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From what I saw I put little blame on him


what about you

The coaching staff is trying to change him from how he was last year when he was very successful, and I don't know why. It's a big story now that they are having a "power struggle" with management over how to use him. They feel he is a game manager and nothing more, ownership does not, hence the $86 Million contract.

I used quotation marks because Tannenbaum will be here next year while the whole coaching staff will not, so it's not really a fair fight.

Tanny isn't the best QB in the NFL, but if you set him up to succeed he will as he showed last year. When he has to run for his life and have coaches not let him run the offense, he will struggle because he isn't a Manning or Rodgers.

350 yards and 3 TD's with a center who couldn't snap the ball. I wouldn't blame him too much

Giving up close to 40pts is the real problem

HAHAHAHAHA  Literally 75% of his production was in the exact definition of garbage time. Same with Landry. Not too hard to put up good stats when the other team doesn't give a fuck.

You talking about the Jets defense in the 4th quarter or the Dolphins defense in the first 3?

If Tannehill put up 50 on the Jets, the defense would have given up 51, but what the hell it's always the QB's fault when you lose. What exactly has happened to Grimes by the way? Is he hurt? He can't cover anyone these days. Rashad Jones would make a better LB than anybody Miami has at the position.

Your sick obsession with Landry is disturbing. Every thread you find a way to bring him up

Tannehill was 19 for 30 for 238 yards when the team was down by 21 points or more today.  Landry had 118 yards when the team was down 21 points or more.   

Stat padders.

Landry was good again.  Tannehill still making big time mistakes.  That INT in the first half was on him..IMO.

The Oline sucks and along with his contract we have to give him more time to truly see what he can do.

Hoping next year with a NEW coaching staff and philosophy, along with a DECENT Oline, he can make that next step.

 ??? ??? ???

Hickey has to go too. This o-line needs to be blown up. Thomas has to be gone. Good chance Albert is gone. Turner is a back-up at best. Douglas is awful.

Agreed, I'd blow up the whole Oline.  Think Pouncey is overrated...could a new line do any worse,even 5 rookies?

Pouncey just got a long term deal he is here for a while. James is here. After that everyone else is able to be moved. Another year of Turner, Thomas, and Douglas in any combination I cannot stomach

The playcalling does nothing to help the offensive line. The defense front four never has to play the run, it is always just rush the qb.

I don't know Albert's contract situation, but it might be best to hang onto him if a suitable replacement can't be found. We need 2 new guards though more than anything. It has to be the #1 and 2 priority this offseason. We got other needs, but no more.

#3 priority is teaching Tanny to just throw the ball away like Brady does. The O-Line is terrible, but he can limit his QB hits if he just hucks it at the feet of a Linemen more often.

Tannehill has regressed this season.  You can blame the three years of a crappy Oline, or the crappy coaching; but ultimately HE has regressed.  When you have good RB's and good WR's, he should be making more plays.  He just doesn't seem to look like a leader on the field.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him benched next season under a new HC.

Not gonna bench a guy they just gave $96 mil too. Any head coach that wants to bench him probably shouldn't take the Miami job and Tannenbaum isn't going to hire to begin with

C'mon you know it's actually $45M over three years.  Peyton is getting a higher avg over two years, yet you believe the the Bronco's will bench him, so it's not a stretch.  It wouldn't be the first time a team benched a highly compensated QB.

Tanny was awful for 3 quarters today. He directly contributed to the game getting out of hand early with poor passes and bad decision making.  It's a shame we're tied to him and his contract.  This team is doomed if he ever has to be anything other than a care taker.

Bad analogy with Peyton. I will get to that in a minute. The next head coach of the Dolphins is the guy who walks into the interview and says...."I can fix this offense and make Tannehill better." Any potential head coach who walks in and says well we might need competition at QB and we will see blah blah blah, ain't getting the job. Cause the guy who is deciding on the head coach just gave a lot of money to Tannehill. So he believes in him, the next head coach better believe in him. So this notion of him being benched ain't gonna happen.

On to Peyton and that awful analogy. He is 39 going on 40 years old, the skills are diminished and he is injured. He isn't getting benched because of anything else other than he got hurt. If he didn't get hurt, he never would have got benched. Period. End of debate.

From what I saw:

Tannehill had not running game whatsoever

His defense can't stop anybody so he feels like he has to score on every single drive

His receivers drop passes constantly and can't get open.

His center can't snap the ball to him.

His line can't protect him.

That is from what I saw in the game.

Did you guys see anything different?

Wrong, perfect analogy with Peyton.  YOU said they wouldn't bench Tannehill because they just signed him to a big contract, and I pointed out that there is more to the issue than whether a guy is paid a big salary, which Peyton is paid.  If the Dolphins continue playing poorly this year without leadership from Tannehill, AND they start out next year with the same; you will see Tannehill benched, just like they fired Philbin this year.  I'm not saying that's going to happen (nor do I want it to happen), but it is within the realm of possibilities.  Exclamation mark. End of discourse.

Peyton is 39 going on 40 with diminished skills on the brink of retirement. Not a player who got his 2nd contract in his 20's. As I said a new coach who when hired is going to be hired to fix the offense and improve Tannehill isn't going to bench him a few games or half a season into his head coaching Dolphins career. You are very naive to believe that.  Your knowledge of the NFL and how it works can fit into a thimble. Very naive on this matter.

We can't all be junior wanna be GM's, but you never disappoint in the insult department.   ::)

not about junior wanna be GM's....it's common sense and logic. The team president gives Tannehill a $96/45 mill long-term deal. Then is going to hire a coach who is going to be itchy to bench him half-way through his first season as head coach? Not happening. The team president is going to find a GM and head coach who thinks like him, and is on the same page as him especially regarding Tannehill and the QB. They are going to find a head coach who says..."I can make it work with him"....and not a guy who is going to be itchy to bench him the first time things don't go perfect.

Anybody want to respond to me please?  I mean, did you see what I saw today?

I am confused. If the coaching staff feels this way, why are they having him throw so much and why do they call so few runs? Seems like they are asking the game manager to carry the team. Sounds like inept coaching to me.

I have concerns about just what Tannehill is capable of but he does have some things working against him. the guy get s hit constantly and takes some brutal hits but keeps getting up. Until he is allowed to feel comfortable back there I don't know that we will ever see his maximum potential. It's been many years now ... hopefully someone in the front office will finally see that we need an O-line to play in this league.

Ryan Tannehill: 6 of his 20 TD passes have been when trailing by 20+ points this year. The NFL record is 8 (Archie Manning, 1972). Any takers on whether or not he breaks Manning's record?

He could have got one today, but instead he ran it in for a touchdown. 

The way I see it with Tannehill is that we all know pretty much what his "floor" is.  His "floor" is mediocrity.  Not horrible, but mediocre.  But his offensive line has been so god-awful his entire tenure here, that I really don't think we can know what his "ceiling" is or what his consistent level of play with a decent O-Line would be.  He clearly isn't going to be a Hall of Famer.  But I think that with a decent O-Line he could actually be a decent QB. 

He doesn't make the players around him better. He seems to not be able to read defenses too well which makes the oline seem a lot worse than it actually is. He isn't terrible.

I just don't even open up to Tannehill discussion because we're not running an offense.  There are no plays, since there is no line.  He's just out there dinking and dunking because that's all that's available -- and he's fine at that. 

Without any semblance of an offensive line or any blitz pick-up, all discussion of Tannehill is moot.  At this point, this is on the ownership or maybe the GM for going into a season without pro-caliber players at the building-block positions.  Dallas Thomas is a starter on our team.  This is after he was a starter on our team last year.  When things like that go unaddressed, the rest of this stuff doesn't even matter.

And this is exactly the argument that myself and MikeO were making before the season started. We have failed to fix our weakest link for three years. Is that some crazy level of incompetence or just downright sabotage?

...along with 42 billion other people. Basically, anyone with a pair of eyes knew that this O-line was going to suck again this season. I was just praying that one or two of the younger bums had the possibility of developing into something worthy of starting. That definitely hasn't happened this year.

You could be right about the latter.  One friend told me that Ross is a closet Jets fan and got outbid by Woody Johnson for ownership of the Jets.  So he buys the Dolphins andl runs them haphazardly so the Jets can win

Minus the garbage time, Tannehill has 16 tds and 11 ints. 

I couldn't agree more.  By the time the offensive line is fixed Tannehill will probably be out of the league after suffering concussions and major bone fractures.  You do have to give Tannehill a lot of credit for bouncing back from all the hits he takes.

This.  And I was kind of hoping that Albert, Pouncey, & James would stay healthy, avoid suspensions, and play their natural positions throughout the season.

Next year I think needs to be the make or break year for Tannehill. 

I would be ok if Tannehill never played another snap for the Dolphins. If in four years you haven't shown that you are the guy, it is time to move on.

How about the other two sacks on the Dolphins last drive?  What were those like?

Yes it has all been him. The other two QB'S from his class are not getting sacked nearly as mich as he is, and one has a dominant running game and defense to help.
But at least you are not crying about Jarvis for a change.

I didn't know he was being compared to other people in his draft class. He isn't ever going to be a good qb and it is time to move on. He is one of the reasons the line looks so bad.

The Green Bay vs Arizona game is a good example of an ELITE QB having trouble when the O-line can't block.

Over the past three years, Andrew Luck has more combined hits and sacks than Tannehill. At some point, Miami fans need to realize that RT is part of the problem.

Does Luck have a really bad defense?

No offense but I think you are full of crap. I'd have to see real proof to belive that. Luck habn't even played in most of the games this year and he definitely didn't beat him out the last two years.

Jay Fiedler had his best year in 2001 and went 11-5. He had 20 TDs and 19 Interceptions and threw for less than 3,300 yards. Tannehill has 22 TDs and 12 INTs and has thrown for almost 3,900 yards with one game to go. He already has a 4000 yard season.

While I don't think you won't find anyone to say he doesn't have some issues ... to date Tannehill is light years ahead of any other QB we have had since Marino. Until we give him a running game, a defense and an offensive line I think we we should leave that position alone and focus on things that are in worse shape.

That defense was so good in 2001.

I remember that season, Wannestedt really messed things up big time. 

It's fairly common knowledge. I've seen it reported multiple times over the past few seasons, and I've brought it up on these very boards, but as you wish, here's your proof:

http://www.stampedeblue.com/2015/5/19/8625013/andrew-luck-has-been-knocked-down-more-than-any-other-quarterback-over-past-three-years-colts
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2014/11/28/protecting-andrew-luck-colts-have-had-issues-safeguarding-their-young-franchise-qb/
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/85922194/nfl-obscure-stats-leaders-andrew-luck-lesean-mccoy-lavonte-david

Now not all three sites have the same totals, but they all agree- sacks+hits, Luck has more than Tannehill. NFL.com also lists OL stats that show similar numbers. And while I get that RT has put up nice little yardage and TD numbers, he is 28-35 for his career. That's a worse record than Alex Smith, Rex Grossman, Mark Sanchez, and Matt Schaub. This is the guy who got paid $96 million dollars? Really?

Eknight, next year will be his breakout year!  It is time to cut bait with him.  He is not going to be a person who is going to lead a team to a superbowl. He can play a small part in a super bowl team, but so can 30 other people.  No reason to waste money on him.

RT is definitely part of the problem.  Yes, he has a bad line.  He also takes a lot of sacks he shouldn't, which makes the line look even worse.  At some point, he has to rise beyond his obstacles if he is to be considered, at least, good.  His biggest problems are that he's not a leader or a playmaker.  He's a cog that is best used for a well oiled machine.  He can't win games for his team.  He can only win games his team puts him in position to win.  If every other part is working, he can make the machine look good.  He is Jay Fiedler with less intelligence and a much better arm.  Basically, he's an average QB who can make all the throws, but lacks every other part of what makes a QB a game changer.

This team lacks so many other pieces, though, that an average QB is not at the top of the list of what's holding the franchise back.

Exactly. You have a rookie guard, who isn't very good and has never played center at any level, starting at center for you and one of the worst defenses in the league ... You're best QB in 16 years isn't the first place you start.

He's not better than Pennington and I would take Fiedler over him.

That's hilarious to begin with and even funnier because I just got done listening to Wanny explaining how Feidler had everything going for him and Tannehill doesn't have any help. Tannehill "can" make every throw and can run while Fielder couldn't even throw an 10 yard and out pattern.  OMG ... he would have loved to have had Tannehill with a Ricky Williams running game and a defense led by Sam Madison, Patrick Surtain, Zach Thomas, Tim Bowens and Jason Taylor.

yeah people dont realize how loaded Fiedler's team was.
Wanny was part of the problem, but Fiedler definetly didn't help.
He was worse than your avg game manager cause his arm shackled him.

RT woulda been money with that team.
RT still is just an avg QB though.

Tannehill could have all that and still manage to lose the game. Tannehillis not smart enough to read anything except the most basic defense. His QB intelligence rivals Henne. How did all Fiedlers backups fare?  Everybody kept calling for them, Lucas,Gruese etc and all of them shut the bed when they came in. Matt Moore would lead this team to a better record than Tannheill right now.

Seriously ... how do you explain Tannehill's numbers are much better with way less offense to help him? I'm shaking my head and I don't mean that figuratively. That's as crazy as saying that Landry sucks when he has 104 catches for 1,085 yards and four touchdowns this season.  I'm not smart enough to dumb it down to argue with that.

Just for fun I looked up Pennington's best game. He only threw over 3000 yards 3 times in his career(3120,3352,3653) while Ryan has thrown over 4000 twice assuming he plays this week. He is averaging almost 3,800 yards a season with one game left to play. I mean he was peeing blood and still played last week so I'm guessing he plays this week. Anyway ...

Pennington's best game - Sun 9/9/07   Jets vs NE
L 14-38   16/21   167yards   76.2 com %    2TD    130.5QBR


Tannehill's best game - 10/25/15    HOU   
W   44-26   18/19   282yards   94.7com%    4TD   158.3QBR   

I feel kind of odd for defending him but I think many people have the idea if he isn't Dan Marino, Tom Brady or even Andrew Luck then he is absolute garbage ... and that just isn't true.

Tannehill is an okay quarterback.  Here is the problem - this team has so many holes and deficiencies an "okay" quarterback is hard to hide.  One of the largest issues with this team is the front office, which trickles down to the coaching staff (all of them); this morphs into game day issues and putting players in the best situations to win on game day, which does not happen in Miami.

I've read a couple different times that Tannehill needs a running game.  Additionally, I've read he needs a better offensive line. 

Miami has two all-pro players on the offensive line.  Two.  At key positions.  A lot of teams would die to have that productivity at those positions.  Better coaching would be able to utilize the strengths of those positions, which then elevates the play around them.  We have a former pro-bowler (and still very capable) tight end.  The offensive line isn't talent, it's coaching.

Miami has a lot of talent at running back.  Is someone going to seriously tell me Lamar Miller isn't a threat in the back field?

Miami has talent, and a lot of it, at WR.

Miami has A LOT of talent on the defensive side of the ball.

I've always wondered what would happen to this exact roster if the New England, Arizona, or Seattle coaching staff came in and run this team, with this roster.  Under the proper coaching, playing to each player's strengths, this is easily an 11 win team.

Say what you will about New England - they have a mantra which is very valuable: "Do your job."  That's all anyone is expected to do, but you're expected to be the best.  Even if you're the towel boy, you better be the best G-D towel boy in the league.  If you aren't, they will replace you. Period.  If you're the assistant to the assistant, ASSISTANT defensive back coach, responsible for nothing other than breaking down random film of other teams check offs, and then having it drawn up in "what if" scenarios for the scout team, it better be spot on.  That's exactly how they caught on to the play Seattle liked to run, and how Butler had practiced the play that ended the Super Bowl.  Every person focuses on exactly what they should do and if you don't, you're gone...no matter who you are.

With Miami I see a mish-mosh of people in positions they aren't ready for, players doing things they shouldn't be doing, playing out of their heads and being put into positions they shouldn't be put into...week after week after week after week. 

Until we have a competent front office, who then hires a competent coaching staff, this will never change.  Once we do, Tannehill will be fine.  He's an okay QB, you can win with him. Problem is, there are 11 guys on a football field - each one has to do their job at the same time in order for anything to work.  Right now, none of them are.

Pennington never had more than 500 attempts in a season. So yes. Seeing how Tannehill is in a pass happy offense of course he is going to have more yards in a season. Are you really that dense to argue that Tannehill is a better qb than Pennington was?  And Landry is not good. Catching 100 2 yard passes doesn't make him good. His yard per target is abysmal.

I don't see near the talent Maine Does,but I'll go with it,and agree with where he's going about the front office coaching staff... :D

I feel my biggest trait I want in the next coach is the brains to be adaptable to the team he has.Trying to make a square peg fit in a triangle hole is a disaster.

Tannehill has a running game...and the running game needs a better offensive line.


Not a single member of this Miami roster will be an all-pro this season. Miami didn't have any all-pros on their O-line last year either...or the year before. Maybe what you meant was that Miami has a couple of offensive linemen who used to be considered all pro caliber.

They certainly aren't any more.

Regarding Landry, wide receivers have 3 goals to hit each season:

A.  100 catches in a year.  CHECK
B.  1,000 yards in a season.  CHECK
C.  Double digit TDs in a season.  Didn't hit that one, but there are 8 WRs in the league that did.  Pretty limited company.

So in conclusion, you don't know anything about football.  The end.

Why does this seem to happen disproportionately for Miami? This seems to be the place for players' careers to go to die. Dansby, Burnett, Ellerbe, Wallace, Suh, Albert, all of them have been far less than advertised once they arrived. The only player they've brought in over the past 5 years who continued to be as good or better than when he arrived- Marshall- they traded away.

I imagine the reasons vary as much as the individual players. Some have just gotten older, and we are paying for the production they provided as younger players. Some are players who were very productive in other systems, but not in the systems that Miami tried to shoehorn them into when they arrived. Some just flat-out suck, and we're left scratching our heads over why Miami signed them in the first place.

I agree with that as well as needing our players to be coached up. That's exactly why I want Josh McDaniel. I can't think of a better example of a team that isn't afraid to change things up to fit each bit of adversity they face.  With that said you also need to draft and and sign people who the coach can work with. it doesn't matter what QB Tannebaum likes if the coach doesn't think they can work things out with them. We have drafted projects for years and they not panned out. We trade away picks so that we can select one average guy and another bust. We need to just go after people we know will pan out as we haven't had a decent person picking since JJ left.

Having only 1000 yds on 100+ catches is not good and no receiver would shoot for that. He is 99th in the nfl in yards per reception which is not good.

So he runs short routes successfully that he is told to run by the coaching staff and that makes him a bad player?

And before you say, "It's because he can't run deeper routes", see his amazing 1 handed catch from yesterday's game.

...but by all means, keep digging your hole.

tannehil is the qb for the foreseeable future, no point arguing that... why they rushed to get him locked up into a contract is another topic for another thread.

what you see is what you get with tannehill, it aint changing with a resurrection of bill walsh to coach this team. defenses know that you just keep everything underneath, let tanny rack up his 40 passes for 350 yards, and you are beating the dolphins. unfortunately that is what tannehill does well.

for the fins to be successful, the entire offensive strategy needs to change. i hate the term, but tanny needs to be put in a system where he is just a game manager, nothing more, nothing less. build around a power rushing team, with an elite running back and defense to match. something that looks more like the chiefs, or gulp, the jets.

if the fins go into this rebuild thinking they want to continue to have tanny the focal point of the offense with 35 - 40 passes a game, they are doomed.

SI.com actually ran a report recently indicating that QB is one of the positions that will be evaluated in the offseason before the draft. Yes, I know that EVERY position is evaluated in the offseason, but two sources within the organization made it a point to state that they were evaluating off-season options at the position.

I would agree with all of this and add that poor evaluation by the front office in bringing in certain players, as well as poor coaching.

Gotta put this out there.

Look how much better Marshall was this season than he was with Miami. 

I think he meant Pro Bowl, not All-Pro.

Stats are in.
Tannehill tied for first for most sacked this year.
This means in his first four seasons, he has finished 8th, 3rd, and 1st twice for most sacked QB.

I'm not sure where your stats came from but according to NFL.com Bortles was sacked 51 times to lead the league. Rodgers came in second with 46 and then Tannehill tied with Smith & Wilson at 45 to finish third.

One thing about it ... none of them have offensive lines. You can also add Indy to that mix. There is obviously a lack of quality offensive linemen these days. If things don't change you will see a rule change or two to help them.

Might have something to do with the lack of contact in practice these days.

Tannehill was 13th in the league in sack rate (percentage of pass dropbacks resulting in a sack) and wasn't significantly different from the average in the league in that regard.

The average in the league in 2015 was 6.16%, and Tannehill's 7.1% wasn't a standard deviation (1.86%) higher than the average.

In other words, he experienced nothing significantly different from the league norm in terms of the percentage of the time he was sacked when dropping back to pass.

On top of that, the correlation between sack rate and QBR (ESPN's QB rating) in 2015 was -0.02, meaning that there was no relationship between those two variables.

In other words, there are a good number of quarterbacks who are sacked a larger percentage of the time who nonetheless play very well, and conversely a good number of quarterbacks who are sacked a smaller percentage of the time who nonetheless play poorly.  The two variables aren't related.

In other words, it's time for the Tannehill apologists to start realizing he's just not that great as a QB, and the continued excuse of the Oline doesn't hold much merit.

Over the past two years of his career he's been about exactly average overall, in comparison to the other quarterbacks in the league.  Right smack in the middle of the road.

There are people who believe he'd be doing better if what was going on around him on the team was different, but there's really no way of confirming or refuting that with any certainty.  It's an unknown, and an unfalsifiable argument.

You can win big with an average QB, but it takes exceptionally good circumstances (or variables) elsewhere on the team.

I feel like I have read this post 73 times before...

Don't you mean he's a bust?  I mean, that is what you said after halftime of his first game in Week 1 of his rookie season, 63 consecutive starts ago.

I'm not sure where you are pulling these numbers from, but aside from the 7.1%, they are wrong.

7.1% is 23rd out of 32 teams, not 13th. The low is 3.4%, the high is 9.2%. So by either metric, he is nowhere near the league average, which is 5.7%.

Also, why would there be a correlation between sacks and QB rating? If the QB is being sacked, a pass is not being throw.

Also, just looking at sacks as not looking at the bigger picture. There are a plethora of other things to consider when correlating pressure to QB performance.

The 7.1% is the average sack percentage of the QBs on this page:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr

The sack percentage data is taken not from that page, but from here, however:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2015/passing.htm


There shouldn't be, but one could make the argument perhaps that the more often a QB is sacked, the more he's "beaten up" so to speak, and the worse his performance should be.  That isn't found in the numbers, however.  One could also view sacks as an analogue of pressure and think that QBs who are sacked more often must also be experiencing greater or more frequent pressure.


Let's get those things out there and take a look at them.

Your second link has Tannehill ranked 24th, which is one spot worse than the 23rd I found. Which means he is in the bottom of the league in sacks per pass attempt. Again, I don't see your 13th ranking. Therefore, Tannehill is sacked more frequently per pass attempt than the average NFL QB, whether we look at your source or mine.

http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/sacked-percentage/2015/

So you are providing a source that says 24th and I am providing a source that says 23rd.


There isn't always a correlation between sacks and pressures. A QB that is getting rid of the ball quicker may be getting sacked less and pressured more behind terrible blocking. Conversely, a QB that holds onto the ball longer may be getting great protection and get sacked more because no matter how great the protection is, the QB is staying longer in the pocket to look downfield or because he can't figure out the defense... whatever reason.

Too many variables to just look at sacks and pressures and reach a conclusion.


The only way to really get them out there is to look at film of every game and track them. For the number of stats and data sites out there today, the amount of information disclosed is still limited.

If we use the site linked above (Sporting Charts), the league average is 6.15%, and the standard deviation is 1.68%.  Tannehill's sack percentage of 7.1% would therefore be well within a standard deviation of the league average.

League ranks can be misleading when there isn't much variation from the average in the league.  23rd in the league may not be a whole lot different from 14th under those circumstances, in other words.

You want to see how far someone deviates from the league norm, not where he's ranked in the league, to get an idea of how exceptional he is, if at all, in some area.  If he doesn't deviate significantly from the norm, then he's part of the norm.  He isn't an exception, and he therefore isn't exceptional (in either the good or the bad direction).

Looking at league average could be misleading as well.

The worst team is 9.2%. The best team is 3.4%.

The Dolphins are 2.1% points away from the worst team and 3.7% points away from the best team.

They are 56% closer to worst than to best.

That's a good point, in that there may be a skewed distribution.  We'd have to use some different statistics in that event.

FootballOutsiders do exactly that. They look at the tape of each and every play and chart a whole slew of statistics. I've seen sacks broken up by time (quick, medium, slow) there in articles, but I don't know if the raw data is available.

(Just to add another sack percentage data point, FO have Tannehill in 24th place with 7.5% and a league average of 6.4%.)

PFF does the same thing, track play by play.

The problem still remains that I could look at every play and you could look at every play and we would come up with different results.

I'd rather watch the film and see the results for myself.

You can chart team by team and remove any outliers to levelize/normalize our results and derive a true average from there.

Or you can simply watch the game and see Dallas Thomas and Jason Fox getting beat on a regular basis.

The problem with that approach is that it wouldn't tell you how often the linemen on other teams are getting beaten similarly, and so you'd risk ending up with an inaccurate appraisal of the Dolphins' line in comparison to those of other teams.

If what you're looking for in the end is an idea of how much to attribute Tannehill's play to the offensive line, then it's crucial to determine first whether his line is functioning significantly differently from the average line in the league.  If it isn't, then it can hardly be reasonably said that Tannehill's play is a function of his line.

What you'd also need is a league-wide correlation between pass blocking effectiveness and quarterback play.  If that correlation was weak or non-existent, then the argument that Tannehill's play is a function primarily of the offensive line's pass blocking would be similarly weak.

The strongest argument that Tannehill's play is a function of the Dolphins' offensive line would come from both 1) a strong league-wide correlation between pass blocking and quarterback play, and 2) quantitative evidence that the Dolphins' offensive line functions significantly more poorly than that of the average team in the league.

I find this to be a completely irrelavent argument. It's like saying that its OK for Dallas Thomas to be one of the worst guards in the league because there are other teams that also have one of the worst guards in the league.

Besides, you can watch the games and then check the PFF rankings and see that what your eyes tell you align with how low Thomas and Fox are ranked at their respective positions.

There is no way to argue that Dallas Thomas and Jason Fox are not huge holes on this offensive line without grasping at straws.

Again, I'm operating from the perspective that we're trying to ascertain the effect of the offensive line on Tannehill (i.e., the title of the thread).

If that's one's goal, then we can hardly say the offensive line has an adverse effect on Tannehill if in fact the offensive line is no worse than other offensive lines whose quarterbacks play significantly better than Tannehill.

And again, to get at that, you can't simply stop at the observation of Dallas Thomas and Jason Fox.  You have to know how offenisve lines function across the league as a whole, and whether there is any correlation between that and quarterback play.  For all we know, every team has a "Dallas Thomas," and there is a weak correlation between offensive line and quarterback play.

If you want the matter to rest at least partially on PFF rankings, as you've indicated above, then you'd have to obtain a strong correlation between PFF's offensive line rankings and quarterback play.  Again, if that correlation is weak or non-existent, it hardly makes sense to conclude that the offensive line is a significant contributor to Ryan Tannehill's individual play, based at least on PFF's ratings.

How can we conclude the impact to Tannehill's play caused by the offensive line if Tannehill has never had a good offensive line blocking for him?

If in 2014, he had a top 10 unit and had an 85 QB rating, and in 2015 he had a bottom 10 unit and still had an 85 QB rating, we could theorize that the offensive line has no impact and Tannehill is what he is.

But because he has had a terrible offensive line every single year he has been here, we have no differentiator to compare it to.

Tannehill has played behind the offensive lines he has played behind. It doesn't matter how other QBs are performing behind other offensive lines. It matters how Tannehill is performing behind his and how he would perform if he had better blocking. We've yet to see the better blocking, so there is no way to complete the analysis.

Also, looking at the offensive line as a whole can be misleading. You can have four linemen playing at a high level and one guy who can't block a corpse and it impacts the QB or you can have five linemen doing a serviceable job and no weak link and it has a totally different impact on the QB.

If there is a weak correlation between offensive line and quarterback play league-wide, then yes, the argument could still be made that Tannehill is an outlier in that regard, and he (and perhaps he alone) is more dependent on offensive line play than the other QBs in the league.

In that event, what you'd do is take a look at Tannehill's game-by-game performance and see whether there's a correlation between the Dolphins' offensive line's play and Tannehill's.

In other words, the question becomes, does Tannehill play better when his offensive line does?  Does he play worse when it does?

If you have no strong league-wide correlation between offensive line play and quarterback play, and you have no strong game-to-game correlation between the Dolphins' offensive line play and Tannehill's play, then attributing Tannehill's play to the Dolphins' offensive line surely becomes the sort of "grasping at straws" you mentioned above.

We have no comparison between Tannehill's play behind a terrible offensive line and Tannehill's play behind a good or even moderately serviceable offensive line. So we do not know what kind of impact it would have if he played behind a somewhat compenent offensive line.

I'd like to see Tannehill play behind a somewhat remotely mediocre offensive line instead of a historically terrible one before determining if the offensive line impacts his game or not.

What we do know is that Tannehill has played behind a bottom of the league offensive line for 4 years and he has performed how he has performed.

As long as there continue to be holes in the offensive line, we won't know how he can perform behind an even serviceable offensive line.

And just to be clear, because this is a not a black and white argument. I'm not asking to see Tannehill behind an offensive line full of All Pros. I am just asking to see him behind an offensive line that doesn't have a gaping hole at 1 or 2 positions.

I've used several adjectives in this post to illustrate that I am not asking for worldbeaters at offensive line. Just guys that can block somebody for longer than 1 second.

Let's do some math then.

Actually, the math is trivial, the big question is, how do we evaluate the line?

This is far from trivial or obvious. Looking simply at sacks (or sack rate) is severely limited for a number of reasons. Sacks can be completely the fault of the line, completely the fault of the quarterback, or anywhere in between (and that's ignoring other sources of blame). There's just no way to know from just looking at the numbers. And you could argue that this "blame" is actually a large part of what we want to find out. A good quarterback will find a receiver, make adjustments, or just throw the ball away. Crediting the offensive line for that is counterproductive to what we wish to accomplish. As always "correlation is not causation".

One option would be to include only specific types of sacks (e.g. exclude "long" sacks, where the blame is rests more clearly on the quarterback), but there aren't a whole lot of sacks to begin with. Plus I don't have the numbers ;).

Another option would be to include hits and hurries. That would seem to at least lessen the impact of the line/QB blame issue. If I had the numbers, I'd be tempted to exclude "long" sacks.

Yet another option would be to attack the problem from a completely different angle and look at the overall quality of the line and how it contributes to other plays (that would be running plays). FootballOutsiders have a statistic called "adjusted line yards" which attempts to measure exactly this value. Basically, the offensive line is dinged for running plays that achieve negative yardage and is credited less and less the further the run (so lots of credit/blame to the line for loss or short yardage, not so much for a huge run). The entire thing is then adjusted for things like opponent, formation, down-and-distance, time left etc. using regression analysis.

Running the numbers returns the following correlation coefficients between adjusted line yards and XX:

DYAR: +0.48
DVOA: +0.49
QBR: +0.46
PASSER RATING: +0.32

Those are fairly decent correlations, which would seem to indicate that offensive line performance does indeed significantly impact quarterback play.

Looking instead at adjusted sack rate, the correlation just isn't there. In fact, it's only significant when looking at passer rating (+0.23) and actually turns negative for DYAR (-0.15).

Including hits (NFL.com lists this stat) didn't improve the correlation (DVOA and DYAR about -0.15, the rest close to zero).

With regard to the part I bolded, we actually don't know that, unless, again, we objectively compare the Dolphins' line to those of other teams.

In the end this may come down to an epistemological issue, i.e., how people know what they believe they know.

Some people may be very comfortable feeling they know what they believe they know by simply observing the team on TV.

I for one am not comfortable with that.  I feel like we're very prone to confirmation bias in this area, and so I'd much rather rest on whatever objective data are available.

Errors can be made in either case (observation versus objective data), but in my opinion we'll make far fewer errors by resting on the objective data.

I think we have to start with a strong appreciation for the fact that there are certain things about the team we all want to see (like Ryan Tannehill's success, for example), and so, again, we'll be very prone to confirmation bias in those areas.

^ On  the offensive line... If you want statistics on how the Dolphins' o-line compares to that of other teams, you could look at e.g.:

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol

28th in adjusted line yards, 27th in short yardage situations, 30th in tackles for a loss (that's the bad direction). Once the running back reaches the second level we're suddenly a top 10 team (same with "open field" runs).

Excellent work there!  Thank you.

Pertaining to this part here:


I agree with you that those are decent correlations, but there is between 76% and 90% of the variation in the quarterback play variables you mentioned (DYAR, DVOA, QBR, and passer rating) that isn't accounted for by the offensive line variable you used.

So while the correlations are indeed decent, what we find is that there is a whole lot about QB play -- at least as measured by those variables -- that has nothing to do with offensive line play, as measured in the way you did it above.  What that suggests, of course, is that there are other variables that are driving quarterback play to a much greater degree.

As for the sacks and hits data, those correlations are very meager, as you pointed out.

^ On the topic of "other effects", one example would be play calling.

Conventional wisdom would have us believe (and this is indeed my own feeling) that the Dolphins have been horrible at calling plays. But how do you evaluate play calling? This is one of the eternal problems with analytics in football (as opposed to, for example, baseball); there are just so many interdependent issues that conclusively determining causal relations is exceptionally difficult.

One way to try and isolate performance from play calling would be to look at specific situations where the options in play calling are very limited. The most obvious example (non-special teams) would be very short yardage (power) situations. This is one case where success or failure is pretty much out of the hands of the play caller, resting solely on the field and probably (conventional wisdom again) in the hands of the respective lines.

Using this method to evaluate the Dolphins' offensive line doesn't paint a pretty picture, as illustrated in my previous post.

One might expect 3rd and long situations to also represent a good opportunity to reduce the role of play calling, but when you keep throwing 5 yard hitches, pitch outs, or draw plays in those situations (and never succeeding), I'm not convinced that's a viable approach.

Just a quibble here:

-> What that suggests, of course, is that there are other variables that combined are driving quarterback play to a much greater degree.

Offensive line play could well be the singles largest determining factor in quarterback performance. I'm not saying it is, just pointing out the logic.

Right, and good point, since we don't know how large the variation accounted for by each of the other variable(s) is.

What we'd have to do is take a look at single QBs across variation in the play of their offensive lines, and determine whether their play varies accordingly.

I will say that one thing we know about Tannehill is that the percentage of pass dropbacks in which he was pressured increased from 2012 to 2014, yet so did his performance as measured by the sorts of variables you mentioned above.  His percentage of pressured dropbacks decreased somewhat in 2015, and so did his performance.

So based on that alone, we get the counterintuitive finding that as Tannehill is pressured more often, his performance improves!

Good thought, and there is a related area where we get a relatively weak correlation regarding Tannehill on a game-by-game basis.  The correlation between the Dolphins' run-pass ratio and Tannehill's performance, game-to-game, is relatively meager.  Whether the Dolphins run the ball more or less of the time in a game, Tannehill's performance isn't strongly related to it.

There is also a relatively weak correlation between Tannehill's performance and how well the running game functions game-by-game, as measured by total yards and yards per carry.

Using a pure "hit plus sack" rate as a measure of pressure, that observation holds generally. As noted above, the advanced metrics DYAR and DVOA have a negative correlation with "hit plus sack" rate, albeit a very weak one (-0.15).

This could be related to the often noted effect that almost all quarterbacks get more yards / play (and have a higher passer rating) when blitzed than when not blitzed.

And you'll never guess what the correlation is between the percentage of dropbacks in which Tannehill has been pressured, year-to-year, and his QB rating:

0.97!

On the other hand the correlation between the percentage of pressured dropbacks in which Tannehill has been sacked, year-to-year, and his QB rating is -0.61.

So, as he's pressured more often, his QB rating increases (and almost isomorphically), yet his QB rating decreases the more often his pressures result in sacks.

If we use a partial correlation to control for the percentage of pressures resulting in sacks, the correlation between his QB rating and his percentage of pressured dropbacks remains very strong -- 0.95.

You're a PFF junkie, right?


Look at any of the metrics sites over the past four seasons. They all agree the Dolphins line is bottom third in the league year in and year out.

All of the experts agree. All of the fans agree. There is a consensus that the offensive line has been an issue that the Dolphins have not addressed for four years now.

Let's be honest here, if someone wants to argue otherwise, they are going to come out looking very silly.

The data there get at exactly what I've been saying.  You first have to determine whether the Dolphins' offensive line is significantly worse than the average one in the league.

Here are the larger pass blocking data from PFF in that area (team grades league-wide):

Team   Pass Block
Dallas Cowboys   40.9
Oakland Raiders   30
Carolina Panthers   18.3
Green Bay Packers   11.4
Pittsburgh Steelers   4.2
Cleveland Browns   3.9
Atlanta Falcons   -5.8
Houston Texans   -9.3
Cincinnati Bengals   -10.3
New Orleans Saints   -12.6
Buffalo Bills   -18.1
Indianapolis Colts   -22.6
San Francisco 49ers   -24.4
Washington Redskins-28.1
Baltimore Ravens   -32.9
Denver Broncos   -43.2
Jacksonville Jaguars   -44.1
Minnesota Vikings   -44.6
Tampa Bay Buccaneers-46.2
Philadelphia Eagles   -47.1
N.Y. Jets   -49
N.Y. Giants   -49.3
Detroit Lions   -51.2
Chicago Bears   -53.3
Tennessee Titans   -55.7
Miami Dolphins   -56.7
St. Louis Rams   -58.2
Seattle Seahawks   -61
Kansas City Chiefs   -65.9
Arizona Cardinals   -67.1
New England Patriots-79.5
San Diego Chargers   -111

The league average is -32.5.  The standard deviation is 32.8.

The Dolphins aren't significantly below the league average.  They're part of the league norm, at least when it comes to measuring pass blocking in this way.

The teams significantly below the league average were KC, Arizona, New England, and San Diego, all of which had quarterbacks who functioned better than Tannehill in terms of the quarterback-related statistics most strongly associated with winning.  There is something those QBs did to overcome the pass blocking of their offensive lines, that is if you consider PFF's pass blocking ratings to be valid.

Again, this underscores the fact that the correlation between QB-related variables and pass blocking is relatively weak.  When that correlation is weak, it becomes much harder to attribute the play of quarterbacks to their offensive lines.

When looking at league average, you should remove the outliers (San Diego) from the list.

Also, that is pass blocking data. Offensive lines do other things besides pass blocking and having an effective ground game helps to prevent a poor pass blocking offensive line from having to do more of what they do worse.

The Dolphins offensive line is poor at both pass and run blocking and has been so for quite a while.

I've read a lot of this thread but not contributed up to now.  My thoughts on Tannehill are clearly outlined in the article I published on this site 2 weeks ago: http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/content/ryan-tannehill-should-be-benched-immediately

My thoughts on Tannehill are this:
1) He is playing scared, he has been sacked more than any other QB (including Andrew Luck - numbers don't lie), and it has caused him to fold into the fetal position when someone gets close to protect the ball.  You'll recall in 2012 he had a big problem with fumbling, and this is the correction - PROTECT THE BALL AT ALL COSTS.  As it is now, he has less than 2 seconds to throw most plays, so it appears that he holds the ball too long.  No receiver can run a deep route and get open in that short of a time, so the Dolphins dink and dunk a lot.  This is what you have to do with a crap-tastic O-line.  Its great to have 2 all-pro's on the o-line (I'd even argue that James is a solid-to-excellent player - when healthy - as well), but the guys between them need to be at least serviceable, not the total garbage the Dolphins have out there.

1a) Tannehill is tough as nails.  He has missed 0 starts in his career, despite the beating he takes week in and week out.  There's something to be said for the consistency.

2) Tannehill is an excellent game manager and an accurate passer.  We don't need him to be Tom Brady/Payton Manning/Aaron Rodgers, as long as the other areas of the team are solid.  Why all this emphasis on "elite" QB's?  Maine hit this right on the head.  Tannehill is an excellent QB for a team with other puzzle pieces in place.  He is not the guy to carry a team like Miami with holes all over the field.  Hell, I'd wager that if the Patriots traded Tom Brady for Tannehill, the Patriots would still run away with the division and the Dolphins would be 8-8.

3) The offensive game plan has not played to Tannehill's strength - short ball accuracy and danger on the move.  Tannehill can beat you with his feet, and had success in 2014 with the read option, but the offense decided that was no longer important.  Why?

In total, I feel like Tannehill is a perfectly fine QB for any team, and has been making gold out of turds for the past 2-3 years.  But he isn't the kind that can hide other weaknesses on the team.  Get that guy some protection, let him work the field and step up in the pocket and you'll start seeing his confidence elevate and that deep ball start connecting.  Only then will you realize what a commodity he is to the team.

Then theoretically you would also remove Dallas, who is roughly as far from the mean but in the other direction, and which results in roughly the same league average (-32.28).  The standard deviation decreases to 27.6, but the Dolphins are again non-significantly different from the average.

But again, we're looking at how these things affect Tannehill specifically.

First, there is no quantitative evidence that the Dolphins' running game was ineffective.  Its average number of yards per carry (4.3) was slightly above the league average of 4.1 in 2015.

Second, Tannehill's performance, on a game-by-game basis, didn't correlate strongly with 1) the run-pass ratio on offense, 2) yards per carry in the running game, or 3) total rushing yards.

So when the offensive line blocks more for the run and less for the pass, and when the running game is more effective, Tannehill's performance tends not to improve.  Again, those variables aren't related.

Lots of these things make sense in theory, and I'm not debating that, but they aren't supported by the actual objective evidence available to us.

^^ Out of curiosity, what metric are you using to quantify "Tannehill's performance?"

QB rating and YPA (yards per pass attempt).

Dallas is about 10 points ahead of the 2nd team. San Diego is 40 points behind the 2nd to worst team.

I only drop San Diego.

I'm discussing the fact that Tannehill has not had even a serviceable offensive line during his four year career. You cannot actually know how the quality of offensive line play affects Tannehill without seeing what Tannehill can do with an at least serviceable offensive line. Every season, there is at least one, usually two, glaring holes in the offensive line.


The running game can't gain a yard when it needs to. However, once in a while they create a hole for Miller and he turns it into a 10-20 yard gain, which ups his average.

Football Outsiders and PFF metrics both indicate that this offensive line is even worse at run blocking than pass blocking. And they both indicate that this offensive line is pretty terrible at pass blocking.

And on top of that, anyone seeing the game with a shred of objectivity versus thru the "Blame Tannehill" lense can see the same things that the metrics bare out.

This offensive line is significantly poor at any sort of blocking.


This point is superfluous.


They are not supported by the evidence you cherry pick. What a coincidence.

Both being stats that are directly impacted by a number of factors that may be outside of the QB's control.

When you focus on one or two metrics to tell a story, you may be telling Chapter 2 and 3, but there are 10-15 other chapters needed.

Lol at you guys arguing with numbers. You do realize that Tannehill makes the line look worse than it is.  Of course you people thought lousuckass polite was the greatest thing ever bc he always gained exactly 1 yard.

And yet we still needed Polite in a lot of situations. 3rd and short we suck at. :(

And even then, the Dolphins aren't a standard deviation (30.1) from the league average (-29.9).

If what you're saying about the offensive line is true, then it shouldn't be difficult to produce a quantitative measure of offensive line play from some source that indicates the Dolphins' line is at least a standard deviation worse than the average line in the league.

And if what you're saying about the relationship between Tannehill's play and the offensive line is true, then it shouldn't be difficult to produce either a league-wide correlation between quarterback and offensive line play, or a Dolphins-specific correlation between its offensive line play and Tannehill's.

No disrespect to the pursuit of statistical enlightenment, but I've always felt that I learn more about football players by watching them play football than I do from looking at their stat sheet.

And no disrespect to learning things about football players by watching them play, but what we're seeing when we watch them generally translates to statistics.  Certainly you don't think the fact that Aaron Rodgers has the highest career QB rating in the history of the league, for example, is meaningless?  Certainly we see evidence of that when we watch him play?

In other words, the two approaches aren't mutually exclusive.  What we're seeing on the field is generally measurable statistically, and what we see statistically is generally reflected on the field observationally.

Where we get into trouble, however, is when we all very much want to see a certain thing on the field (Ryan Tannehill's success, for example), and then we're susceptible to confirmation bias (myself included, of course).  It's at those times that we should check ourselves with the objective data in my opinion.  Sometimes the data will confirm our perceptions, and sometimes it won't.  When it doesn't, and we're in an area where we're prone to bias, we ought to back away from feeling so certain about our perceptions in my opinion.

To each his own, however, of course. ;)

In the end, having a polite and courteous discussion, regardless of our differences and disagreements, is what's most important, since none of what anybody thinks here really matters in the grand scheme of things.

Exactly. Data analytics is great for figuring out why widgets in an assembly line are defective and what can be done to reduce defects.

Watching film is the best way to decipher what is wrong with a team.

Football Outsiders and PFF agree that this offensive line has sucked for a few years now. You have seen the numbers. I'm not sure why you are pretending they don't exist.


All I said about Tannehill is that we cannot compare how he performs behind a poor offensive line to how he would perform behind even a decent offensive line because he has always played behind a poor offensive line.

When we get to see him play behind a decent offensive line (if that ever happens, I'm not holding out hope), then we can talk about whether it impacted his performance.

Serviceable blocking from all five spots may translate into a higher level of QB play or it may not.

I doubt I sound like someone who pretends that numbers don't exist. :D

What I'm saying, rather, is that the numbers don't indicate that the Dolphins' line is at least a standard deviation worse than the average one in the league.  The line is within the league norm in every league-wide statistical measurement of offensive lines that I'm aware of.


And all I'm saying is that the evidence we have at hand currently suggests he wouldn't.  That evidence is the following:

1) the weak correlation league-wide between offensive line and QB play.

2) the weak correlation between the Dolphins' offensive line play and Tannehill's.

3) the strong, positive correlation (0.97 -- correlations are very rarely that strong), ironically, between the frequency of pressure Tannehill has experienced year-to-year, and his performance.  He does better the more he's pressured! :)

What these data (and others) suggest in my opinion is that Tannehill's performance is far, far more a function of what's going on within him (his own personal development, for example) than it is a function of what's going on around him.

The offensive line has been ranked in the bottom half of the league based on cumulative statistics every season that Tannehill has played. Both on FO and PFF.

By you adding the term "standard deviation", all you're doing is whitewashing their poor statistical ranking.

It is irrelevant. They rank consistently poor. That is all.


#1 I do not find relevant. Some quarterbacks do fine with poor protection because they are mobile enough to extend plays. Others do fine with poor protection because their offense requires them to get rid of the ball quickly, throw the ball away or take the sack rather than risk a bad throw. There are too many other variables to consider that this data point has any sort of credibility.

#2 Maybe it is a credit to Tannehill that he can perform well at times despite deplorable line play during his entire NFL career

#3 Pressure isn't always an indicator or poor offensive line play, pressure comes in many forms

You are relying on irrelevant or significantly incomplete data points to reach a conclusion. That is the problem with relying on statistics.

I think it's another great way of getting to the bottom of things.

Certainly everybody who belongs to a Dolphins' fan forum watches all of the Dolphins' games intently.  If the forum is roughly split on the issue of whether Tannehill is a good player, then the truth, via all of their watching of the same film, would be that he's about average, no, since that would represent the most accurate combination of all of their viewpoints?

How much something deviates from the norm tells you whether it's "poor," not its ranking in a list.  If it doesn't deviate significantly from the norm, it's part of the norm, regardless of where it's ranked in the list.

How consistently this offensive line has ranked in the bottom half of the league tells you that it is part of the norm for this offensive line to be below average. Because they have ranked in the bottom half of the league every season since 2012. Sometimes they ranked right near the bottom (like this season), sometimes they rank closer to the middle. But they consistently rank in the bottom half.

And therefore, we can effectively conclude that Tannehill has played behind a below average offensive line for his entire professional career.

It doesn't really matter of the standard deviation is wide or narrow.

The NFL is a league of parody where a loss or two can mean a top 10 pick or a playoff spot. And therefore having a narrow standard deviation is right in line with how the league operates so it doesn't really mean anything. It is what it is and it is the world in which NFL teams operate in, so it doesn't really add anymore weight to what the numbers mean or don't mean.

What means something, again, is that this offensive line is consisently below average.

And that is all I am going to say on the topic as we're going around in circles now.

True, though I had a good feeling about Rodgers chances of becoming a top-tier QB long before he put up elite NFL statistics.


Wait...there's chickens AND there's eggs?

Look, I am not knocking statistical analysis. As someone who has played some form of fantasy football for close to 30 years now, I've devoured tons of statistical analyses in the pursuit of profitable knowledge. Where I scratch my bean is when I see people try to analyze football by looking solely at the stat sheet (and often only certain stats on that sheet) while ignoring the subtleties that can only be seen by watching the game itself.

On one side we have Bill belichek and his statistical analysis on the other side we have Mike singletary who knows you just can't win with Vernon Davis.  This thread shws why smart coaches have to make dumb decisions if they want to stay employed i.e. Punting on 4th and short and ".taking the points"

In almost all league statistics EVERYONE is within a standard deviation or so of the mean. So everyone is the same?

The problem in football is that there just aren't enough games, particularly games against the same opponent, to get a enough numbers.

The issue is further complicated by the number of variables, which is just staggering.

Stat padding is also a huge issue and pretty much kills any stat that doesn't adjust for garbage time (and, preferably, down and distance).

To get back evaluating line play vs quarterback play, I do think we could get some better numbers (how good is the question), but we'd need a lot more data. For example, defensive blitzing has a strong correlation with positive quarterback play. To some extent this makes sense, since using more players to go after the quarterback leaves fewer defenders to cover receivers. However, if a team can generate pressure using just 4 players, is this correlation still there? I very much doubt so, but I've never seen the numbers run.

To get even close to a meaningful statistical discussion of how Tannehill's play (or any quarterback's play) is affected by the offensive line, we would need more data than simply season totals. That's obvious. We would need a per-play metric to evaluate quarterback performance and a per-play metric to evaluate line performance.

One simple example of why this is crucial is the formation used. If a team brings in two tight ends to help block, along with the running back, and the quarterback still gets sacked by a defender in less than 3 seconds, that's a completely different situation than a 5+ second sack in a three-receiver set with a blitz from the D and one of the receivers going uncovered. In one case, the protection for the quarterback is horrendous and the line (which includes any "help" it receives) is probably completely fault. However, in the other case, the quarterback at the very least had time to throw the ball away and not take the sack (even if he doesn't spot the open receiver).

Any performance metric that scores those two plays identically is fatally flawed if your goal is to distinguish between line play and quarterback play.

Currently, most comparisons use metrics that not only score those two plays identically, they don't even score them except in aggregate.

In many areas, yes, they're not significantly different, owing to the parity in the league.  Significant differences among teams are generated rather by multiple areas in which there are perhaps non-significant differences among them (i.e., pass offense, pass defense, running game, turnovers, etc.).


What you said above is certainly reasonable.  The question would be whether that situational variation (blitzing, pressure with four-man rushes versus more rushers, more blockers, etc.) becomes roughly equivalent among teams when the data are based on season totals.  We're talking upwards of 600 pass dropbacks per team here, on average.  That's an awful lot of opportunity for that sort of variation to become roughly equivalent among teams.

Very, very few quarterbacks are more than 1 standard deviation away from the mean in passer rating. Are their differences insignificant? Tannehill, for instance, is solidly within 1 standard deviation. Brady just barely squeaks past the 1 standard deviation limit. Why are we even having this 9-page discussion if everyone's pretty much the same?

Clearly, they are not and either the metric used to measure the value of quarterbacks is rubbish or the insistence on a 1 sigma difference is rubbish. While we're at it, why not insist on the 5 sigma usually used in particle physics to be *really* sure there's a difference?

Okay, that was somewhat facetious, but the problem with sigma is that it doesn't reflect the magnitude of the effect. Take an extreme case of 100-meter sprinters. It really doesn't matter how narrow the distribution of performances are, Usain Bolt just keeps winning. (Actually running the numbers for some major 100m events, it turns out that the difference between the average and the top-end of the 1-sigma range is the difference between not qualifying for the finals at all and winning a medal, although usually not gold).



It probably would, if you looked at it naively. However, if a defense can generate pressure with just rushing 4 guys are they going to blitz as often as the same defense when it's having trouble getting to the quarterback?

Will the coach change the play-calling if the offensive line is atrocious? Maybe call a lot more runs, even when behind and passing is needed? Or calling for 5-yard hitch plays on 3rd and long?

Done properly, I have absolutely no reason to believe these effects are just going to magically balance themselves between teams over the course of 600 drop backs.

Well, now you're talking about an area (QB play) that, based on its correlation with winning, warrants a much finer distinction than one standard deviation, where much smaller variation among players has much greater impact.  There is no such correlation between offensive line play and winning.

The standard deviation benchmark I was using was generous, really.  Based on the correlation between measurable offensive line play and winning, as well as the correlation between measurable offensive line play and quarterback play, one could actually argue that the variation in offensive line play across the league is virtually meaningless.

On those grounds alone, it really makes little sense to propose that the Dolphins' offensive line is at fault for anything.  It would have to be the five standard deviations from the mean you referenced facetiously to be! ;)

Because Tannehill sucks and Dolphins fans continue to grasp blindly at the offensive line as a scapegoat.

He doesn't suck but he will never be elite. It is similar to Henne will be great he just needs a number 1 wr.

The thing about those arguments (offensive line, number-one wide receiver, etc.) is that they're unfalsifiable.  No one can confirm or refute them.

Similarly, the common belief that David Carr's career was destroyed by the number of times he was sacked early on is also unfalsifiable.  The implication is that he would've been a great QB had he not been sacked so much, but we really don't know that.  It's entirely possible that his career would've been similar no matter what the circumstances.

There have been 54 QBs drafted in the first round since 1994.  26 of them have been failures.  That's a 48% failure rate.  Virtually a coin flip.

The other 28 QBs drafted in the first-round since 1994 have had varying levels of success.  Not all of them have become the stars their teams hoped they'd be when they drafted them.

Unless we have extreme and extraordinary evidence that a first-round QB is suffering due to his surroundings (and in Tannehill's case we do not, as I've illustrated convincingly in this thread in my opinion), then based on logic and probability alone, the default explanation for that QB's suffering should be that he's simply yet another first-round QB who very likely is not the star his team (and his fans) had hoped he would be.

^ That's a remarkable bit of circular logic. Congratulations.

I'd appreciate it if you could politely expound on what you mean, and then we could discuss it further.

If on the other hand we're going to devolve toward rude and sarcastic comments, I'm not interested.  There's no reason why any of these conversations have to head that direction, and you certainly won't see that I'm contributing in that way.

There is a lot of emotion surrounding one's favorite football team, especially if that team is doing poorly, and the urge might be to displace that emotion onto the other folks here (i.e., take it out on them).

If the forum is to run smoothly, function in an open manner in which people feel free to speak their minds, and be a place where greater knowledge and information is obtained, then people need to resist that urge.

I'll certainly do my part. :)

You keep sayng this but I can't think of one person or talking head that doesn't think Tannehill is much better than Henne. In fact ... it's pretty easy to see that barring one successful season for Pennington that Tannehill has been out best QB by a long shot.  I would love for him to have the support Pennington had to see what he can do.  I know he needs to step up but he also needs to have an O-line that doesn't have him flinching on every drop back.

For people who think you have to have an elite QB I wonder what exactly that means. I see Brady, Rodgers, Manning(s), Big Ben, and Drew Brees as Elite QBs. Considering some of them are on the down side that is even debatable but you have a few more possibly elite in Luck, Newton, Russel but they have yet to establish themselves long term. Either way only about 20 to maybe 25% of the league have elite qbs and some of them don't have supporting cast to win. If being elite was the only way then the payoffs would be predictable and they never are.

What support did Pennington have in 2008 that Tannehill does not?

Before you answer, please realize that Pennington played for the Dolphins in 2008 in a way very similar to how he had previously in his career, with a different team.

If you're referencing the Dolphins' current offensive line, also be aware that there are five (and other) offensive lines in the league that were rated more poorly in the area of pass blocking in 2015 than the Dolphins' offensive line.

Those offensive lines are Seattle's, Arizona's, San Diego's, Kansas City's, and New England's.  Note the quarterbacks on those teams, and how they performed in 2015.

If the ratings of those teams' pass blocking are considered valid, then those QBs must've done something to overcome their offensive lines that Ryan Tannehill did not.  Does Ryan Tannehill not deserve criticism on those grounds?

First of all Brady is one of the best to have ever played so you can take him out of the equation and Wilson, Rivers, and Palmer are better QBs to this point. None of them started out with a crappy O-line to get to where they are now. I'd aslo argue regardless of stats that Arizaona has a much better O-line.

Outside of an o-line, the 2008 Dolphins had a top 10 defense and Ricky and Ronnie who had to always be accounted for. With all of that Penny still couldn't get it done so we introduced the Wildcat to put some points on the board. While I don't see Tanny as the next Tom Brady or Dan Marino I think he would have faired better than noodle arm Pennington in that same situation. He has proven that he can dink and dunk with the best of them but he can also hit the out pattern that neither Fiedler or Penny could ever do. This season helped him to inprove the deep ball. Again ... all most of us ask it just once let him play behind an O-line before we cut his head off.

Passive aggressive comments aside, I'd be happy to, in case it wasn't obvious. (Sorry, that's two passive aggressive comments of my own ;).)

You state than the 28 non-failure QB's drafted in the first round have had varying levels of success. This is obviously and objectively true.

You then proceed to use this to argue that any single QB who is not seeing the greatest of success is at fault himself, since history has shown that quarterbacks "naturally" have various levels of success. This is a claim with no statistical or logical basis provided (feel free to supply it, though) and relies on an unstated (but required) argument that the varying levels of success are inherently "internal" in nature, that is, the quarterbacks fault.

One might argue that the line of reasoning is not circular in nature as much as it simply relies on an unproven hypothesis.

Let me restate your argument using

A measurement of some property of A of a population P is distributed according to some distribution D. (Success of non-failure quarterbacks chosen in the first round varies).

A(P) -> D

A measurement of A for a specific member of P, P0, returns a result that is X.

A(P0) = X

Your argument now goes: The value X is due to the inherent nature of P0.

However, at no point has it been established that the distribution D is the result of an internal property of the population P or its individual members. The only thing established is that measurements of the property A result in a distribution D when looking at P.

Thus, at best, you could argue: The value of X is due to the inherent nature of D.

This doesn't bring us anywhere, since that is just closes the circle with the original  A(P) -> D.

Take P to be a bunch of coins and A to be the number of times heads turns up after 100 flips. D is then the familiar binomial distribution.

Your claim amounts to saying that one coin that turned up 50 heads is inherently different than a coin than turned up heads 90 times. That the coin is, effectively, weighted.

In the case of NFL players, there's certainly a "weight" (skill level), but that's the very thing we're trying to establish with our candidate (Tannehill). You cannot do that simply by pointing to the distribution.

That 2008 team ran the ball a lot more.

In fact, before the Dolphins rolled out the Wildcat, here are Pennington's numbers.

36 of 63, 57% completion, less than 6 YPA, 2 TD and 1 INT with a QB rating hovering around the 70s.

And then when teams figured out the Wildcat and that Pennington has trouble throwing past 10 yards with any inkling of velocity, the entire offense got shutdown (see Baltimore Ravens).

No one can confirm or refute that Tannehill may do better behind an average or above average offensive line because he has never played behind an average or above average offensive line.

Yet you seem to be willing to do so.

If you are going to rely on analytics, objectivity should be consistent. You shouldn't pick and choose when you want to be objective about something and when you don't.

It seems to me that you have made up your mind about Tannehill and so you pick and choose data points that seem to back up your hypothesis versus simply using the data to form a hypothesis. Operating in this manner typically makes one miss the forest for the trees.

Sorry, but... you should be the last person to go there.

Actually, I'm not.  What I'm saying, rather, is that there is no quantitative evidence to suggest he would, and the only quantitative evidence available suggests he wouldn't.

There is still the possibility that he would play much better behind a better offensive line.  There is just no quantitative evidence to support that assertion.  The support for that assertion rests entirely in the land of theory and subjective opinion.

The "before" and "after" the wildcat you're citing consists of two games and one game, respectively.  Between those events, Pennington did what made him the runner-up in the league MVP voting, including playing very well during the five-game win streak with which the team ended the season.

If teams indeed "figured out" the wildcat in a way that affected Pennington's performance, then it took them the entire season to do so, leaving only the playoff game in which that effect transpired.  There was no such "figuring out" that affected Pennington's performance in the five wins prior to that game.

Appreciate your expounding on that in the way you did. ;)

I'll address this part:


There is a statistical basis for that (although you're right, I hadn't yet provided it), in that when you take a group of successful quarterbacks and compare it to a group of unsuccessful quarterbacks, the between-group variation in their performance from year to year is significantly greater than the within-group variation.

If you consider year-to-year variation in their performance to represent the effect of surrounding variables (i.e., otherwise their internal level of ability would make them play the same way every year, and there would be no such year-to-year variation), the finding suggests that internal factors, rather than external ones, drive the bus in this area.

To put it more simply, the better quarterbacks hover around a significantly higher level of performance than the worse ones.  What that suggests is that a better quarterback would've performed significantly better than Tannehill amidst the same surroundings on the 2015 Miami Dolphins.  Conversely, a worse quarterback would've performed worse under those same circumstances.

The take-home message is that quarterbacks aren't hapless victims of their surroundings.  They have an internal level of ability that can compensate for and overcome their surroundings (or not).

Fixed it for ya.

You don't need to have quantitative evidence to predict the future on a football field.  It can only be verified by experimental methodology.  So, let's go get a stellar o-line and prove the hypothesis.

You heard it Tannenbaum! Now go do it! We need the data.

Really, all it would take is finding two serviceable guards and some decent depth. We have the starting tackles and center in place.

I'm not trying to be argumentative in saying this, but based on the correlational evidence that exists between offensive lines and quarterback play in the league, you'd be better off betting money that the presence of those changes in the offensive line wouldn't improve Tannehill's performance significantly.

It's very easy to theorize on a message board that those changes would improve Tannehill's performance, but anyone who had a gun held to his head and was told to bet all the money he had on the issue or else would be wise to do the quantitative research and base his bet on that, rather than theory and observation.  You're much more likely to win that way.

So your solution to the offensive line woes would be to not change the guards.

Good, we'll mark you down as being on that side of the fence.

I don't believe there are "offensive line woes" that are significantly greater than the average team's, so yes, I would take the limited amount of resources available for personnel improvement and place them elsewhere.


I'm not really interested in the fence, or who's on either side of it.  That sounds like "message board politics" to me, and I don't practice those. :)

Maybe you should watch the games and stop staring at the spreadsheet.

Donafanalyst, do you feel that the "eye test" has any value?

I respect stats, but when I watch the game, I see a lack of protection.

I believe that our coaches also see this and call a game with this in mind.  This skews the stats, since the coordinators are almost forfeiting sections of a playbook.

Watching the Dolphins' games tells us nothing about how the Dolphins' offensive line compares to those of the other teams in the league.

The only people I'm aware of who watch every team's games and rate their offensive lines based on those observations (the PFF folks) have told us the Dolphins' pass blocking isn't significantly worse than that of the average team.

Really?

Here is PFF's summary of the Dolphins offensive line, which they rated as 30th in the league.


Hmmm... Any guard is a dud, it looks like a weakness...

Those don't sound like ringing endorsements.

To summarize his response before he gives it, your eyes are lying to you.

Very little, when we're watching the team we care deeply about with much greater interest and intent than we are the rest of the league's games, and doing no systematic comparisons among those teams based on our observations.  In fact, I think the "eye test" can have negative value, in that it invites confirmation bias under those circumstances.


And I don't disrespect anyone's personal opinion based on their observations, but if you believe the team suffers from poor protection, you're very likely to "see" that when you watch the team's games, i.e., confirmation bias.  Here's more on that concept:

Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues [like Ryan Tannehill's success] and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

That's simply human nature.  We're all prone to it, myself included of course.


And that's a viable hypothesis.

An equally viable hypothesis is that the coordinators are tailoring their gameplans around Ryan Tannehill's weaknesses, one of which is escaping pressure with movement.

How do we know which hypothesis is correct?

If we believe the protection is poor, and we're experiencing confirmation bias when we watch the games, then we're likely to "confirm" the first hypothesis in our own minds, and "disconfirm" the second one, without even being aware of it.

Again, we have to be very careful when we very badly want to see a certain thing (i.e., Ryan Tannehill's success).  Under those conditions we're far more prone to make conclusions based on distorted perceptions.  We're only human, after all. :)

Someone here made the comment earlier that the prevailing belief once upon a time was that Chad Henne was only "a number-one receiver" away from greatness was similar to how some folks are viewing Ryan Tannehill.

That prevailing belief was wrong, which should humble us about the reliability of similar perceptions we may have.  This one about Ryan Tannehill and his offensive line is very, very similar.

Here's where you go wrong - assuming that PFF's rankings are normally distributed and that your assertion of "not more than one standard deviation away" has any significance.  That just speaks to a large standard deviation in a sample set that is too small to be statistically significant.  

You can not apply statistical analysis to PFF's ranking and rating and draw any reasonable conclusion.  To do so would essentially say that every offensive line in the league is equivalent in terms of performance.  You're a smart enough guy to know that this statement is false, right?

Yet when you look at those same folks' (PFF) data about the pass blocking of the Dolphins offensive line as a whole, those non-ringing endorsements don't distinguish it significantly from the other lines in the league.  Obviously there are "duds" elsewhere in the league, as well.

Why should that be false?  Is it not possible that there is virtually meaningless variation among the offensive lines in the league?

First, the league is built on a principle of parity overall.  Second, you have five guys out there, the biggest single unit on either side of the ball, on the field.  When you consider the functioning of a line as a whole, there is obviously vast potential for one guy's strengths to compensate for another guy's weaknesses.

It isn't inconceivable for that to result in very little meaningful variation among the lines in the league.

No. It is not.

Told ya. He knows better than the rest of us how we evaluate our own team.  ::)

Why not?

WHAT A BUNCH OF NERDS!!!!
actually, I find this very entertaining
I had to get that out of the way.  Continue...

:D Nice!

I certainly hope that isn't the way you perceived it, Dave Gray.  If so, I apologize.

I wanted to address this once more with greater clarity because in my opinion this is where the crux of this matter lies, and I appreciate the post above for inspiring it.

When you're relating two variables to each other -- in this case offensive lines and quarterbacks throughout the league -- a change in one variable creates a change in the other to the degree that the two variables are related, or correlated.

If two variables are related very strongly, at let's say a correlation of 0.90, even a miniscule change in one variable would create a relatively large change in the other.

On the other hand, if two variables are related much more weakly -- let's say a correlation of only 0.30 -- it takes a much greater change in one variable to cause a relatively large change in the other.

What we find in this area of offensive lines and quarterbacks -- at least quantitatively, based on the available numbers -- is that the relationship is relatively weak.  The correlation between them is relatively weak.

Therefore even a relatively large improvement in the Dolphins' offensive line -- again, at least as measured quantitatively -- is very likely to produce a relatively small change in its quarterback play.

The difficulty we're having in this area, in my opinion at least, is that the relationship between these two variables -- offensive lines and quarterback play -- is perceived or assumed to be strong, when in reality it is not.  It's actually relatively weak.

Therefore some people are operating in this area from the assumption that a change in the Dolphins' offensive line play would cause a relatively large change in its quarterback play.  The correlation needed for that effect to occur between those two variables just isn't found league-wide, however.  The relationship (i.e., correlation) between the two variables just isn't strong enough for that sort of effect to be likely.

I hope that provided some clarity about my personal position on the issue, for what it's worth.  Of course people are free to believe whatever they'd like -- my intent isn't to cause any unwanted change in anyone else's beliefs. ;)

I'm gonna save you some headache here, Dolfanalyst. These guys who are in opposition to your data believe strongly (or want to believe strongly) that Tannehill was not only worth the #8 overall pick (In a year they could have drafted both Russell Wilson AND Luke Kuechly, if I recall), but also worth the absurd contract he was given in the offseason. They will find excuse after excuse to explain away his mediocrity because they don't want to believe their team made not only one, but two mistakes on RT. So, no matter how strongly your evidence demostrates that Tannehill's struggles are mostly on him, not his line, they will either debate this in the face of your direct evidence, or they will conjure up other reasons (he hasn't had quality receivers; he ate too much meatloaf and it slowed him down) to excuse the fact that he has not demonstrated that he is the QB they hoped and wanted him to be. He isn't an "absolute rockstar," as a former member thought he would be and that's not what they want to hear. Save yourself the headache of trying to convince them.

100% agree with eknight however I appreciate your good posts. All you have to do is go back to the Henne threads were Brian and others were saying how he is a great qb who can make every throw and his only problem is he has the worst receiving corps in the nfl. 

I did some calculations to illustrate this further.  Bear with me while I drag this out fully.

In 2015, Ryan Tannehill was pressured on 38.6% of his pass dropbacks.

The quarterback who was pressured the least frequently in the league was Ben Roethlisberger -- 27.2%.

The correlation between frequency of pressured pass dropbacks and QBR (ESPN's QB rating) in 2015 was a mere 0.10.

Based on that information, we can calculate the predicted QBR Ryan Tannehill would've had, had he been pressured with the same frequency as Roethlisberger, and that QBR is 50.3.

Ryan Tannehill's actual QBR in 2015 was 43.1.  The average QBR in the league in 2015 was 58.5.

So if one is to consider that the least frequency of pressure on the QB reflects the very best offensive line functioning in the league, if we were to give Ryan Tannehill the very best offensive line functioning in the league (27.2% of pressured dropbacks), then by way of the calculated predicted change in his QBR, we would end up with an increase in his QBR from 43 to 50.

So, as I said above, that's the kind of relationship we have been offensive line functioning and quarterback play -- a very weak one.

Now, consider what would happen if instead the Dolphins' line improved from where it was to something less than the very best in the league, which of course is the more likely proposition.

Obviously Ryan Tannehill's predicted improvement would then be even less, from 43 to something even less than 50.

...They should let him run more! He's got good speed and throws well on the run. Esp considering how much we sucked on 3rd downs I dunno why they didn't let him run more. O well, hopefully Adam Gase can get more out of him!

Two words:

confounding variables

Also: QB pressure just isn't a very good way to estimate offensive line effectiveness. It doesn't reflect the number of defenders needed to create the pressure, it doesn't reflect how long the quarterback holds onto the ball (and why), it doesn't reflect offensive formation (extra men kept in to help block, which can reduce pressure, but also cripple the offensive production), it doesn't reflect play calling.

These are not minor issues. These are huge issues and every bit of football I've watched tells me it isn't something that just magically averages out with enough plays. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Personally, I think the best, easily available estimate of offensive line ability is Adjusted Line Yards. This was my initial suggestion and of all the things I've subsequently looked at, it also happens to have the strongest correlation with all measures of quarterback value, particularly the advanced metrics: between 0.46 and 0.48 for QBR, DYAR, and DVOA.

A correlation coefficient of nearly 0.5 is huge in football. Because of the sheer number interconnected and interdependent variables, it's very difficult to find anything that high. As always, correlation doesn't equal causation.

Adjusted Line Yards also just happens to be a metric by which the Dolphins' offensive line this year was more than 1 standard deviation below league average (if only just).

All that said, I don't think ALY is a GOOD way to estimate an offensive line's effect on the quarterback. Just looking at ANY game and you can see the problems. A good start would be to look at formations (O and D), play call (grouped), "quarterback time", and play result (including dropped receptions, dropped interceptions etc) -- along with the usual suspects (score, down and distance, time left, opponent etc). This is perfectly possible now that the all-22 tapes are public and some efforts (including footballoutsiders) are getting close.

Great work.

You know me though, I'm going to rail at anything observational that doesn't allow for the systematic comparison of all the teams in the league, so I'll stick with your Adjusted Line Yards and contribute the fact that if Tannehill would've been afforded the league's best ALY by his offensive line in 2015, statistically speaking, his QBR would've most likely been 60.8 instead of 43.1.

That would've brought him from 30th in the league to 18th, just a tad above the league average of 58.5.

So even the much stronger correlation in the 0.50 range produces much less than the effect some people seem to believe exists between offensive lines and quarterback play.  Even that strong a correlation doesn't vault Tannehill to among the league leaders in quarterback play, even when you replace his offensive line's ALY with that of the best team in the league.

Now, one should ask themselves whether the Dolphins are likely to have the best offensive line in the league in that area.  Obviously that isn't likely.

So again, if you were to replace the Dolphins' offensive line's functioning with something better but much more likely to occur, you'd get an increase in Ryan Tannehill's QBR from 43 to something even less than 60.  And again, 60 is but a tad above the league average.

The problem of course is that Tannehill is starting so low in the league in this area that it would take an uncommonly strong correlation between QB play and offensive line play, as well as a highly unlikely degree of improvement in the Dolphins' offensive line, to get him where he needs to be for the team to be highly competitive.

Again, some people seem to believe that correlation indeed exists, and that improvement in the offensive line is likely, but neither seems to be the case, unfortunately.

I think you're deliberately ignoring the parts of this problem that make it hard.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you are a team with a horrible offensive line. As a coach, what do you do? You do *everything* to help the o-line, cover up their weaknesses, limit the ways they expose both the running plays and the passing plays. This includes changing the play book completely, using more blocking TEs, keeping running backs in to block, etc. In other words, the coach pretty much does everything he can to wreck any correlation we would find using the metrics we are using. Maybe coaches actually do something? ;)


Tannehill's QBR was just about that high last year...


Why are you using solely this year as the baseline for Tannehill?

On the topic of coaching and play calling , which seems especially relevant with a new set of coaches taking over:

One of the things that has frustrated me as a fan of the Dolphins is that they just don't seem to call the plays that the offense has had success with. Every season it seems like a decision is made NOT to use any of the things that worked the year before and instead try something else or a bunch of stuff that didn't work. That always struck me as dumb, to put it mildly. If the detailed game charting stats were available, I'd love to run some math on them and see what the correlation (if any) is between overall team success (or offensive success) and keeping what you are good at doing.

Does any of that compensation for a poor offensive line consist of things the quarterback might be called on to do, with whatever skills he possesses that can come to the aid of the offense?  Of course that would diminish the correlation, as well.

We do have the finding I pointed out earlier in the thread, where the year-to-year variation between better and worse quarterbacks is significantly greater than the variation within the two groups.  That alone suggests that quarterbacks' individual performances are able to withstand these sorts of deficiencies elsewhere on offenses, and that coaches with good quarterbacks would be wise to use them to compensate for such deficiencies.


Just because it's where the thread seemed to be when I entered it.  We can actually fart with any of these years, or with his whole career.

This is sure interesting:


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/armando-salguero/article53964610.html#storylink=cpy

LOL ... Not much of an endorsement. Philbin's team that was predicted to challenge for the division quit on him and he was fired 4 games into the season and replaced by ... get this ... the tight ends coach. A guy who not only hadn't coached before but had never even been a coordinator or coached more than 4 players at a time!

From another thread:


Actually there is something related:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr/_/sort/cwepaSackedCondensed/order/false

Clutch-weighted expected points added (or in this case lost) on sacks.  League-wide it had a -0.19 correlation with the percentage of pressured pass dropbacks experienced by quarterbacks in 2015, and a -0.14 correlation with Adjusted Line Yards (Football Outsiders).

So the extremity of Tannehill's performance in the league in this area is nowhere near explained by either 1) the percentage of pass dropbacks in which he was pressured, or 2) a measure of offensive line play that correlates fairly strongly with quarterbacks' DVOA.

The most parsimonious explanation is that Tannehill, in comparison to the league's other QBs, takes more sacks on "clutch" plays.  Again, this is the opposite of what we saw the other day, when both Rodgers and Palmer experienced a great deal of pressure on clutch plays, but nonetheless evaded that pressure with movement and hit receivers downfield for very impactful plays in the game.

Bottom-ten clutch points on sacks, from your link:

1   Blake Bortles, JAX
2   Ryan Tannehill, MIA
3   Teddy Bridgewater, MIN
4   Tom Brady, NE
4   Philip Rivers, SD
6   Jay Cutler, CHI
7   Aaron Rodgers, GB
8   Russell Wilson, SEA
9   Matthew Stafford, DET
10   Matt Ryan, ATL

And bottom-ten in total sacks taken, from here (http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/sacks/seasontype/2):

1   Blake Bortles      51
2   Aaron Rodgers      46
3   Alex Smith      45
3   Ryan Tannehill      45
3   Russell Wilson      45
6   Matthew Stafford   44
6   Teddy Bridgewater   44
8   Philip Rivers      40
9   Tom Brady      38
9   Marcus Mariota      38

Seems to me that generally, the QBs that took the most sacks were the leaders in clutch-weighted EPA lost on sacks.  (This should be obvious by the inclusion of Rodgers, the QB you are specifically citing as clutch, as the 7th-worst QB in the league when it comes to "taking sacks in the clutch.")

There are some exceptions, of course: Alex Smith was t-3rd in sacks taken but only 14th in EPA lost, while Jay Cutler was 16th in sacks taken but 6th in EPA lost.  But for the most part, the lists pretty much match up.

If you're citing a statistic that has 2015 Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers as the 4th and 7th worst QBs in the league (respectively), perhaps you should reconsider how useful this statistic is as a tool for evaluating QBs.

It's a piece of the puzzle.  Alone, it isn't a good measure in that regard.  However, the difference with the league's best QBs, the inevitable exceptions to the rule aside, is that they make plays in the passing game (and/or with the run, i.e., Russell Wilson and Alex Smith) that compensate for what's lost on sacks.

For example, when you look here:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr/_/sort/cwepaPassesCondensed

...you see that clutch-weighted expected points added on plays with pass attempts ("PASS EPA") illustrates that.

So, it's not only what happens with regard to sacks on clutch plays, but also what happens on clutch plays that don't result in sacks.  Tannehill struggled in both areas in 2015.  The two years prior, he did better with regard to the latter, but he's struggled with regard to the former from 2013 to 2015.

If you're going to take lots of sacks in clutch situations, you'd better also make plays in those situations, when you aren't taking sacks.  If Tannehill is capable of the former to a great degree, then he needs to also be capable of the latter to a great degree, if the Dolphins are to be successful in the sorts of games like the Arizona-Green Bay one the other day.

Again, on your newly cited statistic, Rodgers is 14th best, while Tannehill is 20th best.  And both of them are behind such luminaries as Kirk Cousins and Jay Cutler.

This is hardly convincing evidence of clutchness (or lack thereof).

"Clutch" isn't the piece of ANY puzzle, for a variety of reasons. Overall, statistics based on it don't correlate well with future performance in the same metric, they don't correlate well with wins or points -- and throwing out a quarterbacks performance 90% of the time in a sport where there is almost always too few data points to begin with makes zero sense.

A quarterback has something like 500 passing attempts in a season. The number of data points necessary in order to be reasonably confident about much of anything depends on the width of the distribution of  the variable you're talking about, but "several hundred" is a good starting point. The 500 attempts already contain data from many, many different game situations and are quite noisy due to external factors (receivers dropping the ball, weather, whatever).

Looking for a quarterback's effectiveness in the clutch is pretty much futile if you are basing it on statistics. There just aren't enough data points.

"Clutch" in this context pertains to how much probability of winning is associated with the play.  There are far more plays in that regard than one might expect from only a superficial analysis.

For example, a play (a touchdown, a long gain down the field, etc.) that contributes largely to putting a team up by three scores late in the third quarter might be "clutch," in that it makes the other team very improbable to win at that point in the game (i.e., "the nail in the coffin").  Likewise, avoiding a sack and throwing the ball away, keeping one's team in field goal range to go up by three scores in the same situation, for example, might be just as "clutch."

In other words, we're not talking just about the hail-mary touchdown pass with no time left on the clock here, although that's obviously one well-known example of a "clutch" play.

In effect what you're saying here is that the gold standard for determining the validity of a statistic is "Spider-Dan's" personal assessment of how good quarterbacks are in that particular area.

In other words, we're starting with "Spider-Dan's" personal assessment, and the statistic is valid if and only if it jibes with it.  If it doesn't jibe with it, it's not that "Spider-Dan" is wrong, it's that the statistic must be wrong.

I'm not even using my own personal assessment; you're the one going out of your way to cite Rodgers and Palmer as Pillars of Clutchness compared to Tannehill.

Rodgers does poorly on the same metrics you're using to bash Tannehill.
Palmer almost single-handedly lost the game for the Cardinals multiple times in the 4th quarter of that game.

These are your preferred examples, not mine.

No, I'm not.  I merely said those were examples of winning plays Tannehill has very, very rarely made.

Just a further elaboration of this -- actually ALL plays are included in these statistics (the clutch-weighted ones), because all plays are associated with an increase, a decrease, or no change in a team's probability of winning.

This is how in fact the clutch "weight" is determined.  If a play is associated with no change in a team's probability of winning, then that play has zero weight.

So while the point made by "fyo" is a good one (i.e., how a small sample size would adversely affect the reliability of a statistic), that point in fact does not apply in this case.

In fact the beauty of the clutch-weighted statistics, on the other hand, is that they account for situational variables.  A garbage time touchdown pass -- one that does almost nothing to a team's probability of winning (or losing) -- is given far less weight than the plays during a two-minute drive when the game is tied, for example.

Last year the Packers played the Dolphins in Miami, and with 1:44 left in the game, the Dolphins were leading 24-20.  The Dolphins were 95% probable to win the game at that point.  From that point on, Aaron Rodgers engineered a drive culminating in a touchdown pass to Andrew Quarless with only 0:03 left to play.

If you look at the "win probability" graph on this page:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201410120mia.htm

...you'll see that Rodgers was associated with the reversal of a 95% improbability to win (at the 1:44 mark) to virtually a 100% probability to win (at the 0:03 mark, after the touchdown pass to Quarless).

All of the positive plays involved in that drive, especially the touchdown pass, would be weighted heavily, and that's where a clutch-weighted statistic distinguishes itself from a traditional one.

So then, coming back from a 95% improbability to win is a good thing?

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201412210mia.htm - comeback from 94.70% improbability to win
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201309220mia.htm - comeback from 94.00% improbability to win
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201310310mia.htm - comeback from 97.90% improbability to win

The irony here is that you are citing Aaron Rodgers as your chosen example of clutch performance, when the knock on Rodgers for most of his career has been his lack of 4th quarter comebacks (http://national.suntimes.com/national-sports/7/72/2099549/aaron-rodgers-comebacks/) and poor record in close games (http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl-news/4526951-aaron-rodgers-not-clutch-fourth-quarter-comeback-failures-5-17-close-games).

Of the great QBs in the league, you picked the worst one to make your point with.

You're failing (again) to grasp the fact that I'm not making a point about a certain quarterback, but about a certain kind of play.

And so you found three games (and there could be more) in which Tannehill's clutch-weighted expected points added on plays with pass attempts would be high.  However, he was slightly below the league average in 2015 with regard to the statistic that measures that best.

Again, couple that with the sacks he takes on clutch plays (ones that don't involve pass attempts), and you have a problem.

If your argument is that Tannehill did not have his best year in 2015, I agree.  His 2013 and 2014 were certainly better.

But you continue to throw out citations and statistics that don't prove any point worth proving.  If I actually believed your statistical "analysis," I would come to the conclusion that both Tannehill and Rodgers were not very good QBs.

Why is my name in quotes? Seems kind of "odd".

;)

So, basically, they just decided to redefine clutch. Okay, whatever.

It is funny in some sense, though, because maybe the site that really got the ball rolling on football analytics (FootballOutsiders.com) has always been on a crusade against describing anyone as "clutch" and completely tearing down all the BS surrounding it. Of course, that's as the term has been used for decades by talking heads, media, and the rest of us. With this newfangled definition of clutch, FootballOutsiders' own statistics are clutch-weighted. That's a nice dose of irony.

It really doesn't matter much to me what term is used to describe these statistics, but clutch-weighted seems an awful label in this case.

Whatever. Not going to spend more time on that, just pointing it out.

Well now if you expand that analysis and look at the clutch-weighted plays as a whole:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr

...you'll see that Rodgers was better than Tannehill in 2015 not only with regard to those plays in which pass attempts were made, but also the ones were there were sacks, runs by the QB, and penalties (i.e., throws that drew pass interference calls).

When you consider all of that as perhaps indicative of a big part of playing the quarterback position as a whole, I think you have to wonder whether Tannehill has what it takes to make the team competitive with the best teams in the league in a playoff situation.

But yet even their statistics are clutch-weighted.  Note the following:


http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods

Only because that can't possibly be your real name.

Or is it? ;)

This is a really long-winded way of saying that Rodgers' QBR was better than Tannehill's in 2015, which is a point that was never in dispute.  However, looking at the total QBR does not tell you anything specific about how those QBs performed "in the clutch," only how they played under all conditions (including "the clutch").

But originally, you didn't just cite Rodgers' QBR and say, "look, Rodgers is better than Tannehill... here are their QBRs" because that would be a waste of time (as everyone already knows Rodgers is better).  Instead, you lauded Rodgers' performance at the end of a pair of games while citing sack EPA and pass EPA to "prove" Tannehill's incompetence... while somehow failing to notice that those same stats indicate Rodgers is also bad.

Those statistics are clutch-weighted, so while yes, they tell you how quarterbacks played under all conditions, there is greater weight assigned to plays made in the clutch.  Consequently, you could have two QBs who have identical traditional QB ratings, but one will have a higher QBR than the other if he made a greater number of clutch plays, or avoided a greater number of negative plays in the clutch.


Once again, I lauded the kinds of plays both Rodgers and Palmer made at the end of a game, and noted that Tannehill's incidence of such plays has been comparatively rare.  Those were simply examples of clutch plays made by quarterbacks, irrespective of who made them.  We could find similar plays John Beck of all people made as a rookie in 2007 (if they exist), and the point would be the same.

You seem to be out to expose some sort of inconsistency I have with myself in this area.  Let me save you the trouble -- it isn't there.

This is the most reasonable position about Ryan Tannehill currently, in my opinion.  It would be foolish for the team to think the changes made around Tannehill (Gase, etc.) will guarantee his improvement, without having a fallback option.


http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2016/01/the-right-path-to-finding-an-elite-qb-is-taking-multiple-paths.html?

Why are you guys using Aaron Rodgers, one of the league's best QB's, as a comparison?  If he's the benchmark, then everyone else in the league also sucks.

Greg Cosell's view of a couple of the plays I mentioned earlier in this thread:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/greg-cosell-s-film-review--the-two-big-packers-cardinals-plays-211724878.html

One can make a decent case that winning a Super Bowl in this day and age is fairly unlikely unless a team has a QB the caliber of Rodgers or the other QBs in the league like him.

Since the league changed the rules to favor the passing game in 2004, the winning Super Bowl QBs have been Brady, Roethlisberger, Brees, Rodgers, Manning (Payton and Eli), Flacco, and Wilson.

If you distinguish Eli Manning and Flacco unfavorably from the rest, then you're left with 3 of the past 12 Super Bowls in which one of the league's elite QBs was not the winner.  That in turn leaves you with a 75% probability of failing to win the Super Bowl without a QB of that caliber.

So having Rodgers et al. as a benchmark may be the smart thing to do, if the goal is winning a Super Bowl.  It can be done without a QB of that caliber, but it isn't likely.

Moreover, when Eli Manning and Joe Flacco won Super Bowls, they were playing statistically at an elite level virtually throughout the playoffs.

So you need either an elite QB, or one who can play like one throughout the playoffs.  That doesn't augur well for the average Joe in the league, who isn't that caliber and hasn't demonstrated any ability to play well in the playoffs.

I disagree with your assessment that you need an elite QB.  Plenty of contrary examples in NFL history.  Frankly the discussion of "elite" with respect to QB's is a tired one.

Any team can be successful in the NFL with the right puzzle pieces.  Plenty of teams have had success with average-to-mediocre QB's and dominant defenses.  Concurrently, the "elite" label is self-fulfilling, as most talking heads will consider any QB who has won a Super Bowl as "elite" (see: Russell Wilson).

The complete history of the game, however, may not apply as strongly after the point at which the rules of the game are changed.

And they were, in 2004, to favor the offensive passing game.

And what exactly is the best argument that Russell Wilson isn't elite?

I'd probably have to agree with ya on this one, but then again, I have been pimping Russell Wilson since before he was drafted, and lit candles that either Miami or San Fran would select him.  I think that, if he isn't considered "elite" at this point, then give him one more season like this past one and he sure should be.

On a side note: In a different thread, I brought up a QB prospect's (Paxton Lynch) abnormally large hand size. Russell Wilson also falls into this category. For a smaller QB, his hand size (10.5 inches) is extremely humongous.

People consider Russell Wilson elite? Really? He's above average in my opinion, but not great. Granted, I don't watch all of the Seahawks games, but from the playoffs and Super Bowls, he isn't showing a lot.

After this year, I'd say Wilson is in the "very good" category.  Not ready to put him in elite status just yet.  If he does it again next year, you can group him with the best in the league.

Since 2004:

Brady
Roethlisberger
Peyton Manning
Eli Manning
Roethlisberger
Brees
Rodgers
Eli Manning
Flacco
Wilson
Brady

All of these guys are elite.

I think you could make a case that Eli Manning and Flacco aren't in the company of the others, but then again, like I said above, the point becomes kind of moot when you realize that Eli Manning and Flacco played like elite QBs virtually throughout the playoffs in those years they won Super Bowls.

So the upshot, really, is that no team has won a Super Bowl since 2004 without an "elite" (i.e., either in character, or who was playing like one at the time) QB.

That's a pretty strong argument for the importance of the position, and why Dolphins' fans -- if they're interested in winning a Super Bowl -- should by no means settle on the level of play Ryan Tannehill has established over the last couple years.

Tannehill's last two quarterback ratings are 92 and 88.

Not bad at all.

And also not good (enough).

The average QB rating in the league this year was 90.3.

Brady made the AFC title game in 2013 with an 87.1 quarterback rating. 

Flacco won the Super Bowl in 2012 with an 87.1

Roethlisberger won the Super Bowl in 2008 with a rating of 80.1

Eli Manning won the Super Bowl in 2007 with a rating of 73.9 

PS, it is hard to have a high quarterback rating when your linemen can't block.  It really says volumes about how bad your supporting cast is when you get sacked three times on a drive when you are driving for a tying touchdown.  Plus, his weaponry at the receiving corp really wasn't anything spectacular. 

Hard to take seriously any kind of "elite" QB list that doesn't include Cam Newton. He's doing things- and he has been since his rookie year- that no QB on that list, and often times, no QB ever, has done.

So again, we're down to 3 Super Bowls out of the last 12.  Not good odds.

Do you have any idea what normally happens when QBs have ratings like those?  An 8-8 season record, on average, based on the 97 times it's happened in a season since 2004, for QBs with at least 400 pass attempts in a season.

Again, look at the talent those guys have been surrounded with. 

Fair enough...I think that, even with the monster season he had this year, Wilson hasn't peaked yet.

Team loyalties aside, Russell Wilson might just be my favorite QB in the league right now. Started day one in the NFL and was an immediate leader of that team. He's an ironman that has been in the league 4 seasons and has played in all 74 of Seattle's regular and postseason games. He's extremely respectful and professional with the media and fans, so count that as a thug factor of zero. He's extremely intelligent, like academic honor roll at NC State kind of smart. He works extremely hard during the offseason, except for the week where he takes off to join the Rangers for MLB's spring training. As a person who fervently follows two sports year-round, football and baseball, the fact that Russell is also a hell of a baseball player (drafted twice by MLB) makes me like him even more, ;)

Bonus point: He also does a very cool commercial  for Bose ("Whose bird is that? ...it's Russell Wilson's bird.").


I think he's in the same situation as Wilson. What an amazing season and start to his career, and if he has another one (or even slightly better) next season, then people will have to start considering him one of the best QBs in the game.

Bonus Point taken away: Cam Newton might be the WORST athlete-actor in the world today. His yogurt commercials are absolutely painful to watch.   :-X

What happened to this thread?

Yes, "Dolphinanalyst", that's what I said, almost verbatim:

"With this newfangled definition of clutch, FootballOutsiders' own statistics are clutch-weighted"

I apologize.

So in the future, please consider that a portion of a post may have gone unread or misunderstood.

There is normal variation in QBs' performances from year to year, presumably largely as a function of the talent and other situational variables around them (i.e., external factors).  Otherwise, they would perform roughly the same every year based on their own talent and characteristics (i.e., internal factors).

What we find, however, is that when you take a group of elite QBs and compare it to a group of mediocre QBs, the elite QBs' performances vary at a level significantly higher than the level at which the performances of the mediocre QBs vary.

So while surrounding talent and other external factors have their effects, the more significant effect on the QB's individual performance is determined by his own talent, or his own internal factors if you will.  The external factors (surrounding talent, coaching, strength of schedule, etc.) play a significantly lesser role in the QB's individual performance.

So with that finding, it becomes more difficult to attribute Ryan Tannehill's level of play to what's going on around him.  If he were more talented himself, then based on the finding above, he would likely be performing at a higher level individually, despite his surroundings.

I'd rather that finding be different, obviously, because it'd help me be more hopeful about Ryan Tannehill, but I'm not going to delude myself.

OK - WE GET IT - YOU HATE RYAN TANNEHILL!!

Can we move on with our lives now?

I don't understand why we need 16 pages of you cherry-picking statistics to make it seem like Ryan Tannehill is garbage, and that it is impossible to be successful with Ryan Tannehill.

Fact is - you DON'T KNOW that.  Statistics signify trends, but when you ignore the outliers, which you have done over and over, you just skew the results in your favor.  Its pointless.

Create a new forum. Call it JOKES and move this thread to it. Then only allow that one person trolling to forums to bash Tannehill to post there and take away his ability to post in other forums.

Those masochistic enough to want to have a discussion can join him there and the rest of us can live happily ever after.

Problem solved.

Paranoid Rich is back! :D

If I skewed the results "in my favor," I'd be skewing them in favor of a conclusion that Ryan Tannehill is displaying talent consistent with a Super Bowl win, since as a fan of the Miami Dolphins since the early 1980s, that's what I've wanted.

For you to construe unfavorable results regarding Ryan Tannehill as being "in my favor" is sheer paranoia.

Your argument for the last 16 pages of this thread has been "Ryan Tannehill isn't good enough"

Thus, "in your favor" quickly becomes "convince all these other people to agree with my stance (above)," so you can see how paranoia is not the right word...

First, I don't give a shit who is convinced of what.  I'm 43 years old and I'm well aware by now that people think whatever the hell they want.  Christ, the guys who steered the airplanes into the World Trade Center thought that was the "right" thing to do.  Do you really think anybody is going to think differently about Ryan Tannehill if he doesn't want to?  I post information I find interesting and compelling, based on the information gathering and analytical methods I believe are the most rigorous available.  Do with it whatever you will, and in the end think whatever you want.  Again, I don't give a shit.

Second, how was this post of mine from another thread skewed?  This took a good solid couple hours of work on my part.


Please, focus on the information and the team, and leave me out of it.  The paranoid nonsense is sickening.

And yet four forums later, here you are with the same schtick. If you don't care, don't share.

Is information sharing only for the purpose of convincing others of things, paranoid Rich? ::)

You either usually share information because people have requested it (no one here has or cares for what you want to share) or to make an argument. Every time someone gives an opinion on Tannehill that you disagree with, you jump in and present the information you want to present to counter that argument and has been well-documented here, you omit the information that isn't convenient for your argument.

So your intent is crystal clear, even if now you want to act as if you don't care what other people think.

You either do care what other people think, because you're on your fourth forum, or you enjoy pissing people off, which is why you're on your fourth forum.

Either way, you're certainly neurotically obsessive about accomplishing something... what that is... only you know and only you care.

Well it sure seems like you care, paranoid Rich!  We're down to your posting here only in response to me! :D

Thank you for allowing me to put an end to this train wreck of a thread. This thread has run it's course and is locked.