Warning, if you're someone who is already completely done with Tua and are not interested in seeing what he can do next year then this isn't the thread for you. Please skip over it. Anyone trolling or just repeating here the same "I'm done with him, he's useless" comments of Tua that are posted elsewhere - those posts will be deleted. Similarly, any posts that add nothing constructive and just pick a fight with someone will also be deleted.
For those of us who are at all interested in seeing what Tua can do - whether confident in Tua or almost done with him - here's a thread to explore that.
What do you think will be a best case scenario for Tua next year? It could be, the developing pieces around him, it could be the offense/strategy, or it could just be a reflection on Tua himself, and what we know, and hope to see.
Obviously this is, right now, before the addition of a new HC and staff, not knowing what the new offense will be.
On a personal level, there has been one thing true of Tua for his college and NFL career, and that's his commitment to improve. Whatever his ability, I feel very confident that he will work to improve on this year, and work on his weaknesses, such that we will see a better Tua next year than this. That was a strength or selling point of his from the beginning. If he doesn't or can't then it's truly over for him. For my part I'm confident he will improve both in terms of skill and also in terms of running an NFL offense and reading defenses.
If the team remain committed to him, this should be Tua's best year so far.
Anyone else, please share your thoughts on getting the most out of Tua, what we might see.
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First and foremost, I think the guy for him is not Daboll but McDaniel. Clearly, after not getting along with Flores, we need to find someone with a better understanding of dealing with players. McDaniel has a sports psychology degree from Yale. I think he checks the box.
As far as systems go, I feel like SF is not predicated on pushing the ball downfield. You see a lot of roll outs and that usually results in more short to intermediate passes. I also think that Waddle could benefit from McDaniel's system as well. I could see him doing a lot of Deebo things with him. I sorta like these low risk, high reward type plays. Get the ball in his hands, and see if he can break one. I think Gesicki would be more utilized as well as McDaniel seems to value the TE position.
McDaniel's specialty is the run game which I also think would help Tua as well. One of the things that I have absolutely adored about Shannahan is his ability to find RBs that fit his system. I don't think we would need to use a top pick to find a guy, and they all seem to work. I wouldn't be surprised if we had 3 working RBs by next season. I am also hoping that he works to build the offensive line.
Finally, I think I would be looking to replace Parker and sign a FA WR. I would spend some serious coin here and grab a Godwin, Robinson, Adams, or Mike Williams. I would be looking hard to get a line too. Money should be spent.Phin McCool, texanphinatic, dolphin25 and 2 others like this. -
I'm not sure there's a lot more to dig into at the moment. Tua struggled last year because the offense struggled; everything we did in 2021 was by design to overcome the lack of protection. That's why those stats you shared are essentially useless. We don't want to know how Tua improves in a broken offense....we want to know how he improves in a good offense with good fundamentals and complimentary football.
ExplosionsInDaSky and Galant like this. -
Per the OP, please try to keep the posts constructive. Thanks.Mexphin and Silverphin like this. -
As to the best case scenario, Tua becomes what we hoped for and silences his critics but I have my doubts that will happen, if not that he has to show that he's more then just a game manager... -
Mexphin and texanphinatic like this.
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Pederson made Wentz and Foles look like world beaters. Foles left for the $$$ and Wentz, whether it was physically or mentally, was never the same after he got hurt. Pederson’s stock dropped in Philly as Wentz slid into mediocrity, and they were stuck with him because of the contract they gave him. I think he would be my top choice to help this offense succeed, followed by the less experienced, but intriguing McDaniel.
M1NDCRlME likes this. -
Best case scenario is that they field a semi-competent offensive line.
They add a reliable target or two on the outside.
Call me crazy but maybe just one, not two, experienced offensive coordinator.
Add a young running back that can break a tackle.Mexphin, M1NDCRlME, KeyFin and 1 other person like this. -
Prior to his injury, I was honestly would have been willing to replace Parker with Michael Gallup. I can just hear the groans as people read this. There is no way that Gallup over Parker would be an upgrade. You would be right. I would actually value a worse player more than a healthy player because I know that I could count on him to be on the field.
Think this year about times in which DVP was out. If I asked you who was taking his spot, it would be an "I dunno - Wilson, Williams, maybe a split between Hollins and Ford. No matter who it was, it was always someone that we were asking just too much from. At the end of the day, it was because the team relied too heavily on Parker. Paying more for more reliability would be something that I would be open to. -
Parker is "cheap" because he can't deliver consistently. And in this offense, he's just a lousy fit since there aren't many opportunities to wait 4 seconds and toss 50/50 balls his way. The guy isn't getting open anymore, he's not giving a full effort, and I just don't need that nonsense in my starting lineup.
Plain and simple, Parker is a bum. He's 100% replaced by Preston Williams, who appears to be another bum. But Preston is cheaper, so he's the bum for me in 2022. Or we could cut them both in 2022 and sign two UFDA's who are hungry and ready to play each Sunday. I know that's brutal but man, Parker has had five years to prove himself and we just haven't seen it other than an occasional game. -
The easiest path forward is to keep Tua and give him a decent OL and running game. Learning a new offensive system is tough, as it affects both the QB and the rest of the skill players, so you can't expect the normal jump you'd hope to see a young QB make in Year Three of the same offense.
My lingering concern is the hip. It seemed like Tua was struggling to throw with his whole body. A result of the rib injury? Panic due to the bad OL in front of him? Or the hip did not heal right? You can't expect Tua to come out and say, "Guys, my hip just isn't the same, sorry." but a deep film study should be done by the team to see if his throwing motion has changed. -
For example, what if it were the case that Tua, owing to subpar arm strength perhaps, threw such downfield passes (20+ air yards) only in a far narrower range of situations than the average QB and the pass offense suffered because of it? What if Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes for example -- or even just average QBs -- are throwing far more frequent downfield laser beams, into far smaller windows on average, and Tua's higher completion percentage on such throws is a product of their being relegated to only highly opportune situations?
I'm not saying that was the case because I don't know. But we need more info -- the stats there don't address that possibility. -
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It's not so much a matter of saying whether or not Tua is great and has proven himself great, but rather to identify what Tua can do well and consider that.Silverphin likes this. -
Best case scenario for Tua...
Tua:
- Call the QB doctor, Tom House, make an appointment. Tua's mechanics are inconsistent. Some of that is pressure and being rushed, but I've seen him get sloppy with decent/good protection too. Tua's physical limitations leave no margin for error. He must do what Drew Brees did, and become relentless with attaining perfect mechanics.
Coach:
Probably Daboll. I would rather have McDaniel, who is my #1 choice. I think MM is better for Miami overall, but if we're solely basing this on Tua's best interest, then Daboll. Daboll knowing Tua, strengths, weaknesses, etc... will help offset Tua's 3rd offense in three years. And MM system might take longer to implement fully because of the transition to zone blocking and our lack of fit based on the current roster. Daboll could continue forward with some of our o-line pieces and build.
WR:
Bringing in Will Fuller was a great idea in theory. We need a Z with speed and explosion. Someone who separates quickly and gets YAC. YAC is really the name of the game for Tua. He's Chris Paul, not Steph Curry. Obviously Fuller didn't work out and we need to go back to the drawing board.
RB:
Draft someone. Bring back Duke as a rotational guy. Has value in the receiving game too, which we never really tapped into.
O-line:
Help wanted. Left tackle and right tackle. Keep Austin Jackson as backup LT/LG and keep trying to develop him, long term. You can't give up on 22 year old draft pick, that we drafted at 18, despite being a developmental project. If we sign Armstead, he has health issues. We will need someone. Liam goes to LG. Dieter at C. Hunt at RG.Phil Hutchings and Galant like this. -
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dolphin25 and Dolfanalyst like this. -
Best case scenario for Tua in 2022? Honestly, I think a first round exit from the playoffs is best case scenario. Playing so poorly as a starter that he's no longer a starting QB in this league after 2022, worst case.
Kud_II likes this. -
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An r^2 of 0.017 for passer rating translates to a correlation of 0.13. The correlation between 2020 passer rating for QBs that started 7+ games and their win% in 2021, assuming they also started 7+ games in 2021, is a whopping 0.6594, which gives you an r^2 = 0.4348. No way that goes down to 0.017 after doing this for the other years (that would require the other years to have negative correlation!). So they have a coding error somewhere. If I had to guess they didn't sort their data properly so it's not comparing the same QB between years lol. THEN you'd get that. Even the PFF result is way too low.
So this looks like a classical case of people just dumping data into some program without asking whether the results make sense. If they don't make sense it's likely the user made a mistake, and that's what happened here. Just dismiss this site from here on out.Dolfanalyst and Kud_II like this. -
If so, what names would you be looking at and more importantly, how would you define their role within the team?
I see this as more of the meat and potatoes of team construction. If I was recruiting someone like Christ Godwin, he is probably looking to a situation where he is catching 100 passes. The Miami Dolphins had 400 catches as a team last year.
If you are in his camp, you are seeing Waddle probably getting 100 catches. Let's count Gesicki as 65 if he returns. Give another 50 for RBs. We will go with "other receivers" catching 50 receptions.
Giving an incentive based contract to Parker would leave me to believe that he could expect around 50 catches. Is that enough to meet his incentives? If you are giving him more, you are taking away from someone.
I am not saying that it could not work, but it is starting to get tight. -
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One thing in Tua’s favour is the fact that most his offensive teammates are young.
Nearly all of the Olinemen have been drafted in the last two years. Waddle is a rookie, Ahmed is 23, Gaskin is 24. Even Gesicki, at 26 is only now coming into his prime. I know neither of these RBs is of the quality that a franchise needs to reach the top, but they do a job for the team.
Of course, Tua reaching his potential depends on those around him doing the same, especially the OLine, but I do think it’s possible. -
Throughout the season there were a few looks at what Tua had been doing well, particularly during that strong run.
Does anyone know a good place to gather some of those stats for the full season and perhaps compare from his first season?
For example:
Tua Tagovailoa Is Playing Well, Which Is A Real Inconvenience If You’re The Dolphins | FiveThirtyEight
"But there’s plenty of room for growth. Though he’s been very accurate with his throws (especially late in the game), he’s also been extremely conservative. He’s averaging just 7.02 air yards per attempt this season, ranked 30th — and despite not throwing it very far downfield, he’s as prone to interceptions as you would expect for a quarterback who’s played in only 17 professional football games. Six picks against nine touchdowns gives him a TD-to-INT ratio of 1.5. That’s tied with Matt Ryan for 24th in the league and is just barely ahead of Jared Goff, Daniel Jones and Brissett.
To keep himself on the field, Tagovailoa will have to add more explosive plays to his game (like the 65-yarder to Hollins) while subtracting mistakes (like the first-quarter interception). But he already has demonstrated the accuracy, decision-making and clutch instincts of an above-average NFL starter."
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Tua can throw the ball downfield. His problem is velocity. If your receivers aren't getting enough seperation it just won't work with downfield passes. He has a quick release but if you don't have time to plant your feet that doesn't matter. Get some oline help and we will see what happens.
dolphin25 likes this. -
Anyway, in 2021 Tua's passer rating for Q1-Q3 ended up being 89 after 290 passing attempts, and for Q4 it was 93.2 after 98 passing attempts. Attempts in Q4 is still a bit low, but you can see that the difference is now only 4.2 points instead of 18.4.Kud_II likes this. -
Next Gen Stats - https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing
Avg Time to Throw
Avg Comp. Air Yds
Avg. Intended Air Yds
Avg. Air Yds Differential
Aggressiveness:
Longest Completed Air Distance:
Air Yds to the Sticks:
Passing Attempts:
Passer Rating:
Passing Stats
Time To Throw (TT)
Time to Throw measures the average amount of time elapsed from the time of snap to throw on every pass attempt for a passer (sacks excluded).
Average Completed Air Yards (CAY) and Average Intended Air Yards (IAY)
Air Yards is the vertical yards on a pass attempt at the moment the ball is caught in relation to the line of scrimmage. CAY shows the average Air Yards a passer throws on completions, and IAY shows the average Air Yards a passer throws on all attempts. This metric shows how far the ball is being thrown ‘downfield’. Air Yards is recorded as a negative value when the pass is behind the Line of Scrimmage. Additionally Air Yards is calculated into the back of the end zone to better evaluate the true depth of the pass.
Average Air Yards Differential (AYD)
Air Yards Differential is calculated by subtracting the passer’s average Intended Air Yards from his average Completed Air Yards. This stat indicates if he is on average attempting deep passes than he on average completes.
Longest Completed Air Distance (LCAD)
Air Distance is the amount of yards the ball has traveled on a pass, from the point of release to the point of reception (as the crow flies). Unlike Air Yards, Air Distance measures the actual distance the passer throws the ball.
Aggressiveness (AGG%)
Aggressiveness tracks the amount of passing attempts a quarterback makes that are into tight coverage, where there is a defender within 1 yard or less of the receiver at the time of completion or incompletion. AGG is shown as a % of attempts into tight windows over all passing attempts.
Air Yards to the Sticks (AYTS)
Air Yards to the Sticks shows the amount of Air Yards ahead or behind the first down marker on all attempts for a passer. The metric indicates if the passer is attempting his passes past the 1st down marker, or if he is relying on his skill position players to make yards after catch.
Completion Probability
The probability of a pass completion, based on numerous factors such as receiver separation from the nearest defender, where the receiver is on the field, the separation the passer had at time of throw from the nearest pass rusher, and more.
Expected Completion Percentage (xCOMP)
Using a passer’s Completion Probability on every play, determine what a passer’s completion percentage is expected to be.
Completion Percentage Above Expectation (+/-)
A passer’s actual completion percentage compared to their Expected Completion Percentage.Last edited: Jan 25, 2022 -
If you're searching for a stat that suggests what should be improved, look at average time between snap and either throwing the ball or being put under pressure. The league average there in 2021 was 2.41 seconds. The two QBs that had it the worst (among those with 150+ passing attempts) were Roethlisberger and Tua, both with ~2.2 seconds.
Thing is, the standard deviation is 0.0991, which means Roethlisberger and Tua are in that "statistically significant" category (i.e., more than 1.96 standard deviations above/below the mean), as in you can't just explain this away with random variation. It's the statistical equivalent of saying either pass protection was abnormally bad, or these QBs had abnormally fast release times. We know which it is.Galant and Dolfanalyst like this. -
https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-the-perfect-timing-a-deeper-dive-into-time-to-throw-data
So that doesn't leave a whole lot of time between what's average throughout the league, in terms of time to throw, and when performance would be expected to drop off on average.cbrad likes this. -
Pass Pro Stats - https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/advanced.htm#all_passing_detailed
PktTime
▲ -- Average time the QB had in the pocket between the snap and throwing the ball or pressure collapses the pocket, in seconds
Hrry
▼ -- Times hurried
Hits
▼ -- Times hit as a QB while passing
Sk
▼ -- Times Sacked (first recorded in 1969, player per game since 1981)
Prss%
▼ -- Times pressured per dropback
Scrm
▼ -- Scrambles (rushes on plays designed as passes)
Yds/Scr
▼ -- Yards per scramble attempt
Last edited: Jan 26, 2022 -
Your link is better in that regard, but what the EPA analysis in that link is lacking is multiplying those effects by the probabilities of different time to throws occurring. That is, if something occurs infrequently it won't have as big an effect on overall performance even if EPA increases or drops by a lot. So you really need to look at play by play EPA combined with the probability of different events occurring.Dolfanalyst likes this. -
Telling stats from the OL/pass pro. categories?
Miami were tied for second in shortest time to pass, Tua was hurried a lot but Miami show up a middle of the pack or better when it comes to pressure %. So Miami and Tua apparently did an incredible job of getting the ball out quickly.
One way of reading that is to say that the Dolphins planned for a majority of short and quick passes, not longer ones, otherwise you'd expect to see Tua planning to hold the ball longer and thus facing more pressures, hits and sacks, right?
Air Yds to the Sticks (-1.4) and average Air Yds (7) seem to indicate the Dolphins were aiming to pass just short of first downs and keep the ball moving that way.
At the same time, Tua showed better than middle of the pack completion %, and even though there were a lot of short passes Tua had the highest aggression rating in the league which means he was passing into tight windows. That could come to Tua forcing passes when easier options might have been available, but it could also indicate the receivers weren't getting a lot of separation, and/or it could simply be a result of a short passing game that doesn't give time for plays to develop. Either way, he managed to get the ball to his receivers pretty well despite having to throw quickly and into tight windows.Last edited: Jan 26, 2022 -
In terms of accuracy:
OnTgt% 10th in the league
▼ -- Percentage of on-target throws per pass attempt, excluding spikes and throwaways
Poor throws was just on the low end for league average (10th from bottom):
Bad%
▼ -- Percentage of poor throws per pass attempt, excluding spikes and throwaways
Average Depth of Target was, as expected, on the low end:
But yards before catch seems to be about average or better, which seems surprising considering the short passes, maybe the league as a whole were also passing short?
YBC/R
▼ -- Yards before catch per reception
Phil Hutchings likes this. -
Receiving Stats:
Yards after catch were tied for 2nd to bottom. Maybe a result of short passes and tight windows, or maybe receivers not able to get separation and break tackles?
Interestingly, the Bills were worse.
YAC/R
▼ -- Yards after catch per reception
Number of broken tackles was good for 11th in the league:
Drop % was bad enough to tie for 3rd worst:
Although the Bills and Eagles were also on the low end of the league.Phil Hutchings likes this. -
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