Ryan Tannehill

"PhinFan1968 wrote:

There's a reason no team has EVER dominated for 20 years in the NFL...and there are reasons one now has.

Reason A: They taped signals from an angle that isn't allowed. Taping signals is fine, but the camera angle they used is a absolutely heinous.

Reason B: They managed to luck into a combination of an all-time great HC, QB, and an owner that didn't feel the need to micromanage everything in the football department.

HMMMMMMMMMMM

"Dol-Fan Dupree wrote:

That they have improved their method of cheating?

"Cashvillesent wrote:

I'm convinced now

"Cashvillesent wrote:

Reason A: They taped signals from an angle that isn't allowed. Taping signals is fine, but the camera angle they used is a absolutely heinous.

Reason B: They managed to luck into a combination of an all-time great HC, QB, and an owner that didn't feel the need to micromanage everything in the football department.

HMMMMMMMMMMM

B seems the least likely. On any level.

"Fin D wrote:

B seems the least likely. On any level.

Well option B is the answer for every reasonable person with eyes that have been used to watch football for the past 15 or so years. Let's not even bring up all of their league peers consistently voting both of them into all-time great lists. The stars aligned for the Pats in a way that will probably never happen again for awhile for any other team.

"Cashvillesent wrote:

Well option B is the answer for every reasonable person with eyes that have been used to watch football for the past 15 or so years. Let's not even bring up all of their league peers consistently voting both of them into all-time great lists. The stars aligned for the Pats in a way that will probably never happen again for awhile for any other team.

Stop.

I'm not going to sit here and suffer through faux incredulity.

They have cheated. They have been caught. Numerous times now.

You can be all cocky and bullish about this when you understand:

At some point, there needs to be a logical and cogent explanation for.....

A formerly failed HC picks a 6th round nobody QB, and they put together a heretofore unheard of dynasty no matter the assistant coaches, or offensive or defensive talent, all while cheating numerous times in numerous ways, but that somehow everyone does, but never get caught, while the "genius" has gotten caught multiple times, risking so much for cheating that supposedly gives them no benefit.

i mean, there is no way to make that not sound as insane and absurd as it it. it is literally an unsquarable circle.

"Dol-Fan Dupree wrote:

That they have improved their method of cheating?

Wow.

The entire premise of this latest "cheating" theory is honestly too dumb to even react, but I have EDIT OK ONLY 17-whatever-thousand posts so obviously I just can't resist.

The Patriots needed to "cheat" on one of the worst teams in NFL history to beat them, so the story goes.

I think that's why not many people are taking this seriously.

I should just quit there but one more thing - on its face it is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard/witnessed. And I hate the Patriots.

"Cashvillesent wrote:

Wow.

The entire premise of this latest "cheating" theory is honestly too dumb to even react, but I have EDIT OK ONLY 17-whatever-thousand posts so obviously I just can't resist.

The Patriots needed to "cheat" on one of the worst teams in NFL history to beat them, so the story goes.

I think that's why not many people are taking this seriously.

I should just quit there but one more thing - on its face it is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard/witnessed. And I hate the Patriots.

Look what happened when they didn't tape the Dolphins sidelines.....

And you can call it ridiculous, if that's how you see it, that's how you see it. It's all good.

Many people agree with you, many people don't. We'll likely never know the full extent to which the cheating (that you and others flatly CAN NOT deny) helped them.

Remember...6th round QB, not on ANY scout or team's radar, very poor athlete in comparison to his peers, below average arm. Here's some scouting reports on him:

“He had that great bowl game but I think he’s just very common,” a scout of NFC team said, according to McGinn. “He’s a bony, very thin kind of guy. God, you can see his ribs on his build. His arm is just adequate.”

“I don’t like him,” said the scout. “Smart guy. That’s it.”

--Poor build
--Skinny
--Lacks great physical stature and strength
--Lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush
--Lacks a really strong arm
--Can’t drive the ball downfield
--Does not throw a really tight spiral
--System-type player who can get exposed if forced to ad lib
--Gets knocked down easily
--5.28 40 yard dash, 24" vertical

But he was smart. Smart enough to shift his vision when told where to go with the ball, DURING the play, through an illegal speaker in his helmet (this speaker's existence is FACT, by the way...tin-foil hat not required...you can believe it, it won't make you a conspiracy theorist). On a team, that has been PROVEN to know what plays a team was running against them for years.

Too much there to ignore, unless you're blinded by rings.

"Cashvillesent wrote:

They cheated what, like 10+ years ago? (While every team was also doing it)Give me a break lol deflate gate was a joke and the recent "spying" on the lowly Bengals drifted away as fast as it came in... The reality check is that every team cheats but people only care about the pats cheats because they're successful and win

Wrong on everything in this post. Every single thing you wrote is incorrect.

"Fin D wrote:

B seems the least likely. On any level.

And that's not nearly enough for a team in professional sports to dominate opponents for this long. Why people STILL debate this fact is borderline delusional.

"cbrad wrote:

I don't think they've changed their formula. The biggest embarrassment for that formula as I mentioned long ago was that the highest ESPN QBR ever was by Charlie Batch who had a 99.9 rating in a 3 TD and 2 INT game lol:
https://www.espn.com/nfl/player/gamelog/_/id/1490/type/nfl/year/2010

When confronted with this absurdity, ESPN stopped listing Batch's 99.9 in their overall ranking of best QBR by introducing a convenient threshold for minimum number of passing attempts that excluded Batch (Batch had only 17 attempts in that game). But they never changed their formula in response. So I guess their formula has Tannehill at 8th. Really absurd.. as absurd as having Tannehill 2nd worst in 2018:
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2018/passing.htm

The thing about that Charlie Batch game is that the interceptions were relatively meaningless. The first one came with only 40 seconds gone in the first quarter when the game was still scoreless, and the second one came with 6:10 left in the fourth quarter when Batch's team was ahead 38-6. Neither of those is going to affect win probability a great deal.

If you give those the meaning they deserve and then focus on the rest of his performance, you're left with a 46-yard touchdown pass at 8:04 in the first quarter that made the game 7-0, a 41-yard touchdown pass at 7:25 in the second quarter that made the game 21-6, and a 9-yard touchdown pass at 0:23 in the second quarter that made the game 28-6.

At that point Batch has essentially won the game with three touchdown passes in the first half alone. In other words, I suspect those plays were associated with relatively large increases in win probability, culminating in all but a lock of a win in the first half alone, whereas the two interceptions were meaningless because they were likely associated with very small changes in win probability.

You're also left with a 12 for 17 performance with 10.9 YPA, which is of course very good in terms of completion percentage and efficiency.

Now, I'm with you in that I don't think ESPN should've reacted to the criticism by implementing an arbitrary cutoff in number of pass attempts. I think they should've reacted to it with the information above about the specifics of Batch's performance.

"Cashvillesent wrote:

Wow.

The entire premise of this latest "cheating" theory is honestly too dumb to even react, but I have EDIT OK ONLY 17-whatever-thousand posts so obviously I just can't resist.

The Patriots needed to "cheat" on one of the worst teams in NFL history to beat them, so the story goes.

I think that's why not many people are taking this seriously.

I should just quit there but one more thing - on its face it is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard/witnessed. And I hate the Patriots.

Your post history indicates the opposite of a hate of the Patriots.

"Fin D wrote:

A formerly failed HC picks

Let me just stop you right there. Are you talking about Hoodie?

"cbrad wrote:

Right.. note this quote under the "Division of credit" section:

First question any statistician/scientist would ask is how did they determine the weights they put on "how far the ball travels in the air", "what percentage of the yards were gained after the catch", and "whether the quarterback was under pressure".

Like precisely HOW do you find the relative weights there. Saying it's "based on statistical analysis of 1000's and 1000's of NFL plays" does not tell you HOW they assigned those relative weights.

It's very simple. Regardless of the number of lines of code that are needed, the question is: after reading a description of a rating system like ESPN's QBR or FO's DVOA, can someone reconstruct the formula?

If the answer is no, they didn't explain how they calculated it. And NO ONE can reconstruct the formula based on their description.

Right, but the fact that there are unknowns regarding the formula doesn't in itself render it invalid. Wouldn't you agree with that?

There are all kinds of proprietary things out there whose ingredients or mechanisms of action are unknown or kept secret that are nonetheless valid and highly effective. The scientist in us would like to know "what's under the hood" so to speak, but the fact that we can't know that doesn't necessarily mean the formula is invalid.

"resnor wrote:

Wrong on everything in this post. Every single thing you wrote is incorrect.

Care to explain?

"The Guy wrote:

The thing about that Charlie Batch game is that the interceptions were relatively meaningless. The first one came at with 40 seconds gone in the first quarter when the game was still scoreless, and the second one came with 6:10 left in the fourth quarter when Batch's team was ahead 38-6. Neither of those is going to affect win probability a great deal.

If you give those the meaning they deserve and then focus on the rest of his performance, you're left with a 46-yard touchdown pass at 8:04 in the first quarter that made the game 7-0, a 41-yard touchdown pass at 7:25 in the second quarter that made the game 21-6, and a 9-yard touchdown pass at 0:23 in the second quarter that made the game 28-6.

At that point Batch has essentially won the game with three touchdown passes in the first half alone. In other words, I suspect those plays were associated with relatively large increases in win probability, whereas the two interceptions were associated with relatively small changes in win probability.

You're also left with a 12 for 17 performance with 10.9 YPA, which is of course very good in terms of completion percentage and efficiency.

Yeah.. but keep in mind that for ESPN that game by Charlie Batch is the highest rated game ever by QBR.

Here's one comparison: Nick Foles in 2013 had the following stats in a 49-20 win against Oakland:
22 completions in 28 attempts = 78.57% completion percentage
14.5 Y/A
406 yards passing
7 TD's no INT's

Every single one of those stats is much better than Batch's. So.. in your opinion would you rate Charlie Batch's 12 out of 17 for 186 yards with 3 TD 2 INT performance higher than not only what Foles did but higher than what every other QB ever did? ESPN does.

"The Guy wrote:

Right, but the fact that there are unknowns regarding the formula doesn't in itself render it invalid. Wouldn't you agree with that?

There are all kinds of proprietary things out there whose ingredients or mechanisms of action are unknown or kept secret that are nonetheless valid and highly effective. The scientist in us would like to know "what's under the hood" so to speak, but the fact that we can't know that doesn't necessarily mean the formula is invalid.

Depends on the goal. If the goal is ONLY to increase predictive power then it doesn't matter if it's proprietary or not, but in that case you wouldn't use ESPN's QBR anyway. You'd just apply machine learning to the problem because it's trivial to increase predictive power by adding as many parameters as possible (in principle as many parameters as data points gives you perfect prediction).

If however there is to be any validity to the method – that is, if we are to have any level of confidence that ESPN's formula adequately represents QB ability – then we absolutely need to know what they're doing.

In the end...the Patriots will go down as the most dominating dynasty in NFL history, Brady and Belichick will both be called GOAT, and it doesn't make a difference, 'cuz people need a tip to ride. Good for them, now they can beat it...

Luckily, it should all be over with soon/soon'ish...right about the time this iteration of the Miami Dolphins hits its stride!

"Cashvillesent wrote:

Care to explain?

no, I don’t. We’ve had this discussion too many times on this site.

"cbrad wrote:

Yeah.. but keep in mind that for ESPN that game by Charlie Batch is the highest rated game ever by QBR.

Here's one comparison: Nick Foles in 2013 had the following stats in a 49-20 win against Oakland:
22 completions in 28 attempts = 78.57% completion percentage
14.5 Y/A
406 yards passing
7 TD's no INT's

Every single one of those stats is much better than Batch's. So.. in your opinion would you rate Charlie Batch's 12 out of 17 for 186 yards with 3 TD 2 INT performance higher than not only what Foles did but higher than what every other QB ever did? ESPN does.

Well now let's start with the fact that Foles's QBR for that game was 98.3. Obviously there is going to be error associated with any formula of this kind, and I suspect it goes beyond 1.6 points on a single-game basis.

I think the question becomes, at what sample size does QBR become a valid representation of QBs' ability, as opposed to a(n) (in)valid representation of their performance in a single game?

"PhinFan1968 wrote:

Look what happened when they didn't tape the Dolphins sidelines.....

And you can call it ridiculous, if that's how you see it, that's how you see it. It's all good.

Many people agree with you, many people don't. We'll likely never know the full extent to which the cheating (that you and others flatly CAN NOT deny) helped them.

Remember...6th round QB, not on ANY scout or team's radar, very poor athlete in comparison to his peers, below average arm. Here's some scouting reports on him:

“He had that great bowl game but I think he’s just very common,” a scout of NFC team said, according to McGinn. “He’s a bony, very thin kind of guy. God, you can see his ribs on his build. His arm is just adequate.”

“I don’t like him,” said the scout. “Smart guy. That’s it.”

--Poor build
--Skinny
--Lacks great physical stature and strength
--Lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush
--Lacks a really strong arm
--Can’t drive the ball downfield
--Does not throw a really tight spiral
--System-type player who can get exposed if forced to ad lib
--Gets knocked down easily
--5.28 40 yard dash, 24" vertical

But he was smart. Smart enough to shift his vision when told where to go with the ball, DURING the play, through an illegal speaker in his helmet (this speaker's existence is FACT, by the way...tin-foil hat not required...you can believe it, it won't make you a conspiracy theorist). On a team, that has been PROVEN to know what plays a team was running against them for years.

Too much there to ignore, unless you're blinded by rings.

hoo boy. I'll let your post stand for itself as proof.

"The Guy wrote:

Well now let's start with the fact that Foles's QBR for that game was 98.3. Obviously there is going to be error associated with any formula of this kind, and I suspect it goes beyond 1.6 points on a single-game basis.

I think the question becomes, at what point in terms of sample size does QBR become a valid representation of QBs' ability?

If a QB rating system with a range from 0 to 100 says that those two sets of stats (Batch and Foles) correspond to only a 1.6 point difference in QB rating, then as far as I'm concerned that's a sign there's something wrong with that rating system. And ESPN implicitly admitted to that by trying to hide the embarrassment.

Regarding your question of "at what point in terms of sample size does QBR become a valid representation of a QB's ability", you can't even ASK that question with a proprietary formula! With traditional passer rating where you know what goes into it, it's meaningful to ask questions like whether with large enough sample size stuff like WR ability averages out, regardless of whether you can answer the question or not.

But what's the comparable question for QBR? We have no idea what question to ask because we don't know what's in the formula! Like.. are we supposed to ask whether the unknown (subjective) weights "average out"? Who knows.

No.. to answer the question of how "valid" any formula is for representing QB ability you need to know what's in it. No way around that.

There is zero evidence that the Pats have a better than expected win% at home. In fact the evidence is that their home win% is exactly what their away win% predicts it would be. There is no evidence that they get a benefit from systemic cheating at Foxboro.

https://www.thephins.com/threads/its-no-harder-to-win-at-ne-than-anywhere-else.93568/

"Cashvillesent wrote:

Let me just stop you right there. Are you talking about Hoodie?

There's nothing to stop. Quit stalling and make an actual point. So far, your argument in favor of the Pats has amounted to little more than, "Yeah so, you're jealous!!!!! They're great!!!!!!!!! Why U Mad Bro?!!"

Answer for the scenario I laid out, this is now the 3rd time I've asked you.

"Cashvillesent wrote:

hoo boy. I'll let your post stand for itself as proof.

Without refuting one point. Facts suck don't they?