LOL, as a math guy I expected better. 53 super bowls, hundreds of playoff games and exactly one QB who's had repeated success behind a below average line (and by saying "repeated" we're being generous here with 2 Super Bowl appearances and one win YEARS AGO). We have better odds of discovering a unicorn and Bigfoot in the same place than we do of finding the next Russell Wilson. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but it sure as heck isn't probable.
Many SB's were won by great mobile QB's. Steve Young, Joe Montana, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, etc.. It's not that uncommon historically and it's far more common nowadays to find one with the type of athletes coming out and the change in style at the QB position. Just look at the past few drafts and the prospects in the next few. It's not unrealistic to draft a good mobile QB. Secondly, my point was that a good mobile QB actually makes a bad OL look decent. In RW's case we can still see he has a bad OL, but I guarantee you we would NOT be saying the Dolphins have a bad OL if you had a QB with good pocket awareness and there are quite a number of those in the NFL today (at least 1/3 of the starters right now I'd say). Finally, drafting a mobile QB is simply the smarter strategy. Doesn't mean you don't do anything to address other deficiencies including OL.
Major footnote. No one here ever argued that. No need to try and win an argument by misrepresenting the other side.
Tannehill might be in the 12-16 range of QBs overall, but he is probably bottom 5 in pocket presence. By changing the QB we'll see the o-line "magically" improve but people will still wonder which one of the new linemen was most responsible for the improved OL play.
We've been trying to fix the OL for over a decade already. How about we try a different approach? Like maybe draft a QB who DOESN'T NEED a top 5 OL to be successful.
That's so easy to say, yet things haven't improved since 2001...the same goes for our run game That's 18 years of denial when this isn't a "magic issue" at all...it's common sense. Invest in the line and everyone on offense benefits.
Thing is, it is much harder to have a consistently good and dominant OL nowadays than in years past. If you get a QB that doesn't require 5 guys in front of him playing at their best in order to be a good QB, don't you think that sounds like a better strategy? If you bring in a QB who doesn't depend as much on 5 other guys to play well, wouldn't you reduce the amount of necessary variables needed for the offense to function effectively? Let's imagine two scenarios. QB #1) A top 10 QB who drops down to 12th best when his OL is playing poorly and top 8 when they are playing well. QB #2) A top 10 QB who drops down to 15th best when his OL is playing porly and top 5 when they are playing well. You're going to get much more consistent QB play out of QB #1 and you wouldn't need to invest a huge amount of resources into your OL, giving you the flexibility to focus these resources on other parts of your team. Seems pretty obvious to me.
This echoes pretty much what I’ve been saying for years. Our OL is autrocious. A solid OL can make a mediocre QB and RB good and a good QB and RB great.
Yea, sorry about that Flores...we’re not even going to let you build the team we hired you to do...we’re drafting a mobile quarterback whether you like it or not. And as an added extra bonus, if our plan fails, we’re going to fire you.
Obviously you didn't bother to read my post. There are quite a lot of mobile QB's we could draft that would lessen the need to improve the OL. Winning the SB is hard. Given that fewer mobile QB's have been drafted than pocket QB's one would expect that there are fewer mobile QB's that have won the SB. Not obvious to me that the probability of winning is lower if you have a mobile QB. You show that kind of data I might change my mind.
Really? That's the best response you can come up with? First of all absolutely NONE of what you wrote was suggested or implied by me. What are you trying to do? Deliberately build a strawman? Secondly, this is a Dolphins message board where people have different opinions on what would be best for the team. Apparently you think people making suggestions that differ with what Flores wants (which none of us really know about in detail) equates with not even allowing Flores to build the team he'd like to build. Where's the logic in that? There's definitely logic in what I suggested however. You get a good mobile QB and you lessen the need to improve the OL directly. Maybe next time try responding to the argument I made instead of making up some fantasy cause-effect relationship that doesn't exist!
So you want me to comb through decades of data from all college teams, to find out how many mobile QBs were playing, to see what three is off then translating to being drafted by an NFL team, and then comb through the data of mobile QBs in the NFL to see their success rates, and how it compares to non mobile? I don't need to. it's pretty simple: mobile first QBs aren't generally successful in the NFL, hence you pull out 3, possibly 4, HoFers to bolster your argument. The problem of course is, it's far easier to get an elite level pocket QB than an elite level mobile QB, just judging by what we see each and every year.
Intuitively I'd think the stats would show you have a higher chance of success with a mobile QB, but I don't have data to show that. Maybe one way to get at that would be to look at QB rushing stats which I'm slowly compiling anyway. We'll see if I can figure something out with that at some point in the future. Regardless there's no need for me to use any HoF'ers or SB winning QB's to make the case that one way to kill 2 birds with one stone is to draft a good mobile QB. Obviously having examples in the HoF help, but it's not necessary.
While I agree they are not mutually exclusive and it can be done in a year, the question is... who can we get that will make this concept a reality? I don't know who and I'm absolutly certain the a large portion of this fan base is relatively clueless! They have individual favorites and a presumption of knowledge, but that's about all. On the other hand, NFL coaching personnel have an actual performance record and no matter how good or bad those records may be, they are never as bad as some of the stuff that pops up in fan forums. I hope our new coaching staff gets who they feel they need in the draft and free agency while identifying and keeping some current team members who can make this thing work. Then we have the best shot of getting a team that plays up to the level most of us want, not that "tanking" thing.
Flacco going for a fourth seems to set the ceiling on Tannehill's trade value. Weird that a year before Bridgewater and Taylor both went for a 3rd
I don't think thats intuitive at all. There are so few mobile QBs in the league, and most mobile QBs flash early then fade out of they league once teams have enough film on them. Or injuries take away their mobility and they're toast.
I think that 12-16 range has left the barn. In fact, it obviously has. I would say he was in that range in 2016 overall, but that's it.
The QB needs a great OL to be great. He also needs a great RB to take the of pressure off of him and set up the play action , etc.. He needs a great D to give him more opportunities. He also needs great special teams to give him a rest, cusion the lead and to give him a shorter field to work with whilst giving the opponent a longer field to work with, so he can get some rest. . He also needs great trainers, equipment managers and Doctors He needs great parking attendants to make sure he gets to park close to the building so he can get to practice on time He needs a great massage therapist He needs great laundry specialists He needs great weather reports because he needs great weather He needs a great trainer He needs a great dietician He needs great cooks Oh..and he needs about 18 years before we can make an accurate and honest assessment of his abilities.
Cut Tannehill. Use savings to help build defense in free agency. Round 1 - Kyler Murray (QB, finished 6th in pass completion % in NCAA, Heisman winner) Round 2 - Michael Deiter (OG, Wisconsin) Round 3 - Beau Benzschawel (OG, Wisconsin) Round 4 - Michael Jordan (OC, Ohio St.) Round 5 - Gardner Minshew (QB, finished 2nd in pass completion % in NCAA, finished 5th in Heisman voting)
As we learned earlier in this thread, the Pats starting 5 is a 3rd rounder, two 5th rounders, a 7th rounder and an undrafted player. A top QB is going to take an investment....a top line does not if you have competent coaches and scouts. That's the difference you're missing here, you don't have to vastly overpay for linemen and hope they just work out. The other part you skimmed right on by was that RT had two near-perfect QBR's this year when he had good protection. He was #1 league-wide both weeks.....that's not top 8 or top 5. He also had 3 weeks in the top 10 as well. And all but one of those games came within the first month before our starters went out.
Yeah, I don't know that RT17 will get back to that. He won't with Miami. We just need to move on and look for the next guy who can fit the bill. But I want to do it the right way, and not try and game the system. And we need to make sure that the next guy has enough support to get the job done, because RT never did.
I have been pounding the table for building our OL for years, but if a top 5 QB is there we have to take him. They aren't as easy to find as O-linemen. Besides, nothing says that if we do manage to get a top 5 QB that our OL will be a bottom 5. We can upgrade both. If it's the right guy, I say get the QB first.
I’ve been reading this thread. Just because I haven the posted since the beginning doesn’t been I haven’t been following the thread. New England has excellent OL coaches, let’s hope Brian Flores can take some of that that down to Miami. What you said doesn’t take away from my point, though. Tom Brady has good pocket presence and doesn’t need his OL functioning at near 100% in order to be really good, I think we can all agree to that, right? So maybe a big part of NEs OL success is due to Tom Brady himself... Those near perfect QB ratings are outliers, as cbrad can explain better than I can. Every QB has near perfect games sometimes (remember Geno Smith against us?) you can’t expect a couple of near perfect QBRs to keep happening over the course of a whole season.. and you can’t really tell for sure that it was only the OL play that truly caused those QBRs. The whole point I’m trying to make that you seem to be missing is that it’s much easier for a QB to succeed in this league when he doesn’t depend on 5 other guys playing their best during the whole course of a season (Ryan Tannehill). If you do need the OL playing top notch the whole season and post-season (unless you have Dante Scarnecchia on your coaching staff), you’re probably going to have to invest considerably in both starters and backups (a few of the starters are eventually going to get hurt). So basically, it comes down to this: 1) a QB with poor pocket presence + a top 5 OL talent (starters and some backups) or a top 5 OL coach 2) a QB with good pocket presence + an average OL and average OL coach Which one of the two combinations would say is the easiest to acquire and sustain throughout several seasons and post-seasons en route to a Super Bowl win?
I would say neither is a good recipe. Your line can be late round picks but they still need to be GOOD. What NE did with their line is called great scouting. They obviously have a line that fits their system. In fact NE is the WORST example to use in an argument against the line because we all know how Brady plays under pressure from the front four.
Well, they don't NEED to be good if you have a QB who can still play well when they aren't good. It's obvious that the best combination would be a QB who has good pocket presence AND a good OL, but that's not what were arguing here. Tom Brady has bad games when he gets pressured from the interior, but is a master pocket manipulator otherwise. Look, I'm not saying we can put up 5 UDFA in there and if a QB has good pocket presence he's going to get it done anyway.... no, you obviously need to invest in the OL. The question here is how MUCH will you NEED to invest season after season when your QB's play is so dependent on the OL's play? If we take some off the OL's plate and put on the QB's plate, we'll have less variables to control over a longer time, there'll be less moving parts overall. Bringing in high-priced FA's or re-signing OL at a high price won't be as necessary, injuries won't be as much of a problem, etc etc. More flexibility, to me, is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. But if having a QB with poor to average pocket presence is what some prefer, to each their own, I guess.
Both guard spots dont need to be elite players, we have the bookend tackles already. We actually dont need to spend too many resources IMO to make this an above average line. What we cant do is have three weaknesses right up the middle.
Even the great Brady plays like dog **** when he has unblocked defenders coming through. This idea that elite QBs can simply play great without a good oline is pretty silly, imo.
Evidence exists that Ryan Tannehill has made his pass blocking OL's look worse that they are. And they are already bad so the unit here and Ryan Tannehill are a terrible fit.
What is this evidence? I mean, as noted earlier in this thread, Moore/Cutler/Oz all struggled or were also injured behind this line. So we have 4 different QBs who all struggled mightily behind this line. But yeah, it was definitely Tannehill making the line look worse. Look, I don't really want to start in on all these debates again, cause Tannehill is pretty much gone, but some of the comments that are still being made are just not accurate.
Exactly. Has anyone ever seen Brady try to throw a pass with a defender in his face? Probably worse than any other QB I've seen.
This x 1000%. Both are a problem, but it's too easy to scapegoat the O-line. Been the same fox hole people been living in for a long time now. Funny how we saw the sack rates decline with other backups in there.