The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Omar Kelly pointed out that Flores is way behind his "failed" predecessors. Flores has also had many more resources to deal with so that kind of makes it worse. My question is why isn't there a larger contingency calling for his head? It has to be the first two seasons that is kind of skewing the perception of him.

Adam Gase was 20-20 (.500)
Joe Philbin was 20-20 (.500)
Tony Sparano was 22-18 (.550)
Brian Flores is 16-24 (.400)

At the start of their HC jobs I think Flores had the worst team to start with, especially with a full on rebuild with very young players.  At this point he probably has the most talented team, so going forward he doesn't deserve much leeway.  He's much better than Gase and Philbin, they had no idea what they were doing.  I'd put him on par with Sparano.

He rightfully gets a pass in 2019 because we tried to lose as much as possible and he somehow won 5 games. In 2020 he won 10 games and almost made the playoffs. Before the seaosn, he was probably Top 5 in terms of job stability. Somehow, the wheels came off this season and we are an abomination. There is no recovery from this, he has to go but goodwill and Ross having no replacement is keeping him on.

As much as it pains me to say it, there is no replacement right now. All of the coordinators are trash and might make things worse somehow.

Worse how ... we might go 0-9 instead of 1-7? hahahaha ... That's exactly why we have to get rid of him. He wants inexperienced coaches to bow to him and it's gotten us severely poor coaching. From what Adam Beasley (I think that's who it was) was saying he doesn't want experienced coaches and experienced coaches don't want to work for him for a couple of reasons. His BB attitude and the fact he dumps coaches left and right is a huge turn off for people who have options.  

I'm ready for Harbaugh

I would love Harbaugh at this point, give him the reins for the whole franchise. It can but hard to imagine it will be worse than what we have now. Shockingly enough, we're not in bad shape in terms of draft picks, cap space and talent. Just completely directionless from the front office to the coaching. One guy can turn this around like Parcells did in only one year. Remains to be seen who that guy is.

I think the team Philbin inherited was comparable to the team Flores did, and I think the team Sparano inherited was significantly worse.

Don't make me link the picture of the Belichick coaching tree again.

How would the other people we interviewed for the HC job would have done if hired instead of Flores. Wonder if Eric Bieniemy or our old special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi would have had more success.

I don't know about that.  The loss at BUF to end the season was pretty embarrassing; it's one thing to lose to a better team on the road, but it's quite another to get your doors completely blown off in a game you needed to win.
At the start of this season, Flores was definitely not in a position to be able to withstand a loss total in the teens.

Sparano inherited a 1-15 team while Flores inherited a team trying to go 1-15, so it's a judgement call.

Consider that for the past season and a half, the departure of one player took the New England Patriots and arguably the greatest head coach in history from a 20-year dynasty to merely the average level.  That one player went to a team with a 7-9 record the previous year and immediately won a Super Bowl with it, while he enjoys a top record in the league with it again this year.

It's very difficult to appraise the effectiveness of head coaches in the league unless and until they have a quarterback that enables them to be competitive.  The game just revolves too much around quarterback play to permit anything else.

Kyle Crabbs brought up some things this morning and it got me to thinking that Ross won't make any changes after the season.


1. Tua is done with this team. Short of ending this season looking like Patrick Mahomes of 2 years ago ... they want to move on. Ross and company have screwed that up almost as bad as they did when he ran to interview Harbough while he already had a coach. He hasn't had the support of the team really at any time and they have made it clear they will dump him when someone better comes along.
2. Decisions to fire head coach and/or GM would need to be done in January to prepare for next season.
3. They can't do anything with Watson until March and they aren't guaranteed to get him with other teams likely in play this time.
4. The only reason to go after Watson is because current staff is saying he is the difference to make his team win now.

I think when you put it all together they are planning to stay the course and make no changes. flores has said this a couple of times recently as why he isn't making changes. Somehow he thinks what he is doing will work and it looks like Ross is buying in to me.

I think they'll stay the course with Tua as well.  They aren't going to find anybody better than him on his rookie contract, given the resources at their disposal and the players likely to be available.  The question is how aggressively they're going to use the abundance of salary cap room they'll have to get better.

My question is is Tua going to want to stay in Miami, or play his hardest knowing that the Dolphins don't appear to think very highly of him? He's got to see the writing on the wall. It's going to take a toll eventually.

Grier finally came out this morning and supported Tua while saying 90 percent of the rumors were false. He said given the chance again he would have had better communication with Tua. I don't think Tua is dumb and I know his agent isn't. Look for him to try and get into a better position at year's end and ask for a trade.

Up to this point, the Dolphins have failed Tua, just like Tannehill before him. I hate to say this, but if things don't work out for Tua in Miami and he winds up somewhere else in the NFL, I hope he lights our asses up every time we play him. We always seem to pick the wrong players. And in the rare event we do pick someone that's good, we cast them off to succeed with another team because we can't seem to figure out how to use or develop them. The Miami Dolphins are like the little retarded kid of the league. Plenty of potential, but mentally incapable of figuring it out.

Given the complete ineptitude in this organization that is rampant from ownership, to GM, to coaches, why would ANYONE want to stay in Miami?  From Day One, not only has this team not done anything to help Tua succeed, they have seemingly sabotaged him and shown zero confidence in him (and thereby preventing him from gaining any confidence in himself) and done everything possible to prevent him from succeeding. 

QBs are going to have to get used to that because of the degree to which the game revolves around QB play.  Imagine if the Cardinals for example had kept Josh Rosen out of concern for his emotional development as a player, rather than jettisoning him after his rookie season in favor of drafting Kyler Murray #1 overall in the following draft.  They'd be mired at the bottom of the league right now instead of being legitimate Super Bowl contenders with Murray.  Likewise the Dolphins were in the position here of possibly obtaining a QB who's sustained a level of play Tua is unlikely to ever achieve.  Teams simply have to do what wins.

I would caution people from believing the Dolphins failed Tannehill.  Tannehill's performance in Tennessee has been a product of a number of difficult-to-replicate factors, and we're seeing him revert back to the average level as a player because the Titans cannot replicate those factors from year to year.  If your quarterback's individual success depends on a perfect alignment of the stars, and those stars are unlikely to align for long, you don't have a very good quarterback.  You'd much rather have one who can win with surroundings that more closely approximate the average level, as those are the surroundings any team is most likely to have.

The Cardinals absolutely supported Rosen right up until they didn't. He got a full season and some prior to dealing with it.

"...head coach Kliff Kingsbury reportedly confirmed it to Rosen only one minute before the pick was made."

"Hey, so we're about to draft Kyler," Kingsbury reportedly told Rosen on the phone. "...I don't really know what happens now." They traded Rosen the day after drafting a QB. 

I don't think Miami wanted to move on as much as they wanted Watson and somehow thought he could rush the QB when he wasn't on offense. The Texans are run by bigger idiots than Miami so they will demand 39 first rounders in the offseason for Watson and we will be out of the running and there will be no better options than Tua, who has played well in 3 of the 4 games with the 4th being not horrible against a very good defense.

He has no choice but to stay due to his contract but the team should offer up a very public apology to him on how poorly they have handled things. This should be accompanied by an introduction of the new coach and GM. Really, apologize to the whole team for wasting a year of their lives.

Players in the NFL, especially players on their rookie contracts, have very little leverage.  Look at how long it took for Kirk Cousins to get out of WSH.  Aaron Rodgers is still a Packer and Deshaun Watson is still a Texan.

To the extent that someone can be proven conclusively wrong in their assessment of a player, you were proven absolutely wrong about Tannehill.  The player that TEN received from MIA, when given a competent supporting cast, was FAR superior to any MIA QB of the last 20 years... and it's not even close.  Meanwhile, your argument against Tannehill from the start was that his play had little to do with the players around him... a point you are now using to dismiss his improvement.

Your attempts to downplay and deny Tannehill's high level of play in TEN just expose how committed you have been to disparaging him.  Essentially, even if he had had the same kind of season in MIA - one in which he leads the league in several efficiency metrics - you STILL would have been trashing him.

It's difficult to imagine that your credibility on the subject of QBs can be reduced even further, but you're making an impressive attempt to do so.

^^^ THIS

If you (or anyone else) would like to continue to discuss this I'd be happy to do it backchannel, as discussions about a former Dolphins QB are off-topic.  Alternatively, if a moderator would like to sanction such a discussion by starting a thread on it, I'd be happy to discuss it there as well.

What exactly do you see as constituting a lack of support for Tua that distinguishes it from the above example?  Players throughout the league know they're capable of being replaced at any time, due to various factors.

Grier actually said this? This is basically confirmation that he and Flores have lost the team, and there's no way they should survive after this season.

Only thing is you are talking about a truly elite QB that is a once in a generation thing (or maybe three in this generation).

Brady, Manning and Rodgers all have/had the knack of consistently making receivers that look pretty ordinary elsewhere look like stars for way over a decade. The rest aren't remotely in that same league. 

Anyone may start a thread in Around The NFL to talk about any players on other NFL teams.

It sounds like you have an interest in doing that regarding Tannehill, so go ahead and start the thread.

Tua has not even played 16 games yet and as he is getting better, they want to replace him. If we wanted to purposely destroy his development, what would we have done differently?

I'm willing to let the record stand for itself.
You're the one still trying to advance the contrarian viewpoint that actually, Tannehill was The Problem in Miami, not his supporting cast.

And it looks quite a bit like you're headed down the same path with Tua, what with the effusive praise of how well career journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick was playing last year.

Both were the problem. Both were average.

The expected level of performance for arguably the greatest head coach of all time is not average.

You're seeing the same regression thing from Mahomes this year also.The point that I'm making is that Tannehill is an adequate QB to compete in this league. The difference between the two is that Tennessee gave him a supporting cast and the tools needed to be competitive. Miami only gave him trash, blame, and excuses.

They are doing exactly the same with thing Tua but worse. A trash OL and OL coach. Bozo and Cookie for Offensive coordinators calling cartoonish plays out of their coloring book. Speed demon WRs running 4 yard slants & bubble routes. Hell, the leading receiver is Gesicki. What does it say about your team when the leading receiver is your TE and every time he gets a first down for 12 yards he looks like an excited 6 year kid on Christmas day with his stupid ball spin? And the only reason he got 12 yards for the 1st down is because we lost 2 yards on 1st and 2nd down.

So while Tua may not be performing and have stats like other starting QBs in the league. He's clearly one of the best and most consistent players we have. It's a team sport and if we plugged him into another system that knows what the fuck they're doing he would be on par with those other starting QBs. We don't need him to be elite, we just need him to be competitive. Tua is doing his job as well as one would expect.

I don't have any judgment of Tua on the basis of what he's doing right now.  Too many great (and poor) QBs have played like he is early in their careers to form a judgment at this point.  His ceiling in the league is unknown at present.

My point is that you have to be careful about how much you're asking from the organization to surround a player with whatever he needs to be successful.  The worst QB of all time could perhaps be successful if you surround him with the 10 best other offensive players in the history of the game and a defense that can limit other teams' scoring so that he's rarely if ever in a must-pass situation and susceptible to opposing pass rushers' teeing off on him.  The problem there of course is that that can't happen -- no team can possibly assemble that kind of surrounding talent.  On the other hand the best QB of all time would naturally need far less around him to succeed at the necessary level.

The point is that when you start talking about what a QB "needs," you're perhaps getting onto a slippery slope where you start to fantasize about what a QB could be "only if" he had X, Y, and Z around him, despite that he's possibly never performed at that level and perhaps never could, regardless of his surroundings.  The other important input into that equation is the organization's likelihood of obtaining and maintaining those surroundings.  If it's highly unlikely for any organization to obtain and maintain the needed surroundings, you have an inadequate QB by definition.

The most likely level of quality of surrounding support for any QB is average.  That's what any organization is most likely to obtain and maintain.  You'd like your QB to perform at the necessary level with those surroundings, not some surroundings that are unlikely to be obtained and maintained.

You just made my point. Would you consider ANYTHING about the 2021 Dolphins average? There may be something, but off the top of my head I can't come up with anything. So unless I'm missing something, everything is below average by a good margin. The two main things that a QB needs is a half way competent OL and decent OC. How do you think Josh Allen would do if he took Tua's place in the Dolphins freak show this week? He may do better than Tua, but I wouldn't bet my hooker and cocaine money that they would win the game.

Tannehill ranks #10 on ESPN QB rankings and Tua ranks #24. However, in Tannehill's last year with the dolphins(2018) ESPN had Tannehill ranked #32 and Josh Allen ranked #24. The main differences between them now is that Tannehill and Allen have more experience and the tools necessary to compete on a weekly basis. If you put Tua on the Titans or Bills he would probably rank in the top 12. If Tannehill can succeed somewhere else, that tells me that Tannehill wasn't the problem here. Miami has an organizational problem that's gone on for 20+ years.

A QB doesn't need a good offensive line to succeed over larger samples of play, such as full seasons.  Pro Football Focus (PFF) rates QBs and offensive lines every year on the basis of their isolated performance (i.e., separate from other parts of teams).  PFF's QB ratings are strongly related to offensive passing efficiency across the league, and that does not depend on PFF's offensive line pass blocking ratings (as determined by multiple regression using the 2018 and 2019 seasons).

In other words, QBs can pass the ball well in terms of efficiency even in the presence of a poor pass blocking offensive line.  For example, Justin Herbert last year had the poorest pass blocking offensive line in the league as rated by PFF, yet he played very well for a rookie QB in terms of pass efficiency.  Russell Wilson has played at a Hall of Fame level during his career, alongside some of the worst-rated pass blocking offensive lines in the league.  By the same token, other QBs have played behind stellar pass blocking offensive lines as rated by PFF and nonetheless played relatively poorly individually.

Additionally, the New England Patriots lost Tom Brady a year and a half ago and have played at the average level since then, while Brady took a previously 7-9 team to an immediate Super Bowl win.  Did New England's coaching staff suddenly plummet from "20-year dynasty" caliber to merely average in terms of skill?  Did Tampa Bay's coaching staff suddenly become stellar?

These are all things that need to be considered when appraising the individual ability of QBs.  They are a lot more responsible for their own individual performance than many people appear to believe.

Getting back to the original question...

Sparano had a team of very limited talent that believed in his passion... right up until Ross chased Harbaugh when he was still under contract and basically announcing he was a dead man walking. Even then he fought for his job - I remember him pleading a bad decision by a ref saying "you just got me fired!" For all his limitations the team only gave up on him after the owner did, and I put him at the best of this list because of it.

Philbin to date is the worst by a mile. From day one everyone knew he was way out of his depth, and I don't think the playing group ever respected or believed in him.

Gase was another out of his depth, and like Sparano benefited from an easy schedule to make the playoffs. That said, one thing I will give him is that he cleaned out some of the trash accumulated by Ireland's drafting/trading, and in doing so did us a huge favor moving forward.

The first two seasons under Flores were acceptable, but this season is a train wreck of monumental proportions - worst of all there are major rumblings he has lost the team, and if that doesn't turn around in a hurry he's finished. Refusal to recognize major problems with their coaching methods, half assed efforts on the field, poor communication with players, and now disciplinary issues with guys like Williams and Redwine who should be busting their butts to stay on the team. Not good.

I just read about Preston. What the hell happened?

Him and Redwine didn't make the trip to Buffalo for "disciplinary reasons".   Not sure how this is going to play out but if this coaching staff stays, I don't see them on the Dolphins next year.

I heard that but no details were given. Disciplinary could mean going to the Pepsi machine and accidentally violating Covid rules or doing cocaine off of a stripper while missing practice.

During the Flores, Gase, Philbin, and Sparano eras (2008-2021), the correlation between the team's season win percentage and the degree to which its passer rating deviated from league average is a whopping 0.88.  That means 77% of the variance in the team's season win percentage during that period is explained by the degree to which its passer rating was above or below league average.

The more the team's passer rating was above league average, the more it won, regardless of its head coach.  The more the team's passer rating was below league average, the more it lost, regardless of its head coach.

The season-by-season correlations for each individual coach during that period are as follows:

Sparano:  0.80
Philbin:  0.01
Gase:  0.93
Flores:  0.91

So not only has the Dolphins' season-by-season record since 2008 been far more strongly a function of variation in quarterback/passing game play than of variation in head coaches, but even within the individual tenures of these head coaches, their performance has varied very strongly as a function of quarterback/passing game play.  When each coach got better QB/passing game play, he did better.

[Philbin is the lone exception in that regard because he had almost entirely average QB/passing game play as well as an almost entirely average record throughout his tenure -- hence there was little variation in either and therefore little or no correlation to be found.  His performance fits with the overall correlation during the time period (2008-2021), however.]

Moreover, once again we just had arguably the greatest head coach in history plummet from "20-year dynasty" caliber to merely average for a season and a half, following the departure of his HoF QB, while that QB immediately took a previously 7-9 team to a Super Bowl win.

Certainly it's difficult to judge the quality of coaches like Sparano, Philbin, Gase, and Flores -- who never had high-quality QBs/passing games (other than perhaps Chad Pennington's MVP runner-up year in 2008) -- when even arguably the greatest head coach in history is prone to coaching at their level when neither he has a high-quality QB/passing game.

Is this a fancy way of saying when a QB plays well teams do better?

It's a fancy way of saying it's difficult to judge the ability of head coaches in the absence of quality QB/passing game play.  If Tom Brady came to the Dolphins right now I'm sure Brian Flores would suddenly seem like a far better coach.  Certainly Bruce Arians did in 2020 (and now also in 2021), while Bill Belichick on the other hand suddenly looked merely average after coaching the longest dynasty in the history of the game and becoming a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer.

This seems like a pretty "duh" statement to me.  There are very few teams that have won it all in the modern era that didn't have good/great QB play.  Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson are the only ones that come to mind, and that was still a pretty long time ago.

So then what isn't "duh" is the answer to this question:  how do you judge head coaches in the absence of that?

That's what this thread is about -- judging head coaches.

I'd say that Denver won their Superbowl with an old and broken down Peyton Manning. Almost anyone could have been that team's QB.

It could also mean violation of some Covid protocol. Teams are forced to enforce the protocols and there are many.

Sure, but I can forgive someone for sneaking out to go to Burger King. I am not so tolerant of a fringe player going to a strip club for 6 hours and coming to practice drunk. That's why the context is important.

Peyton still had the experience to "manage" the game at an elite level.  But to your point the other thing that makes a Super Bowl Champion is an extraordinarily good defense.  Denver had a great Defense when Manning won.  The Ravens won a SB because of their defense, not Joe Flacco.  I'd say even the Seahawks won because of their Defense, more than because of their QB.

Seahawks had a great defense and a great passing game, hence the rare Super Bowl blowout.

How many more teams do you think will hire a BB assistant b4 they realize that he is better at winning games than developing other coaches?

Probably about the same time that people realize that it was Tom Brady, not BB, that was mostly responsible for winning games.  BB's arrogance cost them at least one SB.

Then explain to me this:

1) Career playoff won-loss record with a rating below 78.5 on at least twenty five attempts

Brady is 10-5

Every other quarterback in NFL history is 90-310

2) Career playoff won-loss record with a rating below 73.5 on at least 33 attempts

Brady is 7-4

Every other quarterback is 27-175

The Patriots often won in the playoffs IN SPITE OF Tom Brady

Now, this doesn't change the fact that BB is an incompetent moron.  No other coach would bench their best defender for AN ENTIRE GAME while their defense was getting shredded.
 

Pass offense and pass defense win games, primarily.  Those are the two strongest predictors of winning in the league.

Between 2001 and 2019, the Patriots had the biggest passer rating differential in the league (16.7).  So they won with pass offense and pass defense.

There are games that NE won because of Brady AND gams in spite of Brady playing poorly.

I'd say that statement accurately and clearly sums it all up. 

If the opposing team doesn't score, your QB could have the worst single game in history and you nonetheless can't possibly lose.

Well, it doesn't explain why Brady's record in poor passer rating playoff games is so much better than the league norm, as was posted above.  What explains that is the Patriots' defense 2001-2019.

Again, if you hold an opposing team scoreless (for example), you give your QB/offense a whole lot of leeway to play poorly and still win.

This is why the 2021 Dolphins are so poor -- their pass offense and pass defense are poor.  If you play poorly with regard to the two strongest predictors of winning in the league, don't expect to have a good record.

I don't think your QB could have "the single worst game in history" without a single pick-6, strip-sack-score, or safety.

What I've been trying to explain for years is that

Most quarterbacks LOSE the games when they play poorly, so they don't have anywhere near as many chances to have those games where their teams win because of them

Brady often wins games in which he plays poorly, so he has FAR more chances to have games in which his team wins because of him.

Hence, it is not fair to compare quarterbacks by team stats, but this ESPECIALLY applies to Brady, because he is such a huge outlier.

There may be confounds in team statistics applied to QBs, but make no mistake that Brady is easily one of the best QBs of all time with regard to more "individualized" statistics.  Consider that of the 32 QBs with at least 3650 regular season and playoff plays from scrimmage 2001 to 2021, Brady's number of expected points added (EPA) per play is behind only Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers, two surefire first-ballot Hall of Famers.

Nothing about what you said contradicts my last post in any way whatsoever