Why Burke might be getting a mulligan...

[SF Dolphin Fan]

There's certainly some truth in that. Miami's defense played well early in the season, but the offense was so bad that they wore down.

That said, there is a serious lack of speed on defense. Teams don't have to do much to have success against the Dolphins defense, rarely needing to make the big plays down the field. Because of that, the pass rushers are negated to some extent.

I think if the team can improve the speed significantly, opponents will have less success with those quick passes to the perimeter that just eat Miami alive.

As to Burke, he's certainly still learning on the job IMO. I think the second NE game saved him.

 

[LANGER72]

Burke and his staff are mediocre. Results are mixed.
Give the man a raise!

 

[Butterfrog 2.0]

Ummm... you generally don't play from behind without the defense giving up points first.

 

[russdoe]

I agree with the idea of our defense designed to play with a lead. The 9 wide scheme supports a fast edge rusher at the expense of running up the gut. With the improvement of run defense this year, I believe the front office only wants to improve the pass rush.
I wish we went back to a flex defense we used a few years back when we had Solai. 4-3 base and 3-4 mixed in. Also, press-man coverage with good cover safetys would take away quick passes and allow time for a pass rush.

 

[tay0365]

You don't run a defensive scheme to play with a lead. You build a defense to dominant an offense.

It does if the HC believes his team Offense not only can be effective, or good, but thinks his Offense can be great. Though I agree with you. that a defense either can play well in all points of a game, or it's not a good defense, I do still want to see how good they can play when Miami's Offense can at least be effective.

 

[fansinceGWilson]

It does if the HC believes his team Offense not only can be effective, or good, but thinks his Offense can be great. Though I agree with you. that a defense either can play well in all points of a game, or it's not a good defense, I do still want to see how good they can play when Miami's Offense can at least be effective.

AND with fewer missed assignments AND ability to cover TEs

 

[Rick Cartman]

I don't think he makes the defense better. He isn't a coach that can make up for deficiencies in personnel.

 

[Carne Asada]

I don't think he makes the defense better. He isn't a coach that can make up for deficiencies in personnel.

Only two posible ways I could think we could have worked around the decline and subsequent departure of Jenkins and Hewitt would have been either Michael Thomas or Reshad Jones at FS and McD moved to weakside.

We would have been coal charred deep.

 

[johngarryvo]

a mulligan is a 2nd opportunity to make the s*** swing. fix the swing (i.e., problem) or don’t play.

 

[elite14eva]

I don't think he's going anywhere I could only hope though

 

[jazz015]

the only major defensive stat that matters is points allowed. Almost all the teams left as of now are at the top 5 in that category.

 

[tay0365]

AND with fewer missed assignments AND ability to cover TEs

We absolutely do need to see less miss assignments from the defense, and considering we have nobody at Safety or LB that can cover a TE, that also does need to be added to the off-season shopping list considering how many quality TE we face each year.

 

[Digital]

There's this ongoing discussion on the boards about why there are no changes being made on the defensive coaching staff. Most are disapointed in Harris for his lack of production as a pass rusher, and overall the whole pass rushing unit was kind of meh this season. Well I think I know, right or wrong, why they think they're not that far off. Keep in mind we have heard them say A) they built the defense to play with a lead and B) Gase is very confident in his offense capabilities... To say the least.

Here are some stats comparing the team when playing with a lead, and playing from behind. Note that the D played 561 snaps from behind, and only 196 play with a lead.

Stat-trailing-leading
Rushing Y/A- 4.4.....3.9
1st%-12%.....5%
TD%- *Sample size not big enough for ratios, but D allowed only 1 rushing TD all season when playing with a lead
Passing Y/A- 6.8.....5.8
Comp% - 66% - 60%
INT- 2.....5 *Note that we have more than twice as many INTs, despite playing less than half the snaps...
PassTDs - 16.....4 *This is significant
QBrating - 103.....71*This too

Now, while the difference is significant between both scenarios, I would assume that this can be observed to some extent with every NFL team. But I could see a case where Gase blames himself and the whole offense for the disparencies in number of snaps between playing with a lead and trailing. The thinking here is that bringing that ratio to 50/50, will in itself elevate the defense to at least an acceptable level.

And the way to change that ratio is by creating offense...

Interesting insight.

Hard for us to evaluate those statistics because we simply do not know the averages. Typically, when playing a poor team like Cleveland, a team will get a lead and the Browns will continue to suck, so the lead aspect is as much a reflection of the quality of opponent as anything. When playing New England, you're not likely to have a lead long as the Patriots are an offensive juggernaut aided by the refs ... which is incredibly tough to stop. But somewhere in there are means and medians or at least numbers for the middle 50% of teams (offenses ranked 7-25) of how teams typically perform with and without leads. I am just unfamiliar with those statistics. But, assuming the Dolphins decision makers are familiar with them, and have made an astute analysis, this does give us reason for optimism.

Maybe we're built to be the type of defense Peyton Manning had in Indianapolis, and if Tannehill can get the offense producing, we stand a chance of a massive improvement. Only allowing 1 rushing TD when we had a lead, generating 4x the INT's when we had a lead, allowing far less passing TD's when we had a lead, and the much improved QBrating against number does look impressive. I'm interested in how this nets out vs. other defenses.

Very intriguing. Thanks NBP81.

 

[NBP81]

Interesting insight.

Hard for us to evaluate those statistics because we simply do not know the averages. Typically, when playing a poor team like Cleveland, a team will get a lead and the Browns will continue to suck, so the lead aspect is as much a reflection of the quality of opponent as anything. When playing New England, you're not likely to have a lead long as the Patriots are an offensive juggernaut aided by the refs ... which is incredibly tough to stop. But somewhere in there are means and medians or at least numbers for the middle 50% of teams (offenses ranked 7-25) of how teams typically perform with and without leads. I am just unfamiliar with those statistics. But, assuming the Dolphins decision makers are familiar with them, and have made an astute analysis, this does give us reason for optimism.

Maybe we're built to be the type of defense Peyton Manning had in Indianapolis, and if Tannehill can get the offense producing, we stand a chance of a massive improvement. Only allowing 1 rushing TD when we had a lead, generating 4x the INT's when we had a lead, allowing far less passing TD's when we had a lead, and the much improved QBrating against number does look impressive. I'm interested in how this nets out vs. other defenses.

Very intriguing. Thanks NBP81.

I only scratched the surface on those numbers, which came from pro-football-reference.com's defensive splits. It would have been very time consuming to compare each team since there is no ready made table on their site for splits, the stats are on each individual team's pages. But I did check out some of the top 10 Ds around the league and noticed a couple of things right away.

• Every top 10 defense I checked played significantly better with a lead. Although I cant tell you at what rate compared to the Fins.
• This one is obvious... Top 10 Ds played better than the Fins, with or without a lead.
• This one is why I made the thread in the first place: All the top 10 Ds I checked had the inverse number of snaps of playing with a lead/trailing... All of them played almost twice as many snaps with a lead compared to trailing.... The Fins ratio is out of whack on that one, its the opposite as they played trailing snaps more than twice as many than leading snaps...

As you say though, one would have to go much deeper than this to draw serious conclusions. The most glaring flaw here is that defenses have a big say in how often their team is leading, all units depend on one another so it gets tricky. But there's still no question in my mind that the lack of offense made the D look worse than it really is, I'm just not sure to what extent...

 

[Eesti]

The D-line is just not a very good unit. They don't have a legit weak side rusher. The #2 DT's we have are more likely #3 or 4 rotational guys. we have an All-Pro pass rusher who is not great at dropping in coverage or playing the run. Top it off with the fact that we have LBer's who cannot tackle. The scheme is based on the DT's getting up-field and they have not had one consistently do it (outside of Suh).

I would not bank on Jordan Phillips. Sure he may have a huge contract year but then what? I would also not bank on our 2nd year players turning into dominant DT's. It may happen but I wouldn't count on it.

If they want to improve this unit and stop wasting Suh's (and Wakes) valuable years they need to find a DT who is more consistently disruptive and commands double teams. You would then see a much different and more dominant Ndamukong Suh. There are a couple in this draft.

I love Wake but we need a base SDE (Hayes) as long as he is here. I would like to see better play from the weak side and a bigger SDE who can play the run as well as offer a pass rush. Give me some 6'5 275 lb DE's.