you don't need to provide me any answers. Just think about them between now and draft day. How many times did this team have a chance late in the 4th quarter to take the field and run out the clock in order to preserve a win? How many times did this offense fail to do that and what was the strategy they went with? How many times did you feel comfortable when Miami got inside the 10 yard line with a chance to score? How many times over the last 3 years did you say to yourself...'our QB will more than make up for what our running game can't do?' How many of the teams we see in January struggle to run the ball in these tough situations that seem to arise almost every week in football? Maybe you feel like those questions all have easy answers and the team is just fine. But do us all a favor and keep asking yourself those questions because after about a month you'll probably feel like many of us do. Yes the Dolphins are competitive, but those questions speak to why the team is not winning more games. It's not in the 4,000 yards or the 27 TDs or the 66% completion percentage--which is just as unlikely to improve as the rushing stats. It's not in how we move the ball in between the 20s and how that tries to tell us that our running game is one of the best in the league. Most fans appreciate Lamar Miller and Ryan Tannehill quite a bit but still aren't comfortable in answering any of those questions.
DolphinGreg, I think you're absolutely right about us needing to become a better running team, especially in the redzone. Yes, we had a good running game last year overall, but in times where we needed to fight for the tough yards, we couldn't do it, ie. short yardage situations and in the red zone. We all saw in the playoffs what a physical running game can do, both NE and Seattle had physical runningbacks who fight for the tough yards and make the whole offense better. We all saw what Moreno did to our offense in that one Patriots game. I'd compare the effect of a physical, bruising RB on the offense to that of someone like Suh on the defensive side of the ball, in the sense that they both make the players around them better. The whole offense feeds off a running game like that, it charges everyone up, and it is something that just can't be measured statistically. Todd Gurley with the 14th pick, let's make it happen. [video=youtube;uY5Bci4FnYo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY5Bci4FnYo[/video]
I'm trying not to use that in my argument here because people will throw it away as something that can't be quantified but you are absolutely 100% correct and I am totally aware of that notion. Offensive lineman want to run the ball. QBs want to hand it off if they can. Defenses want to have a chance to rest on the sidelines and a good rushing attack gives you that. There are simply too many things to name that are never quantified in stats but yet have a hell of a lot to do with these football situations we see almost every week. These things wind up deciding which team wins in these crucial moments. And yet stats tell us almost nothing about these critical moments. The Miami Dolphins need to be a better rushing football team. I'm saying it now and I'm glad people agree. We've seen this offense walk off the field too many times in game-deciding situations to be so cavalier with our rushing attack.
I'm not saying that Todd Gurley or Melvin Gordon have the be the pick in the first round. I'm just saying that at some point this team has to get serious about playing big boy football in January and I think some degree of dedication to a more complete rushing attack would go a long way in proving that this team is indeed on the right track to getting there.
http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2008/08/end-game.html http://www.advancedfootballanalytic...y/99-are-teams-running-enough-in-the-red-zone
Brady has a 100 rating with 10 tds and 2 ints in the fourth. Ryan has an 80 rating with 5 tds and 3 ints. Brady has multiple championships and i think 15 playoff appearances. Ryan has never even been to a major college bowl game. Ya Tannehill plays like Brady LOL his killer instict is so Brady like
I don't feel like you're looking at this team. I feel like you're reaching deep into league stats which can be both vague and misleading in regards to analyzing team-specific success. Please don't take offense, I'm a structural engineer--an educated guy who appreciates a solid probabilistic analysis--but these little articles present very basic methods that are being applied to very board data sets which are very rarely sorted the way they should be. I'm also not sure the credibility of the author. In my view Miami's limitations are clear as day. Strategy ain't worth much when you can't execute very well and that's the problem. We could call more running plays in the red zone but they probably won't work. Does that mean they're the wrong call or that they're the right call with the wrong players? That's the problem here. Everything's confounded in these studies. Even if I assume that league-wide stats speak to me and my team, maybe because the Dolphins are in fact quite an average football team, where are the situation-specific data sets large enough that I can learn from without getting blasted for the obvious bias in my eventual model?
It SHOULD BE! I'm very open to you disproving me here but it's going to come down to you finding the right data. Where are you going to get drive-specific data that speaks only to teams with average O-lines and QBs with less than 4 minutes to go in the 4th quarter with less than a 3 point lead for example? We're talking about very specific situations. All that peripheral stuff matters so if we exclude it we're not getting an accurate picture and we get results which lie to us and say things like, 'Miami was the best rushing attack in the NFL.' We all know that's not a credible answer to our question so our metric is obviously wrong. Maybe being the best overall rushing team is a meaningless metric. The Patriots lead the league in rushing a few times a year and they won the Super Bowl. Maybe that's what a running game is for. Maybe some weeks you need it and some you don't. Maybe making big sweeping generalizations isn't a good way to analyze your team. If Miami was ranked so highly in rushing...something in the analysis (probably the initial assumptions) had to be wrong. Maybe we can get highly specific data but then we've committed the cardinal sin of football analytics--basing large assumptions on small sample sets. Thus, the results are useless still. That's the problem here...we can't just go on season totals or league trends. C'mon, we're not sophomore math science majors here. When someone tells me the Dolphins have the best rushing attack I know right there that the resolution isn't sufficient. That's a ridiculous sentiment to anyone watching these games week to week. It that needs to be broken down into meaningful pieces. We need a much finer resolution in the data which we don't have.
I think we upgraded at DT that should improve the whole line. I think we upgraded our #2 WR by a large margin. I think we upgraded by a smaller margin at nickel corner. Provided health I believe we upgraded TE. We've got a hole in Mike's spot that needs to be filled and TD's to be made up from that spot. We also have a hole at DT next to Suh to still work on. We should know after the draft. If there's one thing about Baum....it's he's always wheeling and dealing and picking up players well into August.
Is it possible that: 1) you don't have an adequate appreciation of what wins optimally in the NFL in terms of the running game, and how closely the Dolphins are approximating it, and/or 2) you're falling prey to confirmation bias in your viewing of how the Dolphins run the ball?
I'm sure I'm guilty of some degree of confirmation bias. I'm a human being, yes I have confirmation bias. I'm a fan on a football forum and an engineer. The nice thing about that though is that it stops me from saying things that are glaringly flawed when bad data leads in the wrong direction. I am happy to run something through my 'common sense' filter before I present it.
Nice stats, but the first one doesn't really answer DolphinGreg's question about our ability to run out the clock in the 4th quarter. The second one seems to support his theory that running the ball in red-zone situations is important, and on average more important than passing (in the red-zone).
Because a good run game can make the passing game better, so it won't always be translated into yards/carry. It can be measured in points and wins, but when you analyze the outcome you won't find that the running game played a part in that role, because the stats directly attributed to the run game will often times be mediocre. When an offense can run effectively, there is an element of surprise for the defense to account for, a defender will start to hesitate whether it will be a pass or a run, opening up play-action passes and the like. A physical running game can wear down a defense over the course of a game, both mentally and physically... the other players on offense will feed off this physical style of play and will start to play with a more aggresive nature, receivers fight for extra yards and the OL gives an extra effort to block. The effect of it will be similar to what an aggresive defender like Suh will have on the defense. There's also a direct effect that a physical RB can have on the passing game when catching out of the backfield... someone like Todd Gurley who has good hands and can break tackles and gain yards after the catch will be a great asset to our style of offense, IMO.
The improvement we're referring to is in quantity not quality. miller is one half of the equation, we need another back to handle the rest.
I think Harleydude666 is just saying Tannehill isn't yet at Brady's level. Despite the successes, he doesn't yet seem to have that killer instinct (you don't have the same confidence as with Brady that he'll lead you to a win at the end), and he doesn't make average receivers look good in the same way Brady did with his mostly no-name ones. But yes, I think a lot of us agree QB is not the problem on this team (thankfully in like.. forever!!).
I know we have a number of needs on the Dolphins but I would be happy with Todd Gurley at the #14 pick. I believe he is an exceptional running back and could be a game changer and an impact player with the Dolphins. A dangerous running back would help to take pressure off of Tannehill and make our offense more potent. There are some other players at other positions I would also be happy with, but Gurley's selection would not be a head scratcher nor a disappointment as some picks have been in the past.
The glaring difference is the sacks. That's part Brady and part his oline. Brady's got very good pocket awareness whereas Tannehill doesn't. And Brady's oline gives him plenty of time to get rid of the ball, whereas Tannehill's doesn't. The part you mentioned is part the whole offenses' production. Belichick is much more aggressive than Philbin. Though I wouldn't say it's really all that aggressive. It's just that most coaches are like Philbin and are just extremely risk averse.
When you have an emotional investment in the subject matter (the Dolphins), however, you might want to reverse that process and consider that the uncommon sense (the objective data) is the gold standard, and your "common sense" is too subject to confirmation bias to rely on it. In your line of work the opposite process (filtering data through your common sense) probably proves more fruitful, since it's likely to be absent as much of the emotional investment that makes people prone to confirmation bias.
