***Dolphins vs Eagles*** Preseason Game 3 Thread

The Eagles average? LOL. PFF rates their OL as the best in the league. They have a dynamic young QB and plenty of weapons. Their D was in the top half in the league last year and has more talent this year. Barring injuries they are as likely as anyone to win their division.
If you are gonna rag on our DC, please can you at least spell his name right, so it may appear you at least remotely know what you are talking about?

 

It's not moot at all- I saw three different plays that we've NEVER seen from Tannehill before-

Play #1- The pocket is collapsing. Cutler steps out of the pocket towards the LOS and rockets a 1st down completion. Tannehill could make the throw there but he would have been sacked before having the chance.

Play #2- Tunsil misses his block on an outside blitz and Cutler is hit almost immediately. He tries to spin out and there's nowhere to go, so he throws a pass at the RB's feet at the very last second. He avoids a 6 yard sack. Again, RT would have taken the sack.

Play #3- This is the most important play of all. Cutler sees Parker 1 on 1 along the right side- coverage is tight and he's not open. Cutler launches the pass anyway though and let's Parker go to work- he elevates and snatches the ball out of the air. 79 yard TD. RT never would have thrown this one.

In Cutler's season that you're comparing him to RT, the Bears had almost no weapons at all on offense- a bunch of no-name receivers, a beat up line and a lousy run game. RT and Moore were in one of the most powerful offenses in the league last year and they put up average numbers- big difference. I like RT a lot and you all know I LOVE MOORE, so this isn't a knock on either of them. I simply saw a veteran Cutler do things we haven't seen lately as an out of shape QB two weeks back in the league. And remember, this was across four series...it's not like he had an entire game to show these things.

Folks, Cutler is going to be a top 5 QB this season- we're 15 days away from our Cinderella story.

 

I really think that's what practice is for, like you said, " practice like you play", and if all teams had the same rules no one would have an advantage, all evals would be done from practice..

I mean I personally love the preseason because watching my team in any circumstance is awesome, I also love the evaluation part of the game on personnel, but that's because I don't get to see practices..

I think there has to be a happy medium..I don't see the need to play players that have solidified their starting positions..so if they want to roll out players that are in direct competition then let that be what preseason is for...this nonsense that starters have to get in rhythm is just that...no, like I said, have the same rules for everyone then there won't be any advantages.

 

College players don't play preseason Max, they figure things out..

We will have been in practice form at camp for a month and a half..I believe coaches and starters can figure things out..let the backups fight during preseason games.

 

Which starters won't match him? We know Suh and Wake will. Branch has been singled out by coaches as a guy who leads by example through his effort. Alonso flies around the field like his hair is on fire. Godchaux is now Suh's willing pupil and won't want to let his mentor down. X has it. Hull, when he plays, is a fiery guy. Maxwell looked like he was in a trance vs the Eagles, but showed great effort in the earlier games. Nate Allen was pretty quiet in his lone start so far. When they come in, Hayes, Phillips, and Harris are going to match the starting DL's effort. Have some concerns about McCain. Mental errors against the Eagles. Should Verner be the nickel?

 

Going out on the field and playing half@ssed is a good way to get hurt too.

 

Jones came from the other side of the field to even get to Ertz on that play. I do not think he missed the tackle through lack of effort or interest.

 

Not playing at full speed doesn't automatically deviate to playing half-assed.

 

They have Spring practices including a Spring game, and then you notice the big schools like Alabama for example, start their season with non-conference games against much lesser opponents. Those games are their equivalent of preseason.

 

Not going full speed, while your opponent is going full speed, does not protect you from injury and is a good way to increase the chances of an injury. Okay? Is that more clear?

 

Yup they have spring practices I.E training camp for pros...yup they have a scrimmage..so do we..

Games that count, even if against lesser competition, still count..they come to play..

So I disagree with everything your presenting here C..

 

Why do you think a school like Alabama opens against a school like Georgia Southern? It is a tuneup game. Non-conference games do not count in Conference standings.

 

We've seen those plays from Tannehill; he just makes them much less frequently than Cutler.

On the other hand, there are plays Tannehill has made that involve ball protection, that Cutler won't make. Cutler will throw costly interceptions that Tannehill won't throw, that undermine the sort of play noted above.

Because interceptions are so costly in the game, in the end, you have two players who aren't meaningfully different from each other.

 

Top 5 is elite play. Last year the top 5 by passer rating were Ryan, Brady, Prescott, Rodgers, Brees. Nothing in Cutler's history suggests he'll join that list, though as Ryan showed it's possible to have a totally anomalous year and get in (Prescott also has to show he's not just a one-year wonder).

From 1993-2005 Denver had a top-10 offense by points scored EVERY year except one (1999). That occurred under Phillips (first 2 years) and Shanahan (10 out of next 11 years), and under 3 QB's: Elway, Griese and Plummer:
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/den/index.htm

In 2005, the year before Cutler replaces a benched Plummer, Denver actually went all the way to the AFC conference championship! This was not a bad team in 2006 when Cutler came in.

What does Cutler do? Well you can see in the link above. Offense ranked 17th with Plummer and Cutler in 2006, 21st with Cutler in 2007 and 16th with Cutler in 2008. Not a sign this guy can play above average QB level even with good surrounding cast. And when you adjust Cutler's game-by-game passer ratings to a reference year (2016) his best years were his early years with Shanahan.

Then in 2009 Cutler goes to Chicago:
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/chi/

OK, so Chicago's 2008 offense ranked 14th under Orton. Under Cutler it proceeds to be ranked 16th to 23rd in the next 6 out of 7 years, with one anomaly in 2013 where they were ranked 2nd. Also not a sign this guy can do what elite QB's (top 5) do, like Manning did in Denver when he came in. See that first link: 25th to 2nd ranked offense when Manning came in.

Point is.. unless Cutler has a Ryan-type anomaly, there's no good evidence he'll be top 5. Adjusted average career passer rating for Cutler is 90.39, assuming the adjusted league average is 87.6. So he's really just a bit above average.

I think realistic is barely top 10 if he plays to his potential. Cutler's best ranking of 12th was under Shanahan in 2007 (same as the best for Tannehill, in 2016). And btw.. I think ranking barely top 10 would be enough for this team to make the playoffs, so there's nothing wrong with that.

 

Like I said, I have not studied Cutler in depth- my comment was simply from what my eyes saw from the offensive weapons we are surrounded with. One thing your stats don't take into consideration is Cutler's motivation in 2017- he can go back to sitting on his couch at any time and be perfectly happy with that. He's not competing for a roster spot, a contract bonus, a better contract next season, etc. In other words, there's no pressure and he's just playing a game. I think that makes all the difference in the world for a smart veteran QB.

 

They all count, it's not about just conference, their real games that are meaningful, don't care who they match up with..some schools, like Alabama in the past do come out with good opponents..

 

I have elite as being anyone who can get the job done at a very hi level..so there could be less than 5 or more than 5, depending on the individual talent..

Good post as always.

 

I think for the past couple years we've been saying, "Oh, it's just pre-season," and then come regular season, the same things we saw in pre-season are still there.

 

Why do you suppose Alabama never opens the season against their primary conference opponents? Why don't Ohio St and Michigan open up going head to head? Why do we see so many top programs open up with a game or two against teams from lower conferences? Is that all just coincidence?

 

Bigger schools play a game or two out of the gates against much lesser competition. It's kind of the same thing.

 

But that's where it stops with both he and Tannehill, assuming the rest of the team overall functions at about the average level, which is about what we saw last year.

Both QBs play at the level to get you into the playoffs as a low seed, if the rest of the team is about average. If the rest of the team is well below average, then their play isn't good enough to get a team to the playoffs.

It would take an exceptionally good rest of the roster for either QB to win a Super Bowl. This year that's going to come down to whether the defensive changes can make a poor run defense and an average pass defense improve to at least an average run defense and one of the league's best pass defenses.

Anything short of that and we're looking at a replay of last year and a 9-7/10-6 record, depending on turnover margin and strength of schedule. Cutler would have to improve significantly, coupled with a vast improvement in the pass defense, for this team to go from 10-6 to something much better.

 

Agree with DHitchens. We've seen em. Repeatedly. Also like the Cutler sack/fumble, when your OL craps the bed, bad stuff happens. I think it was Rafael a while back talking about how people remember only the negative for players they don't like and positives for players they do.

As for Moore. Yeah, he throws a beautiful INT.

And if you're going cite that stuff for Cutler about bad OL and no weapons, you have to do the same with Tannehill in years prior to Gase.

Again, if Cutler can play as well or better as Tannehill did last season, I'll be ecstatic. Hoping for better. It's year 2 for most of these guys in Gase's Offense. Everyone should be better than last season.

 

not really..too many differences to start a debate..ill drop if you do.

 

I also told DJ the same thing, but he isn't having it.

 

Which parts of the team were average last year? The oline? The linebackers? Maybe the safeties? The corners? Maybe it was the special teams.

I keep seeing this idea that Tannehill needed decent play (in this case the word was average) play to be successful. I still posit that if we'd had average play from other units, we'd have been wildly successful with Tannehill, who'd have then looked elite.

 

Alabama plays Florida state to open the season..

 

Well.. I think with Ajayi you'd have to say we were above average at RB. Our WR group is one of the better ones in the NFL so that's above average. OL was below average for sure.

And the Dolphins' defense was ranked 7th, 8th, 20th, 19th, 18th from 2012-2016 in points allowed for an average of 14.4, so it's not like we had a horrible defense either. Coach was below average for sure except last year with Gase.

Anyway, point is neither Tannehill nor Cutler have demonstrated they are consistently a well above average QB. They've had spurts yes, but the best you can say I think is that both are marginally above average, even if stylistically different.

 

That is one school that I just suggested as for instance. If you have not noticed how often programs from the top conferences feast on lower level schools at the start of their schedules, then I guess you are purposely not paying attention. After FSU, Bama has Fresno, and Colorado State in their next two games. FSU has LA-Monroe next.

 

After those first two years, our defense was awful. Having two years above 10 really skews the average. That being said, I'm not interested in the average rank over 5 years, but were they average each year? As you can see, we were only above average on defense the first two years. 19, 20, and 18 aren't very good.

 

Two equally and relatively unimportant parts of the team -- the run defense and the run offense -- counterbalanced each other, in that the run defense was poor, and the run offense was very good. End result -- average.

In terms of the two far more important parts of the team -- the pass offense and the pass defense -- both were average. End result -- average.

So, you had an average QB, and an average rest of the roster, overall. Under those conditions, the average QB can do no better than a low playoff seed, unless something truly exceptional happens in the area of turnover margin, and that didn't happen either.

 

You have to distinguish between run and pass defense. Pass defense is far more important in terms of winning.

 

Defense felt like it was awful I agree, but statistically it wasn't. Rank 18 is just a tad below average (which is 16.5).

Actual numbers: we gave up 23.8 points per game last year. The average was 22.77. Distribution is a bit skewed so the median is above the mean at 23.6. In other words, we're right in the middle there = average. And the standard deviation was 3.38 so there's no real basis from a statistical point of view to say we weren't average.

 

The key defensive stat in terms of winning is passer rating surrendered, and the team was average in that area. It needs a passer rating up around 100 from Cutler, and the passer rating surrendered to drop from 88.5 (average) at least to the high 70s, to get this team from 10-6 to a record that gets it at least one home game in the playoffs.

Obviously you don't want to spend every season squeaking into the playoffs as a six seed and playing on the road right away. "Playoffs" alone isn't a sign of anything good under those conditions.

 

No the key defensive stat (almost a trick question) is points allowed per game, which is why I'm focusing on that (not that what you wrote in your other posts is wrong).

Correlation between points allowed per game and winning runs regularly around -0.75. Correlation between passer rating allowed and winning is more in the range of -0.6. All this varies per year of course.

 

No, you can't average our run offense with our run defense. The run offense was average. Ajayi had some awesome games, but other times, the run offense was non-existent. The run defense was bad.

 

No. I only care about points scored. Points scored win games, not yards gained.

 

doesn't matter, were way off the original topic...I don't think NFL starters need to play in preseason, you do...ok..moving on.

 

You said we do not need preseason at all, because college football does not have one. That was for all players, not merely starters.
So, you would make your determinations on the younger prospects based on what? OTAs? Teams changing schemes or coaches would just get adjusted to them on the fly?

 

IIRC, we outright dominated most of our opponents in the preseason of 2015. We had a joint practice with the Panthers that year and they couldn't do anything against our defense. Then came the season and we were terrible and the Panthers were in the Super Bowl.

So, I think it really depends... some of the problems we are seeing now may get fixed by the time the season rolls around, others may linger, and maybe even some new ones we never saw coming will pop up.

We really won't be able to tell until the actual season starts, IMO.

 

alabama is opening up agains FSU!!!!! #1 against #3 not a tuneup!!!