There's definitely a lot of negative buzz about Jon Martin today.
Barry Jackson noted the two sacks Dion Jordan had on Martin last night:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/spor...hins-news-views-from-wednesdays-practice.html
Andrew Abramson wrote a piece showing concern about Martin:
http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/thed...-mike-wallace-returns-but-brian-hartline-out/
Armando Salguero wrote a piece showing concern about Martin:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2013/08/on-lance-louis-and-jonathan-martin.html
Hell, even Greg Cote has weighed in:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/31/3534954/greg-cote-lets-hope-fins-got-it.html
Here's the thing. For me, all that's happened is good.
Dion Jordan said he got only ten reps in the scrimmage, and I'm sure at least half were against second and third stringers. And last night, he's still mostly working with second and third string, so I doubt he got all that many reps against the first string last night. What I'm getting at is that on a bare handful of plays against the first team over a two day stretch, he's produced
four sacks.
That's really pretty incredible. It puts two things in perspective.
1. It makes the previous success Olivier Vernon was having against Martin during the first week of camp look a little suspicious. Just yesterday, prior to the practice Armando Salguero was openly pondering whether Olivier Vernon is just that good or Jonathan Martin is that bad, when recounting how the first week of practices played out. Yet, by the numbers, Dion Jordan is doing even better against Martin. As a rookie.
2. It makes Jonathan Martin look pretty bad, obviously.
It's bad for Jon Martin for sure, but that's not relevant to me at this point in time.
I already figured Jon Martin was going to suck this year. You've heard me complaining about this for months and months, that the Dolphins look like they're going to move their weakest offensive lineman from a year ago to the most important position on the offensive line and I just...don't...get...that. I've never bought this faith that he was going to be like night and day compared with last year. In my experience, that happens a lot less frequently than people think. Even when they think it's happened,
I often find that a thorough film view of the guy in the prior year uncovers the truth, which is that he was pretty good the previous year too but just under appreciated. Changes tend to happen more gradually than people think. So while people can talk about the improvements to his body, etc...I never expected "night and day" improvement in 2013, especially the first half of the year.
So that was already built in, for me.
What I didn't know is how good Dion Jordan would be as a pass rusher right away in the NFL, and being honest we still don't know that. I'm not saying we know that now. But we have some pretty damn positive indications and that's a good thing.
The question is, what kind of impact will this have if Jonathan Martin is indeed bad?
To me the answer is: more significant than you'd hope, and less significant than you'd fear.
I have been bringing this up before but the Miami Dolphins once won 11 games with SPENCER FOLAU at left tackle. And that was with Jay Fiedler throwing the ball and Lamar Smith running it. So trust me, a left tackle can be overcome. Many of the best passing attacks in the league don't feature accomplished left tackles. They're much better than Jon Martin was in 2012 for sure, but they're not great. So let's not get caught up thinking Miami goes from a 10 win team to a 6 win team because of this.
On the other hand, the difference is significant. Personally, I've already been building in expectations about Jonathan Martin. That's one reason I'm at 8-8 with a shade toward 7-9 as opposed to everyone else being at 9-7 or 10-6. Jake Long did not have a great year last year. He had some bad games. But here's the tale of the difference between the first 11 games of the year when Jake was manning the left tackle spot, and the last 5 games when Jon Martin was doing it:
1. The Dolphins QBs went from being pressured once every 3.5 drop backs to being pressured once every 2.9 drop backs. That's a 22% increase in pressure.
2. The Dolphins QBs went from averaging 2.0 sacks per game to 3.0 sacks per game. That's a 50% increase in sacks.
3. This could be laid
directly at Jon Martin's feet as Jake Long allowed a pressure on 4.9% of pass snaps the first 11 games, and Martin allowed a pressure on 11.4% of pass snaps the final 5 games.
4. The Dolphins offense went from averaging 321 yards of offense per game to averaging 290 yards per game.
5. The Dolphins offense went from averaging 19.2 points per game to averaging 15.4 points per game.
So this could be significant enough to damage your expectations by a game or two,
IF you were building in expectations of Jon Martin playing well or 'decently'. I wasn't.
