Fin Thirteen
Club Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 4,664
- Reaction score
- 1,073
Make of this what you will.....
Team Efficiency Rankings: Week 7
The 3-3 Miami Dolphins may be third in their own division, but they sit in second place through seven weeks in these rankings. This is obviously a curious placement, so let's dig deeper to see why AFA sees Miami as an NFL penthouse-caliber of a team, and whether or not we should expect their future performance to more closely reflect this ranking.
If the Broncos represent the clear-cut dominant team, then the Dolphins illustrate how the next tier of teams are fairly closely clustered together. The Fins are not propped up by an artificially opponent-strength adjustment, as their 0.49 opponent GWP suggests that they have made hay against a below-average schedule. Nor have the Dolphins goosed their own GWP with a bunch of junk-time scores. Miami has run 47 offensive plays with a two-possession fourth-quarter lead this year, fourth-most in the league, but they have somehow not scored a single point in those situations. That would suggest some legitimacy in their wins, as they are staking out to leads and playing their best while the game is still in doubt.
When I wrote about the Dolphins in the Week 4 version of this column, I noted how an elite defense was propping up their ranking. That remains true, as Miami possesses the second-ranked defense in terms of efficiency, led by the best pass defense in the league. However, while All-Pro level talents like Cameron Wake and Brent Grimes are safe propositions to bank on, I also argued that Miami's offensive inconsistencies made for an unsustainable long-term formula. Adequate quarterback play is arguably the only indispensable ingredient in a winning team, and Ryan Tannehill needed to move the Dolphins out of the extreme "Good Defense/Bad Offense" EPA quadrant to take Miami seriously.
For the season, Tannehill still ranks just 26th in EPA per play and 31st in adjusted yards per attempt. However, those low rankings stem mostly from a poor start, as it is clear that he has shown significant improvement in the three games since I last talked about the Dolphins:
This is essentially night and day. Among players with at least 90 passing attempts over their past three games, Tannehill's 8.34 adjusted yards per attempt ranks seventh. Conversely, over the first three weeks, Tannehill ranked 20th out of 21 qualifiers in that stat under the same minimum pass-attempt criteria. It's been a timely turnaround for a quarterback whose job security was precarious just a month ago.
All together, that has left Tannehill with a seasonal mark of 6.4 AY/A, almost exactly in line with his career averages. These types of brief streaks aren't exactly new for Tannehill—he has had five previous three-game streaks of an AY/A of at least 6.26, which is the run he is currently on. That includes four last year alone, one of which culminated in arguably Tannehill's best career performance in a Week 15 win over the Patriots.
Of course, the Dolphins would lay eggs in their final two contests, and Tannehill's ghastly 2.55 AY/A mark over that fortnight was the worst in the league. Tannehill has tantalized with his talent repeatedly, to the point that pro-Tannehill evidence looks like noise amid widely varying signals.
Here's where it's also worth noting that Miami has given up just five sacks over the past three games (12th-best in the league), as opposed to the nine they gave up over the first three games (third-worst). Every quarterback is better with more time, but it has been magnified with Tannehill. As a predominantly one-read quarterback, Tannehill has yet to demonstrate the acumen to progress through his reads while maintaining good pocket presence, a discouraging truth given his elite athleticism. Bill Lazor's system works fine if misdirection consistently opens up that read, as Nick Folles will happily attest to, but much like Foles, Tannehill lacks the ability to stretch defenses past their first wave of coverage defense.
In facing Oakland, Green Bay and Chicago, Tannehill has feasted on a pair of bottom-10 defenses, while playing an above-average game against the sixth-ranked Packers defense. This does not really prove as much as his early-season struggles, when he faced three defenses ranked in the upper-half of the efficiency rankings. From Weeks 9-15, Miami faces seven upper-half defenses. That will tell us much more about the long-term legitimacy of both Tannehill and the Dolphins.
Team Efficiency Rankings: Week 7
The 3-3 Miami Dolphins may be third in their own division, but they sit in second place through seven weeks in these rankings. This is obviously a curious placement, so let's dig deeper to see why AFA sees Miami as an NFL penthouse-caliber of a team, and whether or not we should expect their future performance to more closely reflect this ranking.
If the Broncos represent the clear-cut dominant team, then the Dolphins illustrate how the next tier of teams are fairly closely clustered together. The Fins are not propped up by an artificially opponent-strength adjustment, as their 0.49 opponent GWP suggests that they have made hay against a below-average schedule. Nor have the Dolphins goosed their own GWP with a bunch of junk-time scores. Miami has run 47 offensive plays with a two-possession fourth-quarter lead this year, fourth-most in the league, but they have somehow not scored a single point in those situations. That would suggest some legitimacy in their wins, as they are staking out to leads and playing their best while the game is still in doubt.
When I wrote about the Dolphins in the Week 4 version of this column, I noted how an elite defense was propping up their ranking. That remains true, as Miami possesses the second-ranked defense in terms of efficiency, led by the best pass defense in the league. However, while All-Pro level talents like Cameron Wake and Brent Grimes are safe propositions to bank on, I also argued that Miami's offensive inconsistencies made for an unsustainable long-term formula. Adequate quarterback play is arguably the only indispensable ingredient in a winning team, and Ryan Tannehill needed to move the Dolphins out of the extreme "Good Defense/Bad Offense" EPA quadrant to take Miami seriously.
For the season, Tannehill still ranks just 26th in EPA per play and 31st in adjusted yards per attempt. However, those low rankings stem mostly from a poor start, as it is clear that he has shown significant improvement in the three games since I last talked about the Dolphins:
This is essentially night and day. Among players with at least 90 passing attempts over their past three games, Tannehill's 8.34 adjusted yards per attempt ranks seventh. Conversely, over the first three weeks, Tannehill ranked 20th out of 21 qualifiers in that stat under the same minimum pass-attempt criteria. It's been a timely turnaround for a quarterback whose job security was precarious just a month ago.
All together, that has left Tannehill with a seasonal mark of 6.4 AY/A, almost exactly in line with his career averages. These types of brief streaks aren't exactly new for Tannehill—he has had five previous three-game streaks of an AY/A of at least 6.26, which is the run he is currently on. That includes four last year alone, one of which culminated in arguably Tannehill's best career performance in a Week 15 win over the Patriots.
Of course, the Dolphins would lay eggs in their final two contests, and Tannehill's ghastly 2.55 AY/A mark over that fortnight was the worst in the league. Tannehill has tantalized with his talent repeatedly, to the point that pro-Tannehill evidence looks like noise amid widely varying signals.
Here's where it's also worth noting that Miami has given up just five sacks over the past three games (12th-best in the league), as opposed to the nine they gave up over the first three games (third-worst). Every quarterback is better with more time, but it has been magnified with Tannehill. As a predominantly one-read quarterback, Tannehill has yet to demonstrate the acumen to progress through his reads while maintaining good pocket presence, a discouraging truth given his elite athleticism. Bill Lazor's system works fine if misdirection consistently opens up that read, as Nick Folles will happily attest to, but much like Foles, Tannehill lacks the ability to stretch defenses past their first wave of coverage defense.
In facing Oakland, Green Bay and Chicago, Tannehill has feasted on a pair of bottom-10 defenses, while playing an above-average game against the sixth-ranked Packers defense. This does not really prove as much as his early-season struggles, when he faced three defenses ranked in the upper-half of the efficiency rankings. From Weeks 9-15, Miami faces seven upper-half defenses. That will tell us much more about the long-term legitimacy of both Tannehill and the Dolphins.
