Intangibles or Luck? | The 2017 Dolphins Should be 2-4 | Page 8 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Intangibles or Luck? | The 2017 Dolphins Should be 2-4

Is it intangibles or luck?

  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .
Daytona Fin said:
It wasn't luck. Koo was a bad kicker. He's already been cut and replaced.
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OK, but its not like the Dolphins actually did anything to make him miss. It wasn't blocked. The field position was good for any other kicker. It's just that the Dolphins had the good fortune to be in that position with a team with a bad kicker.
 
Complimentary 4th quarter play....

Its certainly an intangible...

Wonder what these two statistics would say if it was only factoring in the fourth Quarter...

3 straight games we have completely shut down / shutout the opponent in the fourth quarter and have also had 2 key interceptions...
 
SkapePhin said:
OK, but its not like the Dolphins actually did anything to make him miss. It wasn't blocked. The field position was good for any other kicker. It's just that the Dolphins had the good fortune to be in that position with a team with a bad kicker.
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Likewise the Chargers were fortunate that our 1 minute drill prevent defense caved and let them attempt a 44 yarder. The Chargers are 1-5 from 40-49 area, their lone kick came against us.
 
SkapePhin said:
OK, but its not like the Dolphins actually did anything to make him miss. It wasn't blocked. The field position was good for any other kicker. It's just that the Dolphins had the good fortune to be in that position with a team with a bad kicker.
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It was longer than a extra point attempt. And I see 2 to 3 missed ever week,and guess what some cost there teams the game.
 
Intangibles 80%....Luck 20%.

I've lost count on how many "close games" we've lost due to some "unlucky breaks" (inopportune TO's, momentum-killing penalties, etc).


Finally, since Gase has been here one of the biggest Achilles heels' (close games lost) has turned into some "lucky wins". By luck, hook or crook a W is a W in the win column IMHO.
 
where's th'fish said:
You can't possibly say that Gase has powers that make opposing kickers miss.


...or does he? That's what I meant when I posted that we're magic. Maybe he does and magic is real. That would be really cool
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LOL, Of course not! There's a logical explanation for every one of those ... for instance ... Cody Parkey. Gase built a time machine, went back in time from this year to promise Parkey a starting spot as our kicker this year if he'd just miss the kicks when he was at the Browns. See, now Gase is just repaying that promise. Because that's what determined leaders do ... build time machines and make promises from the future to ensure we win today!
 
Based on the discussion here, it looks to me that the possible intangible that best explains the Dolphins' unexpected record is their ability to somehow bear down and be better than other teams when the game is close in the fourth quarter.

The question is, can that ability, if it exists, be sustained, or will the Dolphins need to develop some other, more traditional way of winning to continue their winning ways.
 
Etuoo33 said:
And just like that, the theory is proved...
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Ironically enough, after last night and some of the other games this team has played this year -- for example they are the only team in NFL history to go scoreless in the first halves of four of its first seven games of a season -- you could propose that there is some sort of intangible(s) that functions in a negative way for this team.

There may be the positive intangibles that explain why they overcome the odds and have a winning record, but there may also be negative ones that explain why they play so poorly during the first halves of such a large percentage of games.
 
TheWozz said:
We should go back and evaluate the 17-0 season for lucky wins. I\m guessing that there are some we got "lucky".
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Game three at Minnesota. I don't have to guess. I remember every game and attended every home game. I've detailed this many times. The Vikings were incredibly energized and the Dolphins were physically pushed around the majority of the game. Fortunately the defense managed key interceptions every time the Vikings were threatening to expand the margin. Then Yepremian made an extremely unlikely 51 yard field goal outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium to cut the margin within a touchdown in the middle of the 4th quarter. Miss that kick and the game ends tamely in the Vikings' favor. A 51 yarder in that era was the equivalent to closer to 60 today, especially in that stadium, which was dusty and combo football/baseball

Minnesota had 35 rushes to Miami's 26. That category was incredibly important in that era. It was the only game all season we didn't have more rushes than the opponent. Other than the Vikings game at 26, the second lowest rushing attempt total we had was 37 in the Super Bowl against Washington.

The other shaky games were hosting the Jets, and especially the playoff opener against Cleveland, when we nearly choked but escaped largely on one huge play -- deep post route from Morrall to Warfield that woke up both the offense and the silent scared crowd. Again, I've detailed that play many times. It is easily the most underrated play in franchise history.

Neither one of those games were lucky. But we escaped when the odds were 50/50 or nearby in the 4th quarter. The 2016 and 2017 Dolphins have managed one victory after another when the theoretical win odds late in the game were avalanched in favor of the opposition, often 6/1 or greater. That's what the OP is referring to. It is a valid argument, and likewise the categories he cites are the ones that align with how strong a team really is. More often than not. As always -- more often than not.

The problem on fan sites is the obsession with here and now. It's not what I'm accustomed to, so I struggle. For example, I've always argued that margin of victory is a huge tipoff to fortunes going forward. Sharp guys who bet the season win totals look at teams with poor or mediocre won/loss records but ones that dominated the opposition in the games they did win. With NFL talent level so crowded those large number of landslide wins are indication that the roster is probably more loaded than conventional wisdom prefers. Once the victory percentage in close games naturally levels out, then you could really have something.

Again, this is something I've mentioned for years. Bill James used the same criteria in baseball, isolating teams that won by 2 runs or more on a frequent basis. He knew they were likely underrated, as opposed to teams finding ways to squeak out 1 run wins.

Obviously the hefty margin of victory variable doesn't apply to the Gase Dolphins, so the fan base prefers to argue the other way, that frequency of close wins is the key factor, and the head coach is somehow worth +2 extra wins per season.

I know what I would call that last one.

The Ravens' games aren't particularly meaningful. For two consecutive years the Dolphins were a mediocre team but on a string of close often desperate wins when they headed into Baltimore. And got thumped. Make the Ravens a mediocre team on a string of fortunate wins and send them to our place. They'll get dumped. More often than not. But not 38-6 or 40-0.

Gase needs a sample of lopsided wins in games he's expected to win narrowly or lose narrowly. I think I emphasized that a month or so ago. He is in very short supply there. Those season win totals would be shifted wildly in either direction if you could guarantee the team would either win every one-score game, or lose every one-score game. It's awesome to be on the plus side but I'm not sure how much stock to put into it, when nothing else aligns.

I seldom care about technical football anymore. But from a Dolphins standpoint I have no idea how any opponent plays its secondary off the line of scrimmage as opposed to tight and nasty. Miami relies on so much crossing and underneath stuff, and in cute combination. Disrupt that and right now Gase has nothing to fall back on. Well, it's there but for whatever reason he's too timid to call it, not when another flanker screen is available. You know it's a bad night when your number one complaint is woulda-coulda-shoulda on a 3rd and 10 screen. Fortunately the Jets all but handed us the keys to the comeback by stupidly backing off 7-10 yards late in the game, enabling the underneath stuff to roam uncontested, and combined with kamikaze blitzes that gave those shorties more chance to turn into biggies when Moore had enough time. Much appreciated.

Once the Ravens were challenging the receivers on the line of scrimmage it looked like a bad night ahead. Landry is only a tough guy when his 10-steps-within-5-yards skill set is allowed to unfold unchallenged. Then with a head of steam he can really unload on that next defender.

In my most recent post here I described the defense as overrated, that the personnel didn't suggest the level of praise I was seeing everywhere after 5 games. The good news is we somehow survived two lousy defensive outings and managed a split in those games. Now the defense figures to play the next stretch of games above the past two.

As always with these Dolphins, don't pay too much attention to recent results. Remember the Alamo...or the Crowd.
 
Along the lines of the original post in this thread, last night the Dolphins surrendered an opposing YPA of 10. The average YPA in the league is usually around 7.4.

So far this year there have been 30 games in the league in which at least one of the two teams involved had a YPA of at least 9.5.

The team with the YPA of at least 9.5 in those games is 29-1.

The average margin of victory in those games has been 12.5 points.

In the one game in which a team with a YPA of at least 9.5 lost, the opposing team had a YPA of 10.9 (Rams versus Seahawks on October 29th).

Last night the Dolphins surrendered a YPA of 10 to Derek Carr.

Jay Cutler's YPA on the other hand was an average 7.4.

There is a lot of talk about the penalties the Dolphins committed last night, but I submit that the Dolphins' pass defense was the central problem in the game, as it has been all year overall.
 
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