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Seems Ajayi can catch the ball just fine in Philly

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by hitman8, Jan 7, 2018.

  1. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    This is the type of passing plays we should have been calling for ajayi.

     
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  2. texanphinatic

    texanphinatic Senior Member

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    Why the **** are you bringing this up now? Dude is gone and we didn't lack for it.
     
  3. Nappy Roots

    Nappy Roots Well-Known Member

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    His hands aren't the issue in the passing game :001_rolleyes:
     
  4. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    So you
    I bring it up so you can see that ajayi is actually a pretty decent receiver out of the back field and gase is actually a pretty lousy playcaller and talent evaluator. Gase didn't design the right plays for him. I said before that ajayi is better running routes with momentum up field, it's very easy to design plays for that yet gase never ran a route like this or similar up field routes for ajayi.

    Yes drake has done great, I always liked drake and am actually mad that they didn't play him more before. He is definitely better than williams yet he didn't see much of the field on offense until williams got injured. That is bad talent evaluation and player usage by gase.

    We would have been set with ajayi and drake sharing the load. A one two punch which would keep defenses on their heels.

    I am glad drake is doing great, but if god forbid he gets injured (something he has a history of doing) we don't have anybody on his or ajayi's level to take his place.
     
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  5. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Ajayi’s issues is that he’s such an easy cover in route, his stiff upper body prohibits him from getting low when he’s running a route, his route running is not good, he can’t get his head around well on certain routes and just doesn’t pose a real threat past the LOS
     
  6. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    If Gase is such a lousy playcaller...and lousy evaluator of talent, I just have one question...

    How did we go 10-6 and make the playoffs last season?
     
  7. invid

    invid Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Is a single screen play a good determinant of a back's overall effectiveness in the passing game?
     
  8. texanphinatic

    texanphinatic Senior Member

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    Yes, your ONE play highlight reel certainly accomplishes all of that. I stand corrected!
     
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  9. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    Ajayi had 34 balls thrown to him in 8 starts this season. He caught 24 for 158 yards.

    In comparison, Drake started 6 games, was targeted 48 times, caught 32 balls for 239 yards.

    This thread is straight poop.
     
  10. eltos_lightfoot

    eltos_lightfoot Well-Known Member

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    Only dolphins fans could get Drake instead of Ajayi and complain about it.

    I mean we have a metric ton of issues, but let's complain about one of the positions with a decent starter..
     
  11. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    Mostly because of Jay Ajayi and a weak schedule, mixed in with a lot of luck winning close games.
     
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  12. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    I am not arguing that ajayi is a better pass catcher than Drake. What I am arguing is that he is a decent receiver out of the backfield if put in the right positions and the correct routes to fit his strengths.

    And that we would have been better with both of them on the team sharing the load, changing the pace and being able to take over in case of injury.

    Now we are wholey dependant on Drake staying healthy just because gase and his "complex personality" couldn't handle being questioned by ajayi.
     
  13. hitman8

    hitman8 Well-Known Member

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    I am not complaining about having drake instead of ajayi, I am complaining about not having both. They are both great talents and would have been a great one two punch if gase had played his cards right.

    There is no reason why both of them could not have shared the load. I don't understand why gase relegated Drake to the bench when ajayi was here he could have given him more snaps a lot sooner. Drake should have at least been our third down back since the begining of the season.

    Gase is often late to utilize his talent on the team correctly, last year he had to wait until the 4th or 5th game and an injury to foster to realize ajayi was the best running back on the team.
     
  14. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Maybe Gase waited to play him last year because of Ajayi's attitude problems and work ethic? You know, the reasons that he got rid of him this season for a song. Maybe he was trying to showcase him this year to try and get a better deal for him? Who knows. But there are probably other reasons other than he's a bad talent evaluator.
     
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  15. Finatik

    Finatik Season Ticket Holder Staff Member Club Member

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    How about because he didn't block/missed blocking assignments, was disruptive in meetings and was free lancing. I guess the WHOLE REASONS why he was shipped off has no bearing on your reality.
     
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  16. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    I'm a decent receiver out of the back field if I'm put into the right positions, too.

    Playing people who need to be "in the right position" is nothing more than letting the defense know what that player will be doing every time they're on the field. You like to claim that Gase is a horrible play caller, and yet you fail to realize that for the majority of the season he was using people that can only succeed in the "right position". IOW, telling the defense what the offense was up to.

    Gase wasn't being questioned by Ajayi. Gase was being undermined by Ajayi. Ajayi would only run certain plays a certain way and then deviate from those plays when he felt he needed to. Ajayi was a cancer in the Dolphins locker room.

    Do you know what the difference is between you and most here? It's not that hard to figure out. Here let me give you a good example.

    Me: Harris is a player I hadn't really studied pre draft and I was surprised the Dolphins took him with their #22. He actually did OK this season for a rookie DE playing on a team that has a lot of problems. he has the work ethic and talent to be a really good pass rusher. I hope the light bulb comes on for him over the next year or two and he tears up the league a la Cam Wake style.

    You: I hate Harris because he wasn't "insert the couple of players you like". He sucks. he was the worst rookie DE this season because "sacks".

    Understand?
     
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  17. muskrat21

    muskrat21 Well-Known Member

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    guy catches 1 screen pass and all the sudden he's marshall faulk... If i didn't have a life i'd go clip all the wheel routes he dropped with the endzone being the nearest thing to him.
     
  18. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Ajayi was 48th in yards per carry for 2017 but hey, he finally caught a screen pass! Clearly that makes him the best running back in the history of the NFL.
     
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  19. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    I'd make the comparison only with players who had sufficient number of rushing attempts per game. Pro-football-reference does that for you (their threshold is a minimum of 100 rushes in a season) and Ajayi is 18th by Y/A:
    https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2017/rushing.htm

    Drake is 6th by Y/A.
     
  20. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    Still:

    Ajayi below average

    Drake above average
     
  21. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    No, the average across all 48 listed there is 4.1 Y/A while Ajayi is 4.197, so he's above average.
     
  22. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    I was going by 32 RB's. That doesn't work either, though, because PFR shows 48 RB's.
     
  23. cbrad

    cbrad .

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  24. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    I’ll give everyone a tl;dr for this post:

    Ajayi caught a pass in Philly and that is an indication that Gase is a horrible coach. Drake is fantastic and looks great in the current system but Gase should have changed it to fit Ajayi (temper tantrums not mentioned) and therefore he’s a bad coach.

    Seems totally reasonable.
     
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  25. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    Eagles getting ready to have Ajayi carry their offense as their formula to get to the SB... at least thats the word around here...

    Can you imagine if he does carry that offense to the SB?
     
  26. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    :sidelol::sidelol::sidelol::sidelol::sidelol: I love dreamers. Thank you for the image :sidelol::sidelol::sidelol:
     
  27. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    If so, that's great for Philly and I'd personally be happy to hear that Ajayi has finally grown up some. That's a completely different topic though and not the OP's intention with this thread.

    I just can't get past the formula- Ajayi caught a pass = Gase sucks = Ajayi > Drake

    In case the OP missed it, both Drake and Williams caught a pass as well and they looked a heck of a lot better than Ajayi this season

    You left a critical part out of that formula though- Ajayi averaged 3.8 per carry across 138 carries for 7 games with the Dolphins. He averaged 5.8 with the Eagles on 70 carries in his next seven games...which falls below your threshold to even be counted here. His roles were very different though between the two organizations and it's very hard to argue that he's not behind a far superior line now.

    As a featured back, he's still sitting at that 3.8 mark in my mind until he proves otherwise.
     
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  28. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    100 attempts in a season is satisfied regardless of whether he switched teams or not. That's an arbitrary mark that PFR set of course, but Ajayi crosses the threshold.

    Your point about him being used differently in Miami and Philadelphia is valid of course (btw it's 3.37 YPC in Miami). Remember that t-test with 2 samples of unequal sample sizes I talked about? That shows that Ajayi's distribution of yards rushing in Miami vs. distribution of yards rushing in Philly are 2.45% likely to come from the same underlying distribution. The running back is the same, so that means the situation Ajayi was in (or how he was used) was 2.45% likely to be the same in Miami vs. Philly.. or.. 97.55% likely to be different.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
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  29. brandon27

    brandon27 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    This is it right here IMO. It's pretty obvious that we DID call plays just like those for Ajayi, and we made nothing of them. Partially because our OL is pretty lacklustre at getting out in space and blocking on screens, and Ajayi is slow with his route running, and he's not as quick/explosive out of his routes. It's all in his body. If you look at the plays we called for him passing, they looked slow. Look at hte ones we did with Drake, and the difference is noticeable. Those plays in this video IMO are more being made by the OL giving Ajayi an opportunity, rather than Ajayi using his own skillset to make those plays like Drake did this year.

    Either way, as others have said, it's a moot point since we performed better without him.
     
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  30. JPPT1974

    JPPT1974 2022 Mother's Day and May Flowers!

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    Too bad that Carson Wentz is gone for the year. IMHO Eagles will be one and done but would be surprising as Nick Foles needs to give Ajayi the ball more.
     
  31. adamprez2003

    adamprez2003 Senior Member

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    He couldn' carry them to a Philly cheesesteak let alone a SB.
     
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  32. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    As the old adage goes, we will see. You don’t have data to back that up outside of what is GOING to happen next week, which in turn, hasn’t happened yet.
     
  33. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    I’m guessing Ajayi pulls out 300+ rushing yards this year against the Falcons. Just my guess.
     
  34. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    lol WHAT?? You mean 300+ yards rushing in this upcoming game?

    Did you know that the all-time record for most rushing yards in a game in NFL history is 296 by Adrian Peterson in 2007? NO running back has ever had 300+ yards rushing in a game. And the playoff record is 248 by Eric Dickerson in 1986.

    So I think it's a VERY safe bet that you'll be proven wrong.

    I think the only way you have a chance of being right is if you claim "this year" in your statement actually refers to "this calendar year" as opposed to "this season" because Philly and Atlanta do play each other in the 2018 regular season, giving Ajayi 2 games to get 300+ yards. But that's not what you meant.
     
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  35. invid

    invid Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    He means our game vs. Falcons + Eagles vs. Falcons this weekend.
     
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  36. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Oh! I guess I missed that possible interpretation.

    OK, if that's what he meant then Ajayi needs 170 yards, which would tie him for 18th all-time on the playoff list with only 5 doing it since 2000. Well.. at least it's not totally unrealistic, but it's still very unlikely.
     
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  37. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    Thank you for being able to read/comprehend very clear statements.
     
  38. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    Ummmm, he had 130 yards with Miami against the Falcons... I said and let me help you with all caps here, THIS YEAR!!! Your whole post here is now non sense because you can’t read lol

    Phillys line is a WHOLE LOT better than Miamis and I think 170 is easily doable with the game plan Philly has set to win.

    Please don’t give no twilight zone style answer to what you think I said too, trying to twist what I said, it’s easy reading comprehension. please and thank you in advance
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
  39. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah I missed the interpretation invid pointed out. Said so in post #38.

    Was in the mindset of Ajayi in Philly the whole time, which is why I didn't consider Ajayi in both Miami and Philly.
     
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  40. invid

    invid Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    He misunderstood what you originally said, but nothing was disrespectful about his response.

    cbrad contributes a whole hell of a lot to this board, why don't you pop a xanny and reel it in there a little bit?
     
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