The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I'm getting multiple reports the Dolphins decided to part ways with Brandon Fields.  Apparently they think Matt Darr can get the job done

we should never punt anyways ..

Never Punt.  even on 4th and 15 on your own 5 yard line.

Dang ... defense is good but that's balls of steel there!!

BTW ... I know you were joking.

Surprising they would cut him when it only saves them less than 600K. He was a very solid punter.

I'm not REALLY joking.  We punt far, far too much.  It rarely makes statistical sense to punt unless you're in your own territory and it's 4th and long.

^^ Thought I read Fields was making like 4 million.  Darr can't be making THAT much.

Maybe Darr is the next Reggie Roby.  Just hope he can hold for FG's.

Not a fan of this decision.  I know he made the Pro Bowl last in 2013 and I did go back and look at his stats from last year and he didn't seem</i all that bad, I thinking ranking 11th at the worst in some key statistics.

Just hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass.  He also holds for Sturgis, so this a potential issue as well.

What is the likelihood that if you do punt your defense will prevent the other team from scoring? If you punt from your own 5 the other team takes over with great field position and will likely score a touch down.  

These are made up numbers....

But lets say that if you turn the ball over on downs at the 5 the other team has....

90% chance of scoring a TD
5% chance of scoring a FG
5% chance of not scoring.

And if you punt the other team has.....(keep in mind punting from the 5 puts the other team in great field position and their is decent chance at a blocked punt.)  

75% chance of scoring a TD
10% chance of scoring a FG
15% chance of not scoring.

And if you go for it you have a 30% chance of converting on 4th down.  

Should you go for it?

Based on the laws of probability.... absolutely.  Even if your odds of converting is only 15% you are still better going for it.  

Keep in mind these numbers are made up but are quite plausible.    

Not punting offers other advantages as well.  

(1) Greater play selection on third down.  You can now treat 3rd down the same way you treat 2nd.  
(2) Easier to pound and ground.  Rather than needing an avg of 3.3 yards per carry you only need 2.5.
(3) One more player available for defense or offense.

It's worth carrying a punter and punting for 4th and 10+ situations or where you're backed up so far in your own end that the TD chance is super-high -- like inside your own 20.  But otherwise, you almost always go for it -- especially near midfield, which is where a lot of punting happens.

I hate when teams punt from the offensive side of the 50.  Like you're driving, get to the 40 yard line, and don't wanna try the 57-yard bomb FG?  GO FOR IT!  There's that "no man's land between the offensive 35-50 yard line where the punter should never be brought on the field.  Most times, it ends in a touchback and they only move it 15-20 yards.  Its more valuable to take the shot with your offense than fight over 15 yards of field position

According to Omar his salary is split up ...

Those "made up numbers" would only be plausible if you had based them on "actual numbers." As it stands, they may as well be random numbers drawn out of a hat.

saw this coming for weeks. Darr is solid and makes far less money.

No they aren't. They are a long way from plausible. Punting from your own 5 probably results in a TD for the opposing team less than 50% of the time and you have a far less chance of making a 4th and 15 than 30%. It's probably more like 5 or 10%. The odds are NOT with you. Heck the odds are probably better that if you punt the ball, they will not score and give the ball back to you with better field position than if you were to go for it on 4th down and make it.

RUMOR going around is Sturgis is a goner too and the Fins are going with ALL ROOKIE kickers.

This will either be a big boom or be a huge bust for the Fins

Those positions, kicker and punter, are the two positions I have absolutely no problem with going all rookie on. I mean, all they do is kick. It isn't that difficult if you do nothing but practice that one motion all the time.

In such an important season ... I'm surprised of the Fields cut but wouldn't be surprised about Sturgis. He really hasn't been able to settle down since coming to Miami.

I'd be surprised if they let go of Sturgis.  He's not as bad as Twitter makes him seem.

His kickoffs suck. Franks kickoffs have been much higher and further the entire preseason. Miami wants to keep Franks at all costs even on the practice squad they are saying. Which has now motivated the thought of the move of why not just give him the job cause Sturgis is nothing special

If you have to start a sentence that way than you probably don't want the player if someone else is better, cheaper, or younger.  Or even better all three. 

Kickoffs don't score points.  I'd rather have a guy that drops the ball on the goal line but is solid on FG's than a guy that can boom it out of the end zone but misses FG's every game.

Well with Sturgis you can have a guy that kicks it off out of bounds and then misses a field goal.

Field position might not mean much to you but to intelligent football people it matters a whole hell of a lot.  And it's not like Sturgis is a young Morton Anderson who is some all pro field goal kicker. He is a bottom of the league kicker who is lucky to have a job. If Miami cuts him his career could be over as I don't see a bunch of teams lining up to sign him.

FYI: the Bills might cut Dan Carpenter by weeks end per multiple reports. Rex Ryan doesn't like his preseason and the misses he has had and has called him out in the press up there.

We all know this is false, but this is exactly what I mean.

I am aware of the importance of field position, but let's be realistic - guys run the ball out of the end zone now.  What's the difference if you run it out and get tackled on the 23 or if you don't let them return it and its placed on the 20.

Are you prepared to risk 5% of your FG's in exchange for 3 yards of field position?

That 5% number you pulled directly out of your ass. Let's be honest  you have nothing to back that up

Let's all be honest, Sturgis' numbers are toward the bottom of the league last year. The Miami Dolphins were 27th in the league on FG percentage. Let's not argue that it could get worse.

Most Dolphin fans would be upset if the kicker was making less than 110% of his kicks regardless of range.  In their eyes, any miss is a horrible travesty and the kicker should be cut immediately upon his return to the sideline.

You're right I have no vision into the future to know exactly how many FG's rookie kicker might miss relative to how many FG's Sturgis might miss.  Its called an estimate for the sake of qualifying my original point, and accuracy is not a requirement for future speculation. ::)

When I say this, everybody says that I am nuts.

However, it is easy to objectively refute these people if your kicker is top ten in FG%.
It is not when they are #27.

no it just makes your point silly and laughable. Sturgis was the 27th ranked kicker. You make it sound like the Fins are replacing a superstar IF they do replace him. They aren't.

It seems you are not aware that Caleb Sturgis was near the bottom of the league in field goal percentage two years in a row...

Not if it's kicked through the endzone they don't. Franks has the leg to put it through the endzone and not allow a return.

The difference is they can't take it back 100 yards. It's not the return to the 23 you are worried about it's the missed tackle that allows a TD that you are worried about.

Franks is a risk, his field goal percentage in college was not good. But it isn't as if being the 27th best kicker in the NFL equals job security for Sturgis.

Fine but if this guy is potentially WORSE than Sturgis, he could be the 32nd best kicker in the NFL.

But, hey, he gets a lot of touchbacks!

If its me, I teach my other 10 guys on special teams how to tackle and grab a kicker that can hit a dime from 50 yards.

Or he might be better.  From what I am reading he has progressively gotten better.  A guy like Franks (div III) school potentially has greater upside than a kicker with the exact same stats from a div I school.

A div iii school has less resources and Franks probably didn't get much coaching, he got some but not the level a player gets in the NFL or div I.  Assuming the kid is coachable and his past performance is based on raw uncoached talent, he has the potential be the #1 kicker in the NFL. 

With Sturgis he now has two years and three camps of experience.  While he might improve slightly, where he is now is pretty close to his ceiling.

You seem to think Franks has had a worse training camp than Sturgis. You clearly haven't been paying attention Brian

There has always been the mentality in football that kickers are not valued and a dime a dozen.  I've never understood that.  Given how many games are decided by a point or two, a quality kicker can make a big difference on a team.  I don't know enough about the new guys (at punter or the rookie kicker) to have a valuable opinion on the Fins specific situation.  But I do know that the importance of kickers is often overlooked in football.  I get it that they are looked down on by the other players for not being "real athletes", but that doesn't make them less important to the success of the team. 

So far, he has performed as well or better than Sturgis in camp and in games. In games, he has hit everything if I remember correctly.

So, if he is performing as good or better and he is DEFINITELY better at kick offs, I don't understand why this is even a worth discussion.

By the way, if you look at the college stats for Franks, he missed a lot of field goals yes, but he was also asked to kick a lot of field goals from 50 yards plus and that is where most of his misses came.

50+ yard field goals are typically the exception to the rule for kickers, not the majority of the kicks attempted.

I think the reason for the discussion is that with Sturgis you know what you are getting - the guy's not a super star, but he's not terrible.  Sure he'll miss some longer kicks, but he's pretty reliable on the ones that should be made.  With any new kicker you just don't know how he will turn out.  There is nothing like REAL NFL games on the road to rattle kickers, especially when the game is on the line.

The guy is in the bottom 20% of the league on FG and is one of the few kickers who can't consistently boot it out of the end zone.  If the question is Sturgis vs the guy behind door #2, you take door #2. 

If Sturgis was making BIG money I'd be all for it.  However, I don't think it's a good idea to go into the season with TWO rookie kickers.  If the new guys were both to perform poorly it could cost a game(s).

Exactly why NOW is the time to do it.  If one of them preforms poorly it could cost you games.  Find out what you got. If Franks sucks replace him next year.  You are gonna have to replace Sturgis next year if you keep him. 

Sturgis is below 80% for his career and has been ranked in the bottom 3rd of the league both seasons he has played.

If you do not consider this terrible, what do you consider terrible?

The Sturgis love-fest is baffling to me. People think Miami is replacing Morton Anderson or Adam Vinitari in their prime

^ He was drafted high and had high expectations.  That's all there is. 

Not a love fest but he's a known quantity.  You can say 27th in the league, whatever - fine.  But Rich gets to exclude Franks' misses from 50+, so it should work both ways.  Numbers don't tell the whole story, IMO.

Sturgis last season was 20/21 from inside 40 yards.  To me, I expect perfection in this range, but OK he missed 1, and it was blocked.  Big whoop.  This puts him 14th in the league at this range (including the block).
40-49 yards, he was 6/10.  To me this is poor.  3 misses from 48, 45, 43, and a 41 that was blocked.
50+, which Rich himself said was not a gimme, he was 3 of 6.  This really drags down his percentage.

So if you exclude blocks and 50+ misses, the guy missed three FG's all last season.  Is that really SO TERRIBLE?

In total, last season, Sturgis was 29/37 for 78%, including 2 blocks and 3 misses over 50 yards.  Outside of that, he was 26/29 for nearly 90% hit rate.

But, yeah, let's get rid of him cause he sucks.

He was drafted high over 2 years ago. We know what he is now

IF they get rid of him (and it hasn't been decided yet) it's to save cap space and they feel they have a guy who is better on kickoffs and equal on FG's. You get too worked up over something that may or may not happen.  But the fact is he was ranked 27th out of all the kickers last year and that isn't good enough.

They aren't going to get rid of him to save cap space. He is on a 5th round pick rookie contract.

The Dolphins aren't going to make the decision on what Franks did in college. They are going to make the decision on the following things:

1. Sturgis makes less than 80% of his kicks for his career
2. Sturgis also always seems to have some sort of injury
3. Who has looked better in camp - and all things being equal why should we keep a guy that is always nicked up and is bottom of the league in field goal percentage


Remember this is the same way Olindo Mare won the job and he was a good kicker for us for a while.

To recap: at a range which should be a lock (<40), he was 14th in the league.
From 40-49, he was kicking at a 60% clip.
At 50+, he was kicking at 50%.
This is not a good hill to die on.

I don't give him a pass on blocks, particularly since his leg strength is a concern; if he doesn't have enough power to safely clear the line on a <50 (or even <40) yard kick, that is a deficiency that needs to be accounted for.

This 78% stat can be very misleading.  Sturgis tied for 8th last year for number of field goals made.  As Brian pointed out he was 3 for 6 beyond 50 yards, a bunch of guys ahead of him only attempted 2-4 kicks beyond 50 yards, and they weren't perfect, so that tends to skew the stat.  Not to mention guys kicking off astroturf have an easier time of it.  So you just can't base his performance off of this one stat.  I can think of two missed kicks last year that I was upset about, so if that's it for a season I'm happy to keep him until his rookie contract is up.

Not 1 team in the league plays on astroturf. Hate to break it to ya.  Not 1 stadium in america has astroturf anymore either. The days of playing on that concrete astroturf are over with.

You know what I meant, its still artificial and has a uniform base.  Unlike real sod.

Field Turf is very little different than real grass and definitely not an  advantage for a kicker.

I think we have high expectations for our kickers because we have watched NE's kickers kick their teams to Superbowls and Division titles, whereas our kickers have cost us playoff berths.

Kicking has been no small part in the Patriots success over the dynasty and the last few years, no matter how much everybody seems to want to downplay it.

Anyone watching tonight's game will see why Fields was cut.   Darr is having the game of his life

Perfect world, Sturgis opens as kicker and Franks can be kept on the practice squad. First Sturgis f' up and he is gone. Problem is Franks will probably get picked up and we won't be able to hide him on the practice squad

http://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/index.ssf/2015/09/rex_ryan_upset_with_bills_kicker_dan_carpenter_says_team_will_explore_other_opti.html#incart_river

We can always bring Carpenter back. For the 2nd time this week Rex threw him under the bus and he said last night they are going to explore other options at kicker. Sounds like Dan will be back on the market

Brandon Fields who ? .. Darr last night had a few beautiful punts .. nailed them inside the 5 a few times

If this team was good we wouldn't have to worry about our punter  :(

Nice bon mot...but the teams that are good - really good - got there by worrying about the competency level of ALL the positions on their team.

I'm off to look up bon mot.

Interesting...

Andrew Franks won the kicking job per Palm Beach Post

Sturgis has been cut

Tres bien.  I should have known this term from my three years of French, some 20 years ago, but I also had to look it up.

Two UDFAs replacing two formerly drafted specialists.

Wow.

that is a good sign.

Problem is when gms keep weaker players to justify their draft  pick

Neither Fields nor Sturgis were draft picks of Hickey or Tannenbaum.

I think an equally large concern is a new front office getting rid of a player because he's not "their guy."  That being said, I don't think that's the case here.

Yup, if their guy were the guy converting 78% of his field goals, we would have a bigger issue than rookie specialists on this team....

Fields and Sturgis both worked out for Washington yesterday. Both might have jobs by the end of the day