Dolphins’ QB Josh Rosen solid in first start with Miami
148 replies
Sceetoforum_veteranOPIn his first start of the young NFL season, Rosen completed 18/39 for 200-yards. Those numbers are not that impressive. But when you dig a little deeper, his first start in a Dolphins’ uniform was far better than even I imagined.
One of his first throws of the game was this beautiful one-handed catch to DeVante Parker.
After all, Rosen received no help from his supporting cast. Preston Williams dropped a touchdown, again. Kenyan Drake dropped a pass and so did $24-million man, Jakeem Grant.
Here’s a look at maybe the most critical of those drops, Williams mishap would have resulted in a TD.
Nevertheless, the offense looked night and day with the 22-year old QB under center. He was able to go through his progressions and make some good throws. Perhaps the most underrated part of his game, was his ability to make plays using his feet.
His coach Brian Flores weighed in on his performance after Sunday’s game.
“I thought Josh made some good throws early. Started off with the long ball to DeVante. That’s a good defense. I thought he was tough. Took a couple of hits. Stood in the pocket. Gave us some opportunities on some throws. The drops didn’t help him. That would have helped us as a team. We just didn’t get it done but overall, I thought he played alright.”
Maybe Rosen isn’t the long-term answer in Miami. Then again, maybe he is. Truth is, there’s still 13 games to be played. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Galantforum_veteranSOS has some thoughts on Rosen:
"Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive... It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord." (Christmas message, 2011)
freeperjimforum_veteran"Galant wrote:
SOS has some thoughts on Rosen:
Certainly, the most fair & accurate analysis to date.
Of course, those cult-like believers of the skinny version of Tim Tebow will disavow the analysis.
Strikingforum_veteranWatching the video, Rosen could work on selling the run a little more in those play actions, because it looked very much like Marino's efforts.
And the phantom offsides which was flagged continues to add to the evidence that games are being influenced to ensure preferred outcomes.
The_Dark_Knightforum_veteran"Striking wrote:
Watching the video, Rosen could work on selling the run a little more in those play actions, because it looked very much like Marino's efforts.
And the phantom offsides which was flagged continues to add to the evidence that games are being influenced to ensure preferred outcomes.
If we actually made a concerted effort to run the ball and not give up on it, it would make play action pass more effective.
“The person you will spend the most time with in your life is yourself, so you better make sure you’re someone interesting”
resnorforum_veteran"The_Dark_Knight wrote:
If we actually made a concerted effort to run the ball and not give up on it, it would make play action pass more effective.
It has been shown that PA is not dependent on actually running the ball.
"resnor wrote:
It has been shown that PA is not dependent on actually running the ball.
That's correct, though for future reference I think it's important to separate two periods: pre-1978 and post-1978. The rule changes in 1978 dramatically changed the nature of the game, and what you said applies much more to post-1978 than to pre-1978.
From 1966-1977 the correlation between rushing attempts and passing Y/A is 0.3662, which means that 13.4% of the variation in passing Y/A can be explained by rushing attempts. However, from 1978-2018 that correlation drops to 0.1724 which means that only 2.97% of the variation in passing Y/A is explained by rushing attempts.
And both of those numbers are overestimating the actual influence of rushing attempts on passing Y/A because it includes the 4th quarter where the leading team tends to have more rushing attempts AND higher passing Y/A without play action.
So at maximum, since 1978 you can expect to influence about 3% of your ability to pass the ball efficiently through rushing attempts.
Actually, this is a fairly well known result among those who've looked at football statistics. FO probably has the best summary graph but only for the years 2011-2013 (and based on what I just described their results should apply to post-1978):
FO has their own definition of "rush success" which one can quibble with (they set an arbitrary threshold) so if you want you can ignore 3 of those graphs, but the other 3 graphs (top left, top right and bottom middle) should lay to rest the idea that rushing attempts – even rushing attempts designed to decrease predictability – increases passing Y/A in the modern game.
The Guyforum_veteran"cbrad wrote:
That's correct, though for future reference I think it's important to separate two periods: pre-1978 and post-1978. The rule changes in 1978 dramatically changed the nature of the game, and what you said applies much more to post-1978 than to pre-1978.
From 1966-1977 the correlation between rushing attempts and passing Y/A is 0.3662, which means that 13.4% of the variation in passing Y/A can be explained by rushing attempts. However, from 1978-2018 that correlation drops to 0.1724 which means that only 2.97% of the variation in passing Y/A is explained by rushing attempts.
And both of those numbers are overestimating the actual influence of rushing attempts on passing Y/A because it includes the 4th quarter where the leading team tends to have more rushing attempts AND higher passing Y/A without play action.
So at maximum, since 1978 you can expect to influence about 3% of your ability to pass the ball efficiently through rushing attempts.
Actually, this is a fairly well known result among those who've looked at football statistics. FO probably has the best summary graph but only for the years 2011-2013 (and based on what I just described their results should apply to post-1978):
FO has their own definition of "rush success" which one can quibble with (they set an arbitrary threshold) so if you want you can ignore 3 of those graphs, but the other 3 graphs (top left, top right and bottom middle) should lay to rest the idea that rushing attempts – even rushing attempts designed to decrease predictability – increases passing Y/A in the modern game.
In other words, if after reading this you believe that rushing attempts positively influence the passing game in today’s NFL, you are delusional.
resnorforum_veteran"The Guy wrote:
In other words, if after reading this you believe that rushing attempts positively influence the passing game in today’s NFL, you are delusional.
I still hold, though, that while rushing doesn't really move the needle much, NOT rushing will negatively impact you. Being one dimensional is a killer. So, you're not rushing because you are trying to get 150 yards on the ground, you're simply rushing to keep the defense from just sitting back with 7 or 8 guys in coverage, which makes passing incredibly difficult.
"The Guy wrote:
In other words, if after reading this you believe that rushing attempts positively influence the passing game in today’s NFL, you are delusional.
Yeah I think I would phrase this differently.
Clearly, "predictability" affects efficiency of any play, rushing or passing:
https://www.thephins.com/threads/with-all-the-injuries-to-quarterbacks-do-we.94622/page-3#post-3203469
So you have to rush at least a certain amount or you'll become too predictable. In that sense rushing attempts matter. However, what that graph shows is that it is VERY difficult to decrease predictability in the near future by adjusting the number of rushing attempts.
Decreasing predictability is .. predictably .. hard for humans as tons of psychology experiments show (one classic experiment showed that an algorithm implementing Bayesian inference – the mathematically optimal method for adjusting expected probabilities given past data – was capable of predicting the next number in sequence of 1's and 0's "randomly" generated by humans at much greater than chance level).
I've been arguing for a long time that one very obvious application of statistics in football that should improve win% at least by some marginal amount is to use a random number generator to decide which of various plays to call. The coach should decide the set of applicable plays, but the machine should choose the play. I guarantee you that decreases predictability.
resnorforum_veteranAbsolutely. I mean, I know football isn't Madden...but think about the human aspect of choosing plays. Humans will always develop favorite plays and just naturally gravitate to a certain style or pattern. When I used to play Madden a ton, I realized with all the hundreds of plays available, I would use only maybe 30 consistently. Then Madden bright in the option to allow the cpu to call they plays for you, or maybe just give you the options to choose from, I forget which exactly, but it really improved my offense in the game because I was so much more unpredictable.
Fin-Oforum_veteran"resnor wrote:
I still hold, though, that while rushing doesn't really move the needle much, NOT rushing will negatively impact you. Being one dimensional is a killer. So, you're not rushing because you are trying to get 150 yards on the ground, you're simply rushing to keep the defense from just sitting back with 7 or 8 guys in coverage, which makes passing incredibly difficult.
3 of the final 4 teams in the NFL last season were top 5 in YPA between the tackles (I.E. smash mouth football) no accident.
Rushing matters and matters big time.
"The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that the people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied"
resnorforum_veteran"Fin-O wrote:
3 of the final 4 teams in the NFL last season were top 5 in YPA between the tackles (I.E. smash mouth football) no accident.
Rushing matters and matters big time.
That may be true, but it's also true that the correlation to win% isn't moved much at all by successful rushing.
Again, this is intuitive. One would assume that 4 teams playing to get into the Super Bowl would be the teams with the best offenses. As such, I expect to see great passing and good running. However, that is far different than asserting that the effective rushing stats are what made them the final 4 teams. Since we can look at how win % is affected by rushing, we should be able to agree that rushing well barely affects win%. Like I said though, in the post you quoted, not rushing most certainly moves the needle towards losing, so not rushing would, I'm guessing as I haven't done the math, maybe cbrad could show the correlation of not rushing to losing%??, correlate to losing. So, what we see is rushing is effective in that it keys you more balanced and prevents you from losing, instead of it driving you to winning, which is what many fans assume, erroneously, that it does.
Sceetoforum_veteranThread hijacked again.....
"Fin-O wrote:
3 of the final 4 teams in the NFL last season were top 5 in YPA between the tackles (I.E. smash mouth football) no accident.
Rushing matters and matters big time.
Do you have a link for rushing Y/C "between the tackles"? I've never looked at those data.
If you don't discriminate between types of rushing, the correlation between rushing Y/C and win% across NFL history is 0.1613, which means that only 0.1613^2 = 2.6% of the variation in win% is explained by rushing efficiency. In other words, not much.
The other thing to point out is the relative importance of rushing Y/C and passing Y/A because you have to choose between the two:
https://www.thephins.com/threads/with-all-the-injuries-to-quarterbacks-do-we.94622/page-3#post-3203648
That equation there summarizes the relative importance: Win% = 13.81*Passing Y/A + 2.53*Rushing Y/C - 55.57
The fact that 2.53 is positive confirms what you're saying that greater rushing efficiency helps, but the ratio 13.81/2.53 = 5.46 confirms that passing efficiency is much more important in the modern game, and by about 5.5 times over rushing efficiency.
"resnor wrote:
maybe cbrad could show the correlation of not rushing to losing%??
If you're talking about how much more you'd expect a team to lose if they went below the "minimum" necessary to keep play calling somewhat unpredictable, then I don't think we have the data to calculate that correlation because there's evidence few if any teams are rushing below that minimum level.
What's the evidence? Remember those graphs I posted that plot rush% as a function of both point differential and quarter? There was very little difference in rush% between winning and losing teams in quarters 1-3. What that tells you (among other things) is that winning and losing teams in quarters 1-3 don't differ much in how predictable their play calling is. And if that's true, we don't have the data to figure out what happens if you go too low on rush%. We also can't use data from the 4th quarter because the cause-effect relationship is pretty clear there: point differential => killing the clock, not the other way around.
The Guyforum_veteran"cbrad wrote:
Yeah I think I would phrase this differently.
Clearly, "predictability" affects efficiency of any play, rushing or passing:
https://www.thephins.com/threads/with-all-the-injuries-to-quarterbacks-do-we.94622/page-3#post-3203469So you have to rush at least a certain amount or you'll become too predictable. In that sense rushing attempts matter. However, what that graph shows is that it is VERY difficult to decrease predictability in the near future by adjusting the number of rushing attempts.
Decreasing predictability is .. predictably .. hard for humans as tons of psychology experiments show (one classic experiment showed that an algorithm implementing Bayesian inference – the mathematically optimal method for adjusting expected probabilities given past data – was capable of predicting the next number in sequence of 1's and 0's "randomly" generated by humans at much greater than chance level).
I've been arguing for a long time that one very obvious application of statistics in football that should improve win% at least by some marginal amount is to use a random number generator to decide which of various plays to call. The coach should decide the set of applicable plays, but the machine should choose the play. I guarantee you that decreases predictability.
That's definitely the more precise phrasing to use, but as you said in another post above, we'd struggle to find any teams that weren't running the ball at the minimum ratio necessary.
So anybody who is cautioning teams "not to abandon the run," in terms of the relevant statistical data that actually have meaning, is cautioning them not to do something teams rarely if ever do (run the ball less than the minimum amount necessary). That caution really isn't necessary, then, and if the traditional beliefs about running the ball persist despite the evidence in post #7 above, they become fairly delusional.
invidsubscriber"Galant wrote:
SOS has some thoughts on Rosen:
Growing pains :/
The whole offense, really.
Fin-Oforum_veteran"resnor wrote:
That may be true, but it's also true that the correlation to win% isn't moved much at all by successful rushing.
Again, this is intuitive. One would assume that 4 teams playing to get into the Super Bowl would be the teams with the best offenses. As such, I expect to see great passing and good running. However, that is far different than asserting that the effective rushing stats are what made them the final 4 teams. Since we can look at how win % is affected by rushing, we should be able to agree that rushing well barely affects win%. Like I said though, in the post you quoted, not rushing most certainly moves the needle towards losing, so not rushing would, I'm guessing as I haven't done the math, maybe cbrad could show the correlation of not rushing to losing%??, correlate to losing. So, what we see is rushing is effective in that it keys you more balanced and prevents you from losing, instead of it driving you to winning, which is what many fans assume, erroneously, that it does.
Agree that if you don't even attempt to run then you isolate your passing game and that is not good. But running the ball well will always be a good thing for an offense.
"The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that the people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied"
The Guyforum_veteran"The Guy wrote:
One could dismiss that due to small sample size (Rosen has only 60 passing attempts so far) except that Rosen topped the list in 2018 too lol:
Well it's well known he has to work on his accuracy. We'll see if he does better in tomorrow's game.
resnorforum_veteran"cbrad wrote:One could dismiss that due to small sample size (Rosen has only 60 passing attempts so far) except that Rosen topped the list in 2018 too lol:
Well it's well known he has to work on his accuracy. We'll see if he does better in tomorrow's game.
Yeah but it wasn't 40+%!! Lol
mlb1399forum_veteran"resnor wrote:
Yeah but it wasn't 40+%!! Lol
Hard to evaluate those numbers when your OL has been that bad. Being on the run, not being able to step into your throw and just generally being under duress will impact that.
The Guyforum_veteran"mlb1399 wrote:
Hard to evaluate those numbers when your OL has been that bad. Being on the run, not being able to step into your throw and just generally being under duress will impact that.
Except that the 2018 list is a virtual who’s who of young QBs in the league, Roethlisberger notwithstanding. Those can’t all be bad offensive lines, and if they are, you have to wonder about the quarterback’s effect on them. The relationship between the quarterback and the line is bidirectional.
mlb1399forum_veteran"The Guy wrote:
Except that the 2018 list is a virtual who’s who of young QBs in the league, Roethlisberger notwithstanding. Those can’t all be bad offensive lines, and if they are, you have to wonder about the quarterback’s effect on them. The relationship between the quarterback and the line is bidirectional.
I’m specifically talking about Rosen. He went from the worst pass blocking OL last year to the worst one this year. Didn’t even look at anyone else on the list.
The Guyforum_veteran"mlb1399 wrote:
I’m specifically talking about Rosen. He went from the worst pass blocking OL last year to the worst one this year. Didn’t even look at anyone else on the list.
Right, but the company he's in there can be informative. Again you have a virtual who's who of young QBs in the league in the 2018 list, Roethlisberger notwithstanding.
When youth and inexperience is such a strong common thread among those QBs, it suggests that youth and inexperience, and not the functioning of their offensive lines, is responsible for their performance in that regard. What are the odds that that list of nine QBs in 2018 is also a list of nine of the worst offensive lines in the league? Slim.
So, it behooves you to look further into the list than just Rosen. Doing so may be informative and may yield a different conclusion. It's entirely possible that Rosen, and not his offensive lines, is the active ingredient in his performance in that regard. His offensive lines could be among the worst in the league, and he could be entirely responsible for his performance in that regard nonetheless.
Just because a QB has a relatively poor offensive line doesn't mean it explains every negative facet of his performance. Some of that could be on him exclusively, and replacing his line with the best one in the league could result in nothing significantly different in that specific regard.
Again, an extreme analogy just to illustrate the point: throw a middle school QB into the NFL with the worst offensive line in the league, and then replace his offensive line with the best one in the league. Will that alone make him play at an NFL level, or will he continue to display inadequacies that have nothing to do with his offensive line?
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