What does Ryan Tannehill's 2018 Return Mean? | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

What does Ryan Tannehill's 2018 Return Mean?

<O> said:
Speaking of passer rating differential, today's:

Tampa Bay: 117.9
Miami: 60.8
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That was at the half. At the close it was:

TB: 100.6
Miami: 73.4

I'm sure it was lost on no one, however, what Matt Moore's second-half rating of 106.5 did for the team.
 
All great stuff in the OP but I'll disagree that cornerbacks and secondary in general are the key to a changed and successful pass defense. Interior pass rush is most important, IMO, combined with pass rush overall and a nasty aggressive disposition everywhere. You have to arrogantly destroy underneath and screen garbage to the point the offense is too scared to even attempt it. That forces them into longer developing pocket stuff where your rushers can confidently pick a target and tee off.

Pass defense has been my favorite category since 1983, when the Canes' first national championship team quietly led the nation with a fantastic 4.7 yards per attempt allowed. That number is almost never equaled or bettered, although Alabama did have a phenomenal 4.3 in 2011 and the 2008 USC team managed 4.6 but the voters were idiotic enough to exclude them from the national championship game. Laughable.

I wouldn't be appreciated in that college football committee boardroom because I'd be telling them if they weren't looking at pass defense to identify the four best teams then they shouldn't have the assignment. Yet I can almost guarantee that the term pass defense is never mentioned in those meetings. The teams with weak pass defenses that sneak in like Florida State 2014 and Michigan State 2015 are obliterated in that semifinal game.

I started posting on Dolphin sites the year Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl. It was not on this site. That Buccaneer team had freakish pass defense numbers in road games. It was almost an unbelievable number in terms of yards per attempt allowed. I noticed it all season. Meanwhile the posters on that Dolphin forum were insisting that our pass defense was just as good if not better. They were looking at personnel and name bias instead of raw results. It was driving me nuts, again because it was unlike anything I had experienced in Las Vegas, where numbers rule and are respected. I'm sure the same thing would have unfolded here. Very tough to dent subjective reliance.

This link details it well: https://www.bucsnation.com/2017/6/2...ccaneers-are-still-the-best-pass-defense-ever

I don't have passer rating differential in my Excel workbooks. Those workbooks were put together in 1994 and I have mostly stayed with the basics from that era, like yards per attempt and YPPA Differential. It may be slightly weaker than passer rating differential but more than sufficient and I don't have to reformat. I'd have to add all the categories that are incorporated into passer rating differential to produce the final number itself.

Regardless, I'm happy that <O> has put those numbers and categories here. Due to style he earns less opposition than I do, even though the bottom line is mostly the same. Today I followed Michelle Wie around the course at the LPGA season finale in Naples at the Tiburon course. She made 7 birdies and started the day tied for the lead. That sounds like plenty sufficient to win, except that her differential was good enough for only -2 on the day. Michelle had three bogeys and a double bogey. The winner bogeyed the first hole but that was her only blemish of the day, with 6 birdies equating to a differential of 5 under. It's more or less the same thing as passer rating differential. To match that -5 Michelle would have needed 10 birdies, or some combination of great holes equalling 10 under. The frequency of that is exceptionally low, like the passer rating <O> cited as Tannehill's need if our pass defense remains so woeful.
 
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<O> said:
Yes, I'd say corner most importantly, and at safety with regard to somehow acquiring more of an Earl Thomas pass coverage style back there. I don't think the current safeties have that category of skills at even an average level, let alone at Thomas's level.
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Miami gave out contracts of $84 million dollars for 2 strong safeties
No way they bring in another unless they have plans for McDonald as
a linebacker
 
Next yr the pressures will be on Gase as coach. Either thill17 going save him or he is going get fired. He is going lose locker room if he is.not winning. I can see it coming.qb rate doesn't mean anything if u not winning game.
 
Awsi Dooger said:
All great stuff in the OP but I'll disagree that cornerbacks and secondary in general are the key to a changed and successful pass defense. Interior pass rush is most important, IMO, combined with pass rush overall and a nasty aggressive disposition everywhere. You have to arrogantly destroy underneath and screen garbage to the point the offense is too scared to even attempt it. That forces them into longer developing pocket stuff where your rushers can confidently pick a target and tee off.
Click to expand...


And the Tampa Bay team you mentioned had Warren Sapp and Booger McFarland in there. Their first steps off the snap and their incessant pressure up the middle that year is unforgettable.

This is also a case for getting rid of Suh when the right time comes salary cap-wise. He has far too little an effect on the opposing passing game to warrant the percentage of the salary cap he absorbs. Total disappointment in that part of the game in my opinion.
 
Tannehill's return means evaluation for him. He has only had one good half of a season in his time here. Otherwise he has been mediocre.
 
I know I will get a lot of flack for this, but it will mean nothing. While RT is a decent QB, he is not this God that people around here make him out to be. If I could equate him to a QB of the past, I would say he is the equivalent of Brian Sipe, if he is even that good.
 
DKphin said:
I know I will get a lot of flack for this, but it will mean nothing. While RT is a decent QB, he is not this God that people around here make him out to be. If I could equate him to a QB of the past, I would say he is the equivalent of Brian Sipe, if he is even that good.
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I don't agree. I agree he isn't some god but we don't even need that. The 2 QB's we have are missing some very easy stuff. Ryan is more accurate and would make the lion shares of these plays. From what I'm hearing and seeing these aren't difficult plays just routine ones that just require a good throw.
 
<O> said:
It would mean this team could contend for a Super Bowl only if it compiles one of the league's best defenses.

The reason for that is that passer rating differential -- offensive passer rating minus opponents' passer rating -- accounts for 85% of the variation in win percentage in the NFL.

The 2016 Dolphins' passer rating was 95.5, above average. Its opponents' passer rating was 88.5, right about average. A differential of +7 points.

Compare that to the Patriots' 2016 passer rating of 109.5, and its opponents' passer rating of 84.4 -- a differential of +25 points. That much greater imbalance in the Patriots' favor produced a 14-2 record, a first-round bye, and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, and we know what that led to.

The Dolphins would've needed to have a defense that held its opponents to a passer rating of 70.5 to produce the same differential as the Patriots in 2016.

Now think of how unlikely that is. Between 2004 and 2016 there were a mere 32 teams of the 416 that played, that held their opponents to a passer rating below 72.

So there is a mere 7.7% chance that the Dolphins -- given the level of QB play they had in 2016 -- would've performed well enough on defense to produce the situation the Patriots were in, heading into the 2016 playoffs. They're 92.3% unlikely to do so, with that level of QB play.

Going beyond just the Patriots, the average passer rating differential of Super Bowl winners since 2004 is +16.7, so ideally you'd like to get Tannehill's rating to stay between 95 and 100, while compiling a defense that's able to hold opposing teams to an overall passer rating between 78 and 83, which is far more realistic.

Now let's take a look at what the team was doing after the early part of 2016, when many believe Tannehill and the offense were adjusting to Gase's new system.

The passer rating for Tannehill during that period was just over 100, and for Moore after Tannehill's injury it was 105.6. So if the passer rating surrendered to opposing teams was roughly the same during that period as it was on the season as a whole (88.5), there was a differential of about +13 to +15.

That of course had a lot to do with why the team was 9-2 during that period.

With this year's pass defense, however, which is surrendering a horrendous opponents' passer rating of 104, the record during that period last year would've been expected to be 5-6/6-5, not 9-2. The team would've likely finished 6-10/7-9, and there would've been no playoff berth, despite the higher-quality QB play it had than in previous years.

So the team needs QB play of at least Tannehill's 2016 caliber, while the defense needs to improve a great deal as well. The best-case scenario of course is that the starting QB can have a passer rating of at least 100, and the defense can become among the league's best and surrender an opposing passer rating in the upper 70s or lower 80s, which is realistic. That passer rating differential of at least +20 would make the team a contender for the Super Bowl.

Obviously that would require a great deal of improvement in the defense, however. Reducing opponents' passer rating from this year's 104 to the high 70s/low 80s is quite the task.

Additionally, there is no correlation at all in the league between offensive passer rating and opponents' passer rating, and so Tannehill's return to his characteristic level of play alone won't help the defense.

Tannehill's return alone is about only half of the equation here. There's a whole lot more that needs to be accomplished.
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Can an argument be made that Tannehill's passer rating of 2016 was due more to strength of schedule than his overall skill?
 
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