Well if we’re in the tank, let’s trade him for a number 1 or 2 next year and just flush this season.

 

If we can get a higher pick in the 2nd than we gave for Rosen I'd be for it. I didn't think the Rosen trade was bad idea but the fact he couldn't beat out Fitzpatrick suggests the guy is a developmental project (which wasn't obvious initially), and if we're going to tank anyway for a QB then we might as well use a 2nd on a different pick. But we'd need to get minimum a 2nd back otherwise that's just throwing value away.

 

Flores made it clear there was a QB competition in camp and he also said Rosen wasn't starting because he "was not ready". If they thought Rosen was "ready" they'd put him out there to be sure he's the QB you want. Can't tell just from camp. Have to see the guy in real games.

Also, Rosen does have good pocket presence so it's not like Fitz is a clear winner in that department. Rosen's issues are more decision making related, making ill advised throws or just not seeing the field right. Best way to see if he's fixed that? Play him.

Besides, IF he's our solution at QB you'd want to know this season and as soon as possible so you don't pick a QB next season. You'd also have the benefit of not having to tank anymore given the wealth of picks we've already accumulated.

 

If we can't get back equal or greater value than what we surrendered for Rosen, which would be a tall ask, then I'm hanging onto him. Since acquiring Rosen, I'd argue that his value has only decreased. Sure, there are injuries throughout the league, but why would a contending team want to trade for the guy who lost the QB competition to Fitzpatrick, when they could trade for Fitzpatrick himself?

At this point, we're better off developing Rosen behind the scenes. Worst case, he emerges as a serviceable backup; best case, he gets playing time at some point and looks good enough to form a trade market, à la Jimmy G.

 

Trade Fitzpatrick while he can still walk.

 

However, he was the clear preseason winner at QB but Flores (whether rightly or wrongly) made the decision not to chuck him in behind a HS Oline. I do agree that if we are all in on Tua, it does seem like a waste of potential (& draft capital) keeping him here - I would like to see him in sooner rather than later though

 

That's what I say. Move on from old Beardo and roll with Rosen. Then we can use all of these draft picks to build the team up around him.

 

They did the same thing with Tannehill, in terms of draft picks and free agents.

Remember that at one point with Tannehill, the offensive line consisted of a first round pick free agent at left tackle, a first round pick at left guard, a first round pick at center, a former Pro Bowl free agent at right guard, and a first round pick at right tackle.

That wasn’t sufficient, because a team’s margin for error is so small when it has but an average quarterback. The approach now should be to obtain one of the league’s best quarterbacks, which lets you miss in other areas and still succeed.

 

Yeah.. but that's not the right analogy because Tannehill production-wise was an average QB. Based on what we know about Rosen he's below average and you don't want to build your team around a below average QB lol.

 

As much as I hate to say it, I agree 100%. I do think Rosen beat out Fitz and I do think that he COULD BE the future in Miami, but I'd value him at a 1st and a 2nd or possibly even two 1sts. To me this is like the Tunsil deal- keep Rosen unless you get an offer that can't be passed on.

With that said, I really want Rosen to stay here since I really like what I've seen so far. But is Tua > Rosen? Darn, that's really tough to answer since Tua has such an awesome offensive line and so much time to throw. I'd almost take Rosen based on what we know today.

 

Anyway, it seems like a no-brainer to play him and see how good he is. If by some miracle he's really good (very unlikely, I know) there's plenty of other needs to address with that #1 pick.

Re "value of a good quarterback" I was noodling around on pro football reference and learned that Patrick Mahomes turned 24 today. He's got 7 TDs and no INTs so far, something like a 140 rating, etc.

Anyway, in their last game the Chiefs were 22-31 on the ground, which is shocking. But Mahomes was 30-43-443-4 TDs, and they beat Oakland 28-10. Football really has changed since I was a kid (around when they legalized the forward pass).

Keyfin -- yeah, but no way anyone would give that for Rosen, surely?? I guess someone might give a #2, but maybe I'm misunderstanding you? Miami wound up giving two #1s for Ricky Williams, and (i) he was a colossal talent (ii) that turned out to be a horrible deal.

 

Rosen is worth what someone would be willing to pay. And when we grabbed him, it was to let the kid develop...so a low 2nd seemed about right. But the Jets, Steelers, etc need a starter right now and I guarantee you that Rosen would be at the top of their wish lists. Heck, the Jets could be in the race to pick #1 overall with us- it just comes down to how they evaluate QB's to determine Rosen's worth.

 

So the Dolphins got Rosen for a 2nd and 5th round pick. He hasn't cracked the starting lineup yet and is now potentially worth two first round picks?

Amazing.

 

Jets aren't going after Rosen. First of all, Darnold (who I think will either bust or at best be average) will come back, and second of all Luke Falk (who you liked) actually played decent yesterday. Based on what I've seen Rosen is no better than Falk.

Also, Mason Rudolph looked way better than Roethlisberger did this year. I know you think Rosen is great but right now all the evidence points to him being at best a backup. Even though I'd be happy with someone giving us a 2nd for Rosen, it's more likely his value is a 4th.

 

What we surely can’t do is start fantasizing that putting some conglomeration of pieces around Rosen will certainly make him a lot better than he is. That was a seven-year mistake with Tannehill.

What we need to do now is look for individual ability in a quarterback, unaided by his surroundings, and then start building around that person.

 

I thought Falk did okay last night as well but Gase kept is REALLY conservative...it was hard not to think we were watching a young Tannehill out there (or maybe it was just me). I liked Falk because Gase was so high on him, but I really hadn't watched a ton of tape on him past highlight reels. Probably the best part of his game is that he stays level-headed and they say he's a really good leader/motivator in the huddle.

With Rosen, I just like the gunslinger mentality (like Moore, Favre), his movement in the pocket and his accuracy on most throws. What he needs to learn is patience to read he D and be safer with the football....which is definitely teachable (as much as you can teach a gunslinger anything, LOL). As I said, maybe he doesn't develop at all and ends up in that backup role for 10 years...he was still a solid grab for us at that price. I have no idea why Arizona didn't keep him and let him compete.

But for a team that wants to build around a young guy today? I think he's worth more than a 2nd to them. Maybe a lot more if the cards fall a certain way. I don't think there's any way possible for the Fins to move him for less than a 1st rounder or two 2nds, something like that.

 

But how do you do that with Tua and his impenetrable offensive line? He sees almost no pressure at all and that worries me. The arm talent is there but he's also getting 4+ seconds to throw the ball...how do you translate that to a poor pocket with 2s throws in the NFL?

To me, it's a gamble either way...but we have Rosen right now and we're not trying to win games anyway. I really think he needs to start ASAP to get a full evaluation and decide if we need to grab someone else (in 2020) or not. I feel like Lawrence is more of a sure thing and I'd draft him regardless.

 

Rosen is still green. 2nd offensive system in 2 years with a brand new team. He's still learning. They have him sit and mentor under Fitzpatrick, so on Tuesdays they can all sit together in the film room and see how the defense is attacking our offense, decipher coverages and blitzes, and so on. Things you can't learn on the fly on the field, and are not conducive to properly teaching a young QB. Especially with the current condition of the offensive line.

Not saying Rosen is the answer, who knows, but the Dolphins have approached the young and veteran QB situation the right way.

 

I agree that if your plan is to keep Rosen longer term the proper thing to do is to let him develop and not rush him because he hasn't shown he's our solution at QB so far. But all this isn't happening in a vacuum. We're almost certainly picking a QB high next year so you have to do some cost/benefit analysis.

That is, even if Rosen isn't "ready" from a coach's standpoint there is a cost to just letting him develop without playing him in regular season games. The cost is that you simply don't really know how he'll play in actual games. And it's not like learning to decipher coverages and blitzes is permanently impaired if you play Rosen now. So I'm firmly in the camp of wanting to see Rosen start now to see what he can and cannot do in actual games because that would give us a better idea of whether we really need to pick a QB early next year.

 

Good question. So what you look for are two things in my opinion: 1) is the quarterback’s performance so extremely good that it can’t possibly be explained entirely by surrounding factors, and 2) how does the quarterback typically play when there is dysfunction in his surroundings on any given play?

 

I dont always agree with your take on things but damn I could not have said this better myself.

Great post dude.

 

You do realize that our offense line is holier than the pope that you couldn’t evaluate any quarterback. We could put Brady behind our OL and would fold like a cheap suit.

Whether or future lies with Rosen or with Tua, if this team wants to truly help develop next year’s quarterback, the plan better involve a powerhouse running game to take the pressure off whom ever is under center less he become Chad Henne or Ryan Tannehill.

 

The team’s biggest weakness at the present time is its pass defense, which is surrendering an insane 155 passer rating through the first two games, and which puts tremendous pressure on the offensive line to block opposing defenses that know the Dolphins’ quarterback has to pass the ball to mount an incredible comeback on the scoreboard.

Somewhat paradoxically, if you improved the team’s pass defense, you would also improve its offensive line.

 

Agree with the basic argument about the running game in the 2nd paragraph though I doubt a QB with good pocket presence would ever turn into a Henne or Tannehill. However, despite losing Tunsil our OL right now is no worse than it was in past years IMO. It was porous back then and porous now, which btw is becoming quite common in the NFL.

Also, the deficiencies we've seen with Fitz in our 2 games had little to do with the OL IMO. He's been bad even when he had time. So yes I think you can evaluate a QB with the OL we have. In fact, one such eval is that Rosen has decent pocket presence. Besides, you WANT to evaluate QB's when the going gets rough, not when everything is perfectly set up for them to succeed.

 

Khalil Tate, mofos.

 

When the average amount of time after the snap an NFL quarterback has before he starts experiencing pressure is a mere 2.5 seconds, it tells you something about the way offensive lines (and opposing defenses) typically function in the league.

 

This must be that new math. Our defense sucks for the sake of sucking. But to add to that, the offense can’t sustain a drive on the field. They’re going 3 and out virtually every series which sends our defense right back out onto the field to be further gutted by opposing offenses.

Football 101; sustain drives on offense, keep opposing offenses off the field for as long as possible, defense force 3 and outs

We’ve lost and lost badly to Football 101

 

Right, but opposing passer ratings as high as 155 aren’t a natural outgrowth of not sustaining offensive drives.

 

I wouldn’t agree with offensive lines being porous as commonplace in NFL. There are a number of teams with strong running games...Dallas, SF, Houston, Baltimore just to name a few. Most of those lead the league in yards per rush. You don’t gain yards on the ground like that without a stout offensive line.

When I think of the league and fans anymore in general, I can’t help but thinking of the scene in “Any Given Sunday” when Cameron Diaz’s character is telling Al Pacino’s character that people want to see high flying touchdown passes. Everyone has hitched their wagon to this mindset, searching for the next Marino instead of getting back to the basics that make football teams perennial winners.

If we don’t get back to basics, might as well write off seeing the Dolphins in the Super Bowl ever again

 

Your premise of a better pass defense translating to a better offensive line still makes zero sense.

 

I'm not saying there are no teams with good OL, just that it's becoming more commonplace to find teams with porous OL. I don't have any stats to show this one way or the other because there are no good stats for OL but that's my perception at least. I remember watching the game in the 80's and 90's and it wasn't like this.. unless my memory is just too warped (which is possible).

Rules have systematically changed to the point where we are half way to flag football when it comes to the QB. I don't like it, but that's the way it is and passing stats have gradually increased over the decades as a result. Most SB's are won nowadays by teams with very good QB's and very good passing offenses. Very hard to do it any other way.

Also, if you were to put the best teams in the 70's against the best teams today using today's rules (and interpretations of those rules) no question today's teams destroy those from the past. Main point here is simple: you have to adapt to survive (and win).

 

I don’t know about that. With today’s rules applied to QBs like Staubach, Bradshaw...going into the 80’s with Marino, Moon, Elway, Montana...no, I seriously doubt they’d get destroyed. They succeeded in spite of being WWF body slammed every game.

If nothing else, those teams of yesteryear would destroy today’s teams

 

You don’t see a relationship between points surrendered and how your own offense has to function to keep pace?

 

I think great QB's and coaches from the past would need some time to adapt to the modern rules. I don't think they could just be transported to the present and immediately adjust. Marino might have it easy, but most QB's and coaches would need to go through an experimentation phase before figuring out what works and what doesn't.

And the problem might be worse on defense because they wouldn't know how to defend against a modern offense.. until they have enough time to adapt of course. Besides, the entire makeup of those teams was designed to win in another era. So I do think those teams from the past would get destroyed today under today's rules unless you gave them a year or so to adapt.

 

Id trade Fitz for just about anything and call up Rudock...

 

Ideally, I would like to see Rosen after the bye week. We'll see how it pans out.

 

I think you're wrong in terms of game 1- Fitz was absolutely running for his life and had no chance of trying to lead a drive. That was honestly the worst blocking I've ever seen on any level...just watch the highlight reel with 3+ defenders getting instant penetration on every single play.

Game two the line did look better in many regards, but at the same time NE didn't all-out blitz very often either (the Ravens blitzed almost every down). So we're almost comparing two different things here since the games unfolded so differently...most teams will just send the all-out blitz. Against a normal pass rush though, our boys were able to create a pocket and keep things respectable.

At first I thought that same as you- the line improved a lot in a week. But once I watched it back and saw how the defense played us, it really felt like NE took it easy on us as a professional courtesy. So there was improvement but it's too early to say by how much.

 

Not a chance. Defenses were so vanilla and simple back then. While they rules have stiffened to help promote the passing game, QB's from the 60's, 70's, 80's and even the 90's would need a serious learning curve to even begin to understand the modern NFL defenses.