Thanks for posting this. I saw it but was too lazy to put it up.

I'm excited about Lazor and what he brings. Hope he and Tanny hit it off. With Smith and Albert we have three solid linemen so we should be immensely improved there even if the two other positions are just adequate. The division will be tougher if anything but I'm excited.

 

although i would love me some ryan shazier, i wouldn't mind to go full loco on offense

 

Ryan made plenty of plays last season. Even game winning plays. As I've said before, whether it's fair or not, fans are remembering the last 2 games of the season and forgetting so much of the good he did before those 2 abortions of football games.

 

Agreed. I would argue that RT made as many plays as a Wilson or CKap last year (and they all missed about the same number of play opportunities). The difference is that he had a lower level of support so the same number of plays resulted in fewer wins so the fans don't remember those plays and remember the missed opportunities. The reverse happens with the successful teams.

 

Links:

Audio: http://www.miamidolphins.com/multimedia/audio/National-View-On-The-Dolphins/713a4826-9a95-409f-862c-20b236bf57bc?_ga=1.216939409.609232981.1397526245

Recap: http://www.thefinsiders.com/blog/2014/baldinger-analyzes-new-look-dolphins-offense?_ga=1.47649952.609232981.1397526245

 

Nice of Baldy to note that Shelley Smith probably does his best work at left guard.

 

Tannehill's 4th down throw to Gibson in the Ravens game and the nearly 70 yard throw to Wallace at the end of the Panthers game were about as "playmaking" as it gets, but as a team they just didn't finish. The final two games were horrible, but if Hartline doesn't drop that ball in the Bills game and Matthews doesn't drop the ball in the Jets game, we might've had different outcomes. Our D also got zero pressure in two games against rookie QBs and our only superstar had zero sacks when it counted. They were team losses all around.

My good friends are Saints and Packers fans, and they both watched 8 or so full Dolphins games this year, and they can't believe the negativity towards Tannehill, especially by his own fans. We had the best statistical season (you could argue Pennington's) since a lot of us were in elementary school with a guy who was WR for most of his college career. Then we spend the offseason watching film of him getting sacked and his overthrows/underthrows. It just seems overly negative. He does a lot of things he gets very little credit for. Obviously it is all about the wins and losses, but he's in different situations than Kaepernick and Wilson. He threw 170+ more times than both those guys.

 

I think when discussing "QB playmaking" with DJ, you have to understand he's almost always talking about the QB using his legs...whether its full on running or buying time to throw. It seems from reading DJ's posts over the past few years the only time he'll consider a 70 yard completion as playmaking, is if the QB was forced out of the pocket or scrambled to do it.

****WADR DJ, that's what how it appears.*****

Its not so much that he's wrong, its just the term "playmaking" is open to interpretation.

 

I agree, and would point out that without his running, Kapernick would have failed a lot more often than he did last season. He bailed himself and his team out a whole lot more than I'd want to see if it were my team. Isn't a good credit to a QB if the offense works the way that its supposed to, rather than needing to keep extending broken plays? And everyone seems to forget that through 14 games last season, Ryan had one of the highest QBRs in the whole league when you take out the section based on taking sacks.

 

Well Tannehill did have the longest single rushing play among the three last year, so he's on his way...

 

For me, I think we should have learned a valuable lesson after year 1 for Tannehill. Lots of people were worried about him. A few fought long and hard to get people to realize the problem was the talent surrounding Tannehill was subpar. He got better receivers and a TE and his numbers improved. there's no reason to think with a better oline his numbers won't improve even more. Guys like Wilson & CKap have considerably better teams around them then Tanny did (and are therefore asked to considerably less)....not just offensive skill players, but opportunistic defenses that set up short field scenarios. They also had better OCs too (which I think changes this year).

 

Imagine what we as fans would be saying about Tannehill if it was the other way around. If he had a couple of stinkers to start the season, but finished on fire. Sadly, the way he ended is what's resonating with fans and the media. I'm not trying to completely excuse him from criticism because those last 2 games were really bad. But as fans, we have to remember the good along with the bad. His improvement from 2012 to 2013 cannot be ignored, especially for a QB who dealt with one of the worst offensive lines in franchise history and a nonexistent running game. If Lazor can upgrade those 2 things, I'm really excited to see what 2014 brings for Ryan Tannehill.

 

Trying to put both Wilson and CKap on Miami last season, it is hard to imagine them doing better than Tannehill. Especially CKap, who is hard to imagine playing in an offense that isn't tailored around his abilities.

Maybe Wilson could have done better, but I doubt he would be a 100 rated quarterback.

 

I have always felt that head coaches, (except Cam Cameron) and QB's should be given three years before a decision should be made on their future with an organization.

In year one, the Dolphins had only one play maker of the team, Reggie Bush. This was also Tannehill's rookie season, after limited time as a stater in college.

In year two, Tannehill played behind one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL.

The players around Tannehill going into this season appear to be the best group of players he has been surrounded with since coming in the NFL. He no longer has any excuses and hopefully the new OC will do for him what he did for Foles last season. This is a make or break year for Tannehill and Philbin.

Tannehill needs to prove he can get the job done on a consistent basis in year three as a starter. This seasons expectation should be that the Dolphins actually have a winning season and make the playoffs. Anything less than a playoff berth this year will be considered a complete failure and Ross will be expected to fire Philbin and hire a new head coach who will bring in his own QB in 2015.

Many people on this forum feel the Dolphins should have made the playoffs last year. So expectations should be no less this year. I don't know if Tannehill and Philbin are the right men for the job, but they have the entire 2014 season to prove they have what it takes to get this team to the next level in the NFL. Another mediocre season is not something any true Dolphin fan should be willing to settle for.

 

How many non-Dolphins fans would take Tannehill over Wilson? Isn't that the definition of homerism?

I don't know how you can watch Seattle's OLine and think they were much better than ours, if at all, when protecting the QB. PFF grades them as worse in pass pro, in fact, fwiw. And I'll take Wallace/Hartline/Mathews/(Gibs)/Clay over Baldwin/Tate/Kearse/(Rice)/ZMiller.

But yes...it's still early on to be making big claims about these guys.

 

Homer is just a word people use to insult fans who disagree with them.

Seahawks were 4th in rushing. Wilson didn't have to do it all himself.

 

Wilson despite the poor OL did have the benefit of being relied on to be primarily a "caretaker", I still would take him based on his ability to elude rushers and make plays..even with a weak WR core.

CKap is much better than people around here want to admit.

 

I can see the argument for taking Wilson over Tannehill. I just don't think Wilson would do that much better in Miami than Tannehill.

CKap is hard to judge because he is on an amazingly talented offense with a really good coach.

 

As irrelevant as it is at this point, we are also comparing a 2nd rounder and a 3rd rounder to the 8th overall pick.

I personally believe Lazor will do wonders for Tannehill, which will do wonders for Wallace, which will do wonders for our offense. We are heading for a happy ending.

 

Marshawn Lynch averaged 4.2 YPA in 2011, before Wilson arrived. In Wilson's rookie year, Lynch averaged 5.0 YPA. How much much does Wilson factor in to the running game???

 

He average 4.2 YPA in 2013. Wilson was still his quarterback.

 

That's on coaching, IMO. Tannehill shouldn't have had to do it by himself either, but Philbin flat out said he'll abandon the run, and they did just that, even when they ran reasonably well.

 

Wilson has superior maturity and oozes charisma. People want to play w/ him, want to play well for him. He's a hell of a leader. I think Tanny has demonstrated maturity and good leadership as well, but Wilson got an extra helping.

 

I would have zero hesitation in taking Russell Wilson over Ryan Tannehill. Not even something you need to pause and think about and that's not even necessarily a knock on Tannehill.

Russell Wilson is a championship caliber quarterback, not a quarterback that happened to win a championship.

 

It seems to me that you limit the definition of "play-making" to running around before making a play. RT often made passes last year that were incredible in key situations. He makes those kinds of plays far more regularly than Wilson or CKap. IMO "play-making" involves more than just running around. It can be Marino seeing an opportunity and throwing a simply pass when everybody expects him to clock it. It can be RT completing an impossible throw to a player that seemed perfectly covered. It could be Manning changing the play at the line and making a play against a previously perfectly positioned D.

 

I'm a big Wilson and CKap fan. I was higher on them than most in their respective drafts and my enthusiasm for their games has not waned. My appreciation for RT is not in anyway a criticism of them. But IMO the Seahawk's and Niner's success compared to the Dolphin's success skews people's perceptions. IMO RT is as promising a prospect as Wilson and CKap and has individually performed similarly factoring in their respective circumstances. I don't believe that the Dolphins would have been anymore successful with Wilson or CKap instead of RT and I don't believe the Seahawks or Niners would have been any less successful with RT. My comment earlier in this thread and my opinion in this post is not intended to belittle Wilson or CKap or in any way diminish their accomplishments. My intention is merely to express the opinion that RT has performed equally well given their respective situations.

 

We keep hearing how little experience Tanny has. Does he still perform at the same level without having the comfort of the same offensive system he learned for years in college?

 

I just think you're ignoring a big part of play-making. I agree that RT has not shown nearly as much feel for making plays with his feet, but I also feel that Wilson and CKap have not shown as much passing ability. I think the totality of plays they've made is about equal. Unfortunately for Dolphin fans that level of play-making wasn't enough for more than an 8-8 record. IMO a big-part of that falls on the coaching. I probably pushed for Philbin harder than anyone here, but frankly I've been disappointed. I think the coaching staff has done a mediocre job of using the talent it has/had. Philbin seems to have been nothing more than an administrator thus far and distant and out of the loop one at that. I think that if we'd had the Seahawk's or Niner's staff that the successes would have been reversed.

 

If we had done just enough to go 8-8 but after starting weaker, we'd be extremely hopeful. In Saban's 9-7 year, we sucked early then caught fire at the end but didn't win enough to make the playoffs. Everyone got excited about what was ultimately a 6-10 team the next year because of the timing.

The thing about this whole thing is, most people watch enough of other teams to clearly say one player misses as many plays as the other. A few years ago when I had enough time I could do that but right now that ain't happening. We as fans watch every game our team plays and on the aggregate we see a bunch of missed plays. We only usually see highlights from other teams which doesn't do justice to comparisons. When ESPN shows Wilson with a game winning drive, unless you watched that game, you have no idea if a couple three and outs preceded that and his D gave him a number of opportunities.

In week 4 last season, the Seahawks beat the Texans 23-20. The combined score for that game was only 6.7 points lower than Russell Wilson's passer rating.

 

Christian Ponder, in 2012, was a decisive factor in Adrian Peterson averaging 6.0 yards per carry. Ponder only played in 9 games in 2013 and that average dropped to 4.5. This is irrefutable logic.

 

Here's the problem I have. The Seahawks have a terrible pass protecting line and so they had 420 attempts and 509 rushes. Miami's line couldn't pass protect, so Miami passed 594 times and ran 349 times. Even if the Seahawks's line can't pass protect, that horrible pass pro affected 46% of offensive snaps. In Miami, that line affected 63% of pass snaps.

 

Ryan made some plays last season that Russel Wilson could only dream of making. As well..Kaepernick looked exposed much of the season when they took away his ability to run. I love ya DJ but youve had a man crush on CKap and his bicep kiss since he came into the league. Id take Ryan Tannehill over Ckap every day and thrice on Sunday.

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Not Dolphin related, however man did Schaub throw on of the worst passes I have ever seen for a starting quarterback that game.