Tannehill and the Offensive Line

[Spider-Dan]

In fact, there are folks who believe, and with good reason, that the very best measure of QB play is YPA (pass efficiency), since things like TDs can be accounted for by other factors (a 95-yard run, followed by a tackle at the one yard line and a one-yard TD pass, for example), and interceptions are too random for their taste (the correlation between first half and second half of the season interceptions is relatively weak across QBs, which suggests such randomness).

So measuring interceptions is too random to be a reliable metric, but measuring YPA (which includes yards gained by the receiver after the catch) is a perfectly legitimate indicator of a quarterback's efficiency.

Highly entertaining analysis.

[Dolfanalyst]

That's just not accurate. Passing Efficiency has been used for decades as, among other things, synonymous with passer rating, particular in college football.

But don't take my word for it, check out NCAA's site:

http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/individual/8

Again, I'm talking about the terminology the analytics community typically uses nowadays, which tends to be more precise in my opinion (i.e., "efficiency" means only one's production to effort ratio, and not other things).

But let's not lose the forest for the trees here.  This back-and-forth was started by what Omar Kelly wrote above, which in my opinion is just plainly off-base.  Tannehill's game in terms of efficiency was nothing special, no matter how you define it, and if you define it the way the analytics folks do (with YPA alone), it was downright poor.

[Spider-Dan]

Still waiting for that citation from "the analytics community" on how THE MEASURE of passing efficiency is defined as YPA.
Note: "some folks say" is not a citation

[Dolfanalyst]

Still waiting for that citation from "the analytics community" on how THE MEASURE of passing efficiency is defined as YPA.
Note: "some folks say" is not a citation

You're welcome to do that research on your own, since I'm not being paid here, but let me ask you this:  what does all this have to do with what Omar Kelly said?

[Dolfanalyst]

So measuring interceptions is too random to be a reliable metric, but measuring YPA (which includes yards gained by the receiver after the catch) is a perfectly legitimate indicator of a quarterback's efficiency.

Highly entertaining analysis.

What we're looking for is a measure of a QB's dispositional (as opposed to situational) playing ability, and so random factors obviously don't lend themselves to dispositional conclusions.  Yards after the catch, however, don't vary enough from QB to QB to detract from YPA's ability to measure QBs' ability over the long haul.

That said, no measure is perfect, but you should probably learn something before you make a conclusion about what's "entertaining" and what isn't, since, again, you're only embarrassing yourself.

[Spider-Dan]

Omar Kelly said Tannehill was performing efficiently.
You claimed that such a statement exposed Kelly's ignorance, as the only measure of efficiency is YPA.
You then claimed that the analytics community has coalesced on this position, and implied that I, too, was ignorant for suggesting otherwise.

But now that the utter folly of such a position has been exposed (here's a hint: if your metric says that incompletions and interceptions are equally efficient, it's garbage), now you want to try to pivot?

Your best option at this point is to silently chalk this thread up as an L and hope everyone forgets about it.  Of course, if you want to try back up your claim that THE MEASURE of passing efficiency is YPA - again, your entire basis for rebutting Kelly in the first place - I'm happy to watch you attempt to do so.  I'm sure you can provide some more useful quotable material in the process of going down with this particular ship.

[Dolfanalyst]

Omar Kelly said Tannehill was performing efficiently.
You claimed that such a statement exposed Kelly's ignorance, as the only measure of efficiency is YPA.
You then claimed that the analytics community has coalesced on this position, and implied that I, too, was ignorant for suggesting otherwise.

But now that the utter folly of such a position has been exposed (here's a hint: if your metric says that incompletions and interceptions are equally efficient, it's garbage), now you want to try to pivot?

Your best option at this point is to silently chalk this thread up as an L and hope everyone forgets about it.  Of course, if you want to try back up your claim that THE MEASURE of passing efficiency is YPA - again, your entire basis for rebutting Kelly in the first place - I'm happy to watch you attempt to do so.  I'm sure you can provide some more useful quotable material in the process of going down with this particular ship.

Kelly is rebuttable no matter how you define efficiency, and don't look now, but that's the ship you're on.

[Dolfanalyst]

Interesting recent article here:

ESPN's analytics department has developed a pass protection metric that tracks the rate at which an offensive line controls the line of scrimmage on dropbacks. (A fuller explanation can be found here.) The Cowboys rank No. 2 overall this season, one of 10 teams that have controlled the line on more than half of their passing plays.

Notice that in the image above (and I have no idea why these get copied over so large), the best team in the league in terms of percentage of passing plays in which the offensive line controls the line of scrimmage is just 4.5% better than the average team in the league.

If we assume a normal distribution (which is a logical assumption in this case), then the league ranges from roughly 43.9% (worst) to 52.9% (best) with regard to the percentage of passing plays in which a team's offensive line controls the line of scrimmage.

The point is that offensive lines throughout the league don't vary a great deal, and so there is less room for improvement for any one team than one might think.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/18016146/how-dak-prescott-ezekiel-elliott-cowboys-shredding-defenses-2016-nfl

[fyo]

^ The image gets "copied over so large" because the image IS so large. ESPN simply asks the browser to scale it on their site, which is a bit lazy (and inefficient), but considering the amount of video one is spammed with on ESPN, the effect is likely negligible.

[Dolfanalyst]

It's also entirely possible that the (small) variation in offensive line play in the post I made just above is more a function of how often teams are in obvious passing situations (3rd and long and/or down big on the scoreboard) than it is a function of player talent on the offensive line.

Obviously when an opposing defense knows a team has to pass, it can sell out against the pass, making the offensive line's job that much harder.

If true, that would suggest that offensive line play is more a function of talent elsewhere on the team (offense and defense) than it is talent on the actual offensive line.

So again, offensive line play can be affected by play elsewhere, whereas during the Tannehill era the belief seems to be that the relationship between offensive line and QB play is only unidirectional, such that the offensive line affects the QB and not vice-versa.

[fyo]

**cough** straw man **cough**

[Dolfanalyst]

**cough** straw man **cough**

I'd challenge you to find a single post in this forum since 2012 (that wasn't one of mine) in which it was suggested that Tannehill's play affects the offensive line.

Conversely, if you were to compile all of the posts during that time period that mentioned the offensive line's effect on Tannehill, you'd be quite busy.

[Dolfanalyst]

Quarterback grade: Ryan Tannehill, 78.4

Yes, the defense came up with two huge turnovers in the final minutes of the game, but Tannehill really put the team on his back by making a number of outstanding throws under pressure. With a clean pocket on 15 drop-backs, he completed 10 of 15 throws for just 98 yards, but when under pressure on 11 snaps, he connected on seven of nine for 142 yards and a QB rating of 155.8. He toasted the Charges with his deep passing, as he completed all four throws at least 20 yards through the air for 138 yards and two scores.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-mia-sd-grades/

I don't expect any QB to be that good every week, but this kind of downfield passing game is what the offense needs to be successful when defenses key on stopping Jay Ajayi, and what Ajayi needs to open up the run game for him.

[Spider-Dan]

Since you cited PFF:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-ten-mia-grades/

Quarterback grade:  Ryan Tannehill, 76.7

Tannehill performs well despite loss

The headline coming out of this game will be how poorly the Dolphins’ performed, likely followed by questions of whether or not Ryan Tannehill should continue to be the starter. While Tannehill may not be lifting the offense as expected, he actually played above-average against the Titans, especially considering that he was under pressure on 66.7 percent of his dropbacks. The late interception resulted from the offensive line not giving Tannehill time in the pocket, as he was hit on the pass, causing the ball to sail. While Tannehill might not be the best QB in the league, he is playing better than most will give him credit for.

PFF rated Tannehill only 1.7 points better in the SD game than in the TEN game, assigning most of the team's problems to the Dolphins' OL ("Offensive line struggles immensely against Titans’ D-line").  In fact, in the TEN game, his passer rating was an unimpressive 62.3, but his YPA was 10.9... higher than the 10.0 he posted against SD.

How, exactly, would you say one should make sense of the following data?

Opp.    NFL rating     YPA     PFF rating
TEN     63.7             10.9    76.7
PIT      97.4             7.9     82.4
BUF     99.4             8.2     74.2
NYJ     86.8             5.3     46.4
SD      130.6           10.0    78.4

[Dolfanalyst]

Since you cited PFF:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-ten-mia-grades/

Quarterback grade:  Ryan Tannehill, 76.7

Tannehill performs well despite loss

The headline coming out of this game will be how poorly the Dolphins’ performed, likely followed by questions of whether or not Ryan Tannehill should continue to be the starter. While Tannehill may not be lifting the offense as expected, he actually played above-average against the Titans, especially considering that he was under pressure on 66.7 percent of his dropbacks. The late interception resulted from the offensive line not giving Tannehill time in the pocket, as he was hit on the pass, causing the ball to sail. While Tannehill might not be the best QB in the league, he is playing better than most will give him credit for.

PFF rated Tannehill only 1.7 points better in the SD game than in the TEN game, assigning most of the team's problems to the Dolphins' OL ("Offensive line struggles immensely against Titans’ D-line").  In fact, in the TEN game, his passer rating was an unimpressive 62.3, but his YPA was 10.9... higher than the 10.0 he posted against SD.

How, exactly, would you say one should make sense of the following data?

Opp.    NFL rating     YPA     PFF rating
TEN     63.7             10.9    76.7
PIT      97.4             7.9     82.4
BUF     99.4             8.2     74.2
NYJ     86.8             5.3     46.4
SD      130.6           10.0    78.4

The correlations between PFF's rating and the other variables mentioned above are the following (I added ESPN's QBR below):

YPA:  0.77
QB Rating:  0.23
QBR:  0.23

So what you see there are very weak correlations between PFF's ratings and both QB rating and QBR.  The 0.77 correlation between PFF's ratings and YPA is very strong, on the other hand.

If you believe that PFF's ratings have validity, then this is a good result for you, as there are folks who believe that YPA is the single best measure of QB play because it's contaminated least by factors attributable to other parts of a team.

What's interesting about the post I made above is that, according to PFF, Tannehill enjoyed as they call it "a clean pocket" on 15 of his 26 pass dropbacks, or nearly 58% of them.  According to ESPN, the best team in the league in that regard (i.e., a clean pocket) achieves clean pockets on roughly 53% of its pass dropbacks.  So, the Dolphins' offensive line played quite well on passing plays yesterday.

However, the counterintuitive result from yesterday, again according to PFF, is that Tannehill performed better on the pass dropbacks in which he was pressured than on the ones in which he wasn't.  It's difficult to reconcile that with the belief that Tannehill needs better offensive line play to play better himself.

What it suggests, rather, is that he needs to continue to play well in the face of pressure, since pressure happens on pass dropbacks roughly 47% of the time, even for the best team in the league in that regard.