I think the Dolphins defense is going to make either quarterback they have look silly on Sunday.

 

A quick Google search shows that Brett Rypien is the 80's Redskins QB Mark Rypien's nephew. He was also a valedictorian in high school so he's a pretty smart kid.

Anyway, that's my useless info contribution for the day- curiosity got the better of me and I had to check.

 

Miami has been lucky this season in that it seems like the other team's top star is out almost every single week. That's probably not Lock for the Broncos but that's a pretty big piece missing from an already bad team. I agree, it's going to be brutal.

 

I’m sure there’s quite a few people here asking “who in the heck is Mark Rypien?”

Would be cool if those who are would admit it.

 

LMAO, I believe he's a Super Bowl MVP! I still remember seeing that game as a teen- he was an average QB who had one incredible season and helped his team earn a ring. 1991 baby!

 

I think that's just how the league is this year. We've been pretty lucky ourselves - the Byron Jones injury early in the season was nasty, but aside from that we have been mostly OK.

The original Flacco!

 

It was the 1991 season, 1992 Superbowl. Beat the Buffalo Bills. I watched that game on a merchant ship anchored off Puerto La Cruz Venezuela. It was unbelievable. We were prepared to listen to the game on short wave or AM radio after the sun went down but, we turned on a TV and had 3 crystal clear English language stations from Margarita Island. Go Dolphins.

 

We'd be better off with Lock trying to play. He's been regressing this season, struggling to read defenses, and just tossing up prayers under pressure. Denver has a terrible OL and no run game. If they can get a backup QB to play a conservative game with no turnovers they can rely on their still good defense to keep them in the game.

All that said, this is a game Miami should win by 10+ points and never really be in doubt.

 

We've been missing some important players every week as well - lost our 1st choice DT for the season, lost our no 2 receiver, lost 3 RB's, our no 1 receiver has not been 100% pretty much most of the season, X wasn't game fit for the first couple of weeks, lost Jones for a few weeks.
Admittedly, none of those are on a Ramsey, Miller, Bosa level but lets not be thinking we've been 100% every week. Were we have picked it up against the others is having better coaching staff (particularly as we have lost 5 assistant coaches for the last 2 weeks) than those teams

 

Joe Theismann, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien all played under legendary head coach Joe Gibbs. From 1982 -1991, the Redskins went to the Super Bowl 4 times, winning 3 and all 3 of their wins were with the three aforementioned quarterbacks.

Not intending to deflect of hijack the thread but, Gibbs is the perfect example of the importance of coaching. In this day and age of quarterback quarterback quarterback, Gibbs clearly shows that you can win, regardless of who is under center.

Brian Flores is demonstrating this as well. As much as we are all hoping that Tagovailoa is going to be our franchise quarterback for years to come, let's not be under any illusions. The Dolphins are winning and winning decisively, not because of Tua but because of great coaching...just like Joe Gibbs.

 

I couldn't agree more- but if you compare this season to the losses we've had over the past 3-5 years, we've been in great injury shape overall. Usually it's our top 3 superstars out or our 2nd string QB....very nice to be on the other side of that so far in 2020.

 

1991 was my first season where I closely followed every week of the NFL season, and not just the Dolphins and Steelers (my local team growing up). So for me, at that time, he was just one of the better QBs in the league because I didn't know better. Then he basically fell off a cliff shortly afterwards.

Bonus fact: Rypien started a total of six games between 1994 and 1995 for the Browns and Rams while he was a backup, and then only attempted about 50 passes the two years after that before retiring following the 1997 season. However, the Colts signed him out of retirement at age 39 in 2001 to be Peyton Manning's backup that year.

 

So why did Gibbs fail when he returned to the Redskins from 2004-2007? Let me guess, by points scored their offense during that time ranked #31, #13, #20 and #18, and you don't think it has anything to do with having QB's like Patrick Ramsey, Mark Brunell, and Jason Campbell? No.. it's all the HC, QB doesn't matter lol.

Fact is, QB's matter a ton no matter how many times you try to beat the drum that it doesn't matter who is under center. Look at the QB's for the SB winners last 3 decades. Except for Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson and 2015 Peyton Manning, you either had QB's that played exceptionally well in the year they won the SB (e.g., Eli, Flacco, Foles) or great/elite QB's like Young, Elway, Favre, Peyton, Brady, Roethlisberger, Warner, Rodgers, Brees, Wilson, Mahomes.

QB's matter as much, or almost as much, as the HC if your goal is to win the SB, and you better hope Tua is one of those great QB's or our chances of winning the SB go WAY down regardless of coach.

Outside of Marino, there is no QB that the Dolphins have ever had that could have won that Arizona game. Not Griese, not Pennington, not Tannehill, not Fitzgerald.. only Marino and Tua could win a shootout like that. QB's MATTER.

 

Washington had both great coaching as well as Art Monk, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders for many of those Super Bowl runs. They also had John Riggins at the early end, George Rodgers in the middle, and Ernest Byner at the end. Plus, of course, the Hogs. They also had some of the better kickers in the league during that period.

So while I don't think many people would argue that a QB is unimportant, those teams were a great example of how you could plug in the right average to above average QB and still have great success if you needed to. From 1981-1991, Washington was in the top 10 in offense every season except 1985, when they were #14, and they were in the top 5 six times. Despite having very little consistency at QB like most "dynasties".

 

Right, but that's the exception not the rule. If you're building a franchise you go with what tends to work best, which is get a great HC and a great QB. That list of SB winning QB's I posted gives you some idea of how unlikely it is to win a SB with just an average QB. Actually, let me repost something to show you the actual stats:



Left graph shows the probability of making the playoffs given the z-score (standard deviations in passer rating above the mean) of a QB's passer rating in a given year, while the right graph shows the same probability for winning a SB. The equations are listed in the graphs, and setting SD = 0 that means you're assuming the QB played average that year.

The historic (SB era) probability of making the playoffs with a QB that plays average is 31.61% (though I guess that might rise a tad this year with 7 slots per conference) and the probability of winning a SB with such a QB is 2.719%, all measured using passer rating. Pretty clear how important a QB is.

** Note that these are NOT career ratings but ratings in a given year. What matters of course is the performance in a given year, not career ratings, but clearly the better the QB the more likely he'll do well in any given year.

 

According to you and that other stats guy, the only thing that matters on a team is quarterback. You could have a roster of nothing BUT quarterbacks because well, that’s the only thing that matters...

Linemen don’t matter
Running backs don’t matter
Receivers don’t matter
Defenses don’t matter
Coaches don’t matter

The only thing that matters is quarterbacks. It’s this idiotic mindset that has had the Dolphins in a rut for 25 years. The last freaking time the Dolphins were relevant was the early 2000’s. After that it’s been a complete **** show until Flores...that’s right FLORES!

We had a great quarterback in Tannehill but pure **** in coaching with Gase. If our entire organization hadn’t been ****, Flores could very well have kept Tannehill but he couldn’t because of the idiotic decisions made by the team. Had too many holes to fill and quarterback alone wasn’t going to fill it.

You can beat the quarterback drum all you want but THE most important person on any team is the head coach

 

I'm pleasantly delighted that my random fact of the day kicked off an in-depth Mark Rypien conversation! That was my senior year in high school and I was still sort of rooting for the Skins at the time, and like others said I thought Rypien was a HOF lock for this play that season (since we know everything there is to know at 18). He was okay in prior years and looked pretty good in 1992, but he clearly wasn't the same guy we saw in 1991.

And I've always wondered- why? How do you look average for a few years, have one spectacular MVP season and then a half dozen more average years? Rypien changed a lot about how I looked at the sport in general in my early 20's, which is why I was so excited to see if he was related to Denver's QB in the 1st place.

So thanks guys for making this a conversation and letting me be 18 all over again- even if it was just for a few minutes. =)

 

See that's the problem. You deliberately mischaracterize the argument I've been making and then argue against it. It's called a strawman, and this is a huge one. NEVER, not ONCE, have I EVER said any of those things you allege.

I've repeatedly pointed out how defense is responsible for almost half of win%, and I've shown that as a crude estimate the QB is maybe (on average) responsible for about 15% of win%. That's been said for years on these boards. You however deliberately refuse to accurately represent my argument and just hammer away at falsehoods no one says.

My argument is that YOU are devaluing the QB position way below what stats suggest its value is. That's it.

 

When you start a reply with, “Right, but that’s the exception” and the go on to tout the quarterback as the end all be all and he HAS to be great, then you are diminishing the importance of the head coach, defense and every other position on a team.

And to answer your previous query as to Gibbs not being able to repeat his success, the same reason Jimmy Johnson wasn’t able to in Miami...free agency and the salary cap

 

Totally untrue. How many times have I said the HC is the most important individual on a team, and that defense as a unit is FAR more important than the QB. All I'm pointing out is that the evidence is overwhelming that to win a SB you usually need a great QB or one that played great in that particular year. So when someone points to cases where a SB was won without one, then that IS the exception.

Not much of a coach if he can only succeed without a salary cap. That means it's more on the players. Belichick had all his success in the salary cap era, but note that all of it came with Brady. He struggled before Brady in NE and he's struggling again post-Brady. Regardless, Gibbs + a great QB probably means success even in the salary cap era.

 

There is a difference between saying a QB CANT win that type of game and a QB was unlikely to. I cant agree that none if them could, because we have won games like that before.

Also we were outscored offensively so I'm not sure why you're awarding all the credit to Tua.

 

Who said they can't?? The post you quoted explicitly mentioned 3 QB's that did, and post #16 showed the probability that an average QB would win a SB (average in a given year) at 2.719%. Nowhere was it said or implied that they CAN'T.

Who gave all the credit to Tua? I just said out of all the QB's the Dolphins have had only Marino and Tua would have won that. That implies nothing about who else was important for winning the game. So again, never did I say or imply all the credit should go to Tua.

 

I dont understand how you questioned where I got what I said, then directly quoted yourself as saying only Tua and Marino would have won that game.

 

You falsely claimed that I implied all the credit went to Tua. I never ever said nor implied that. All I said was that only Marino and Tua would have won that game. Many other things obviously mattered for winning, but you still needed a good enough QB to win it. No implication of the sort you suggested.

 

Okay, if that is the part you want to disagree with I can accept that. It was an implication based on the tone of your post, if that was an incorrect assertion I withdraw that statement.

My overall disagreement was with the idea that somehow after three games, one bad, one great with some mistakes, and one very average you've determined that Tua is head and shoulders above any other QB we have had since Marino.

 

I do think Tua is going to end up a great QB. Could be wrong though. But I was very high on him pre-draft — kept saying this was the one QB out of all of them where I thought the floor was very high (not sure about the ceiling) which would make him a very safe pick — and after seeing him I really do think he'll end up great. We'll see.

But for that one statement it was only about the Arizona game. Tua's only played 3 games so who knows about the future.

 

That is fair and I think I did at first take what you said to mean something a bit different.

I'll say I was probably the most against him but I'm highly encouraged with a lot of what I see on the field.

 

We really don't need to know any more- even if he starts, the kid won't finish with bruised ribs; not the way we've been hitting QBs. It would be in their best interests to bench him for this game and have him back for the rest of the season.

If he starts, he's going to IR on Monday....I can absolutely guarantee it!