Miami in close games under Philbin

[FinaticalFinfan]

2012
week 4 Cardinals 7 point lead with 3 minutes left. sack/fumble/TURNOVER
week 5 Bengals 4 point lead with 2 minutes left. PUNT
week 6 Rams 3 point lead with 2 minutes left. PUNT
2013
Week 2 Colts 4 point lead with 4 minutes left. PUNT
Week 6 Bills 1 point lead with 3 minutes left. SACK/TURNOVER
Week 11 Chargers 4 point lead with 2 minutes left. PUNT
Week 12 Panthers 3 point lead with 4 minutes left PUNT
2014
Week 6 Green Bay 4 point lead with 2 minutes left. PUNT

These are all the times we had the ball and a one score lead with 4 minutes or less to play, every one of these drives ended with a pass attempt except the Green Bay game and the Rams game, and the Rams was a 3rd and 1 situation, you can't really begrudge a coach for running on 3rd and 1. You most definitely can't say he hasn't been aggressive in this situation before and I think it was correct to run it vs Green bay, especially in light of how our offense was performing on that drive, and in general in this situation in the past. Like I said, its a lose-lose situation for Philbin.

What are you talking about? They got a first down on that drive. And RT/offense was having a great second half.

 

[roy_miami]

What are you talking about? They got a first down on that drive. And RT/offense was having a great second half.

He had an 11 yard completion. A batted pass. A 9 yard sack. And a throwaway/near sack. Yeah, he was playing fantabulous....

 

[FinaticalFinfan]

He had an 11 yard completion. A batted pass. A 9 yard sack. And a throwaway/near sack. Yeah, he was playing fantabulous....

So, in THIS instance, the nine yard sack counts? Even though it resulted in the SECOND 1st down gained during the last drive???? I am sorry, during last weeks game, during the first offensive series, do we say RT CONVERTED a first down?? I mean even though there was an offensive penalty, which erased that completion and 1st down, do we count it anyway? C'mon man!!! The prior series (in the GB GAME BEFORE THE LAST SERIES) he went 4-4 for 71 yards and a touchdown!!! Series prior to that he was 4-5 for 42 yards and a touchdown!!! He was 1-3 on the last series with one of those incompletes a throw away that most FAIR minded people would say was a good move considering 3rd and 7 is better than 3rd and 20 if in fact the coach wasn't queasy and in fact was going for a first down. Stop grasping for straws, Philbin/Lazor screwed up the GB game.

 

[roy_miami]

So, in THIS instance, the nine yard sack counts? Even though it resulted in the SECOND 1st down gained during the last drive???? I am sorry, during last weeks game, during the first offensive series, do we say RT CONVERTED a first down?? I mean even though there was an offensive penalty, which erased that completion and 1st down, do we count it anyway? C'mon man!!! The prior series (in the GB GAME BEFORE THE LAST SERIES) he went 4-4 for 71 yards and a touchdown!!! Series prior to that he was 4-5 for 42 yards and a touchdown!!! He was 1-3 on the last series with one of those incompletes a throw away that most FAIR minded people would say was a good move considering 3rd and 7 is better than 3rd and 20 if in fact the coach wasn't queasy and in fact was going for a first down. Stop grasping for straws, Philbin/Lazor screwed up the GB game.

If you're looking to gauge how the QB is playing why would you ignore the sack? How many times has he been sacked in that situation before? Twice out of 8 instances we were in that situation he was not only sacked but lost the ball. I know he was sacked on our final offensive play vs the Chargers too. So that's 3 out of 8, at least. Plus the sack that was called back due to penalty would have left us with a 3rd and 20 vs the Packers.

As far as the throwaway they sent 6, we had 5 blockers, yet we did nothing to account for the extra rusher. How does that happen? Typically, when this happens with other teams the announcer will say the QB should have fixed the protection. I'm not an X's and O's guy so I don't know. What I do know is that play was going to fail as ran 100% of the time. And that is ****ed up.

 

[FinaticalFinfan]

If you're looking to gauge how the QB is playing why would you ignore the sack? How many times has he been sacked in that situation before? Twice out of 8 instances we were in that situation he was not only sacked but lost the ball. I know he was sacked on our final offensive play vs the Chargers too. So that's 3 out of 8, at least. Plus the sack that was called back due to penalty would have left us with a 3rd and 20 vs the Packers.

As far as the throwaway they sent 6, we had 5 blockers, yet we did nothing to account for the extra rusher. How does that happen? Typically, when this happens with other teams the announcer will say the QB should have fixed the protection. I'm not an X's and O's guy so I don't know. What I do know is that play was going to fail as ran 100% of the time. And that is ****ed up.

Like I said, most here disregarded the pass play that would have resulted a 1st down that was wiped out in the first series last week when discussing the qb...all I am saying is you can't have it both ways....and that particular sack I put a lot less on RT than on line, though maybe there was more he could have done on that particular play...I don't know, and admittedly you dont either so hard to lay blame. And anyways, I only responded to your statement of how poorly RT was playing during the last series, when in fact he and the offense had been rolling prior, while trying to absolve Philbin and him being queasy.

 

[Fins1971]

I'm not sure one can derive the conclusion from that statistic. Maybe most of those 46% were games in which both teams were non-playoff teams. Do the stats show the point spread only among games including playoff teams? Maybe we'll find that playoff teams beat non-playoff teams by an average of 7 or more points. If this is the case, one can argue that the key is becoming a regular member of the +7 points club. I'm not saying the +7 points thing is a fact, just pointing out that the OP's conclusion is not necessarily supported by the evidence as presented.

That said, I totally agree that we need to be better at those close games. We had the ball and the lead with 4 minutes to go, in 9 games? And our record for those games is 4-5? That is absolutely shameful. If our guys are good enough to lead the game after 56 minutes, they're good enough to win. At that point, it's coaching and play-calling.

I went back for the dolphins to see what we have done in previous years.

In 2008 we were 7-2 in close games and ended up with 11-5 record. We made the playoffs.
In 2009 we were 6-3 in close games but only had 1 blowout win and ended up 7-9
In 2010 we were 5-5 in close games and ended up 7-9
In 2011 we were 2-5 in close games and end up 6-10
In 2012 we were 3-5 in close games and ended up 7-9
In 2013 we were 6-4 in close games and ended up 8-8

Over that span we are 26-24 in close games and 46-50 overall.
So you could be right. Our record overall is pretty much what we are getting in close games. If we were a better team we would win more of these close games.
One of those Chicken and the Egg dilemmas

 

[tay0365]

Was having a discussion last night with Roy_maimi and decided to create a thread dedicated to this topic. So before I get started, thx ROY

In the last twenty years 46.12% of all the NFL regular season games were decided by 7 or less points. So the key to being successful is being better than average in these close game situations. Usually the playoff teams have a winning record in these close games and non-playoff teams struggle to close out games. So here is my analysis of those close games under Philbin -Tannehill since 2012

In the 39 games we have had 10 blowout losses (lose by more than 7) and 10 blowout wins (win by more than 7) and 19 games decided by 7 or fewer points. One of those 19 games was a seven point win by Patriots where they ran out the clock and we never really had a chance to win. So I’ll move that over into the blowout loss column. That leaves 18 of 39 (46.15% right at league average) games where the game was up for grabs at the end. Our record in those 18 games is 9-9. Here is a breakdown of those 18 games.

In those 18 games 9 times we have had the ball with the lead and less than 4 minutes to play. The classic 4 minute drive situation. Offense needs 1 to 3 first downs to seal the game. The offense has failed every single time (0 for 9). You actually have to go all the back to the last game of the 2008 season against Jets to see us actually pull off a 4 minute drive. And even in that game we had to punt with 28 seconds remaining. Just by co-incidence that is the last time we have made the playoffs. That is the equivalent of a relief pitcher coming in and giving up a home run every time or a golfer playing a hole perfectly and then missing the 4 foot putt every time. It is pretty much choking in a pressure situation. I’m sick of it. In those 9 situations where gave the ball back and expected the defense to win the game we are 4-5.

Now this isn't a bash the offense thread for not doing their job. In the other 9 games we have been behind and needed the offense to produce a game winning drive. The offense has produced the game winning drive 4 times, failed 4 times and tied the game to send it to OT in the 9[SUP]th[/SUP]. So 4.5 of 9 were successful. I’ll give the other .5 to the defense for the safety in OT against Cincinnati. So of the 9 close game wins the Offense accounts for 4.5 and Defense accounts for 4.5. Good balance but not good enough. It should also be noted that on the 4 game winning drive games only 1 was last second. So 3 more times the Defense had to hold at the end of game to preserve the game winning drive. That really makes them 7 of 12 in those situations.

So what is the solution?

Reduce the number of games turned over to the defense. Offense gets 4 of these chances a year on average. If they just convert one of them that is one more win. Then this leaves the defense with only 3 games to defend. They are around 58% in those situations so that would equate to being successful 2 of 3 times. Just simply closing out one game on offense can have a big impact on season win total. We have had one this year so far and are due for another this week against S.D.

Any clues why we are so pitiful in running the 4:00 minute drive?

Basically when we are leading and need to get those 1st downs, teams know we will not be passing, so they will cheat a bit while still making sure we don't take advantage with an unexpected pass. Our problem is we don't have a consistent powerback.

Miami might make a few 1st downs here and there to run out some clock, and Miami might move the ball close enough to get a 3rd & 2 or less consistently, but without a consistent powerback, Miami will eventually fail to convert enough 1st downs to run out the clock.

 

[Fins1971]

Good points, last time we were successful in the 4 minute drill Ronnie Brown was our back and we rushed it 8 straight times for 40 yards. Didn't even attempt a pass.
I would think that is one of the things that Daniel Thomas was brought in for. It hasn't worked out.

 

[tay0365]

Good points, last time we were successful in the 4 minute drill Ronnie Brown was our back and we rushed it 8 straight times for 40 yards. Didn't even attempt a pass.
I would think that is one of the things that Daniel Thomas was brought in for. It hasn't worked out.

I was hoping this year Moreno was going to provide that for us, and after the game against the Pats, it was looking good...oh well.

 

[roy_miami]

As far as I can tell there was only one time we didn't attempt a pass on our final offensive series with a one score lead, and that was against Pittsburgh when they failed to get the first down on 4th down leaving us in field goal range.

 

[Sirspud]

Philbin and Tannehill are not winners and this analysis shows the clear reason why. It's always impressive to see the way that Tannehill and the team are able to rally and come from behind to be competitive in games. There have been a lot of games where we have done that, and some good wins we have gotten out of it. But there are a lot of mediocre QB's who when all they are asked to do is air it out with their backs against the wall, can do so very well. I have more faith in this team to win when behind late in the 4th than ahead, because whereas behind makes what the team needs to do obvious, when we are faced with a decision of whether to run or pass, or our QB is tasked with a simple play, we inevitably do the wrong thing. We run when pass makes sense, and pass when running the ball 3 times is almost certain to win the game. Sometimes we throw an incompletion to stop the clock, sometimes we take a sack fumble that wins the game for the other team in an almost certain to win scenario. Tannehill is also maddeningly bad at maximizing his production and turning it into points. So often he does well to do things like put himself into Fg range, then take a sack where he was guilty of holding the ball, taking points off the board. His success rate when given the ball to seal the game is startlingly low, as he seems to far more often stop the clock with an incompletion than ice the game with a throw. Yet Philbin doesn't stop putting the ball in his hands as if he were Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady.

To me, Philbin and Tannehill are one and the same. They both pass the eye test by displaying capability and potential, yet they fail a disturbing amount of times when they can take good play and make it into a victory. We played well enough to win 10-11 games last year. We won 8. Even in games where we won, we sometimes entirely outplayed the other team, yet failure to leverage key game situations resulted in us winning by a narrow margin or the skin of our teeth at the end rather than a comfortable victory. By far the easiest example of this is the Cincy game, but it was present all over.

I don't believe in Philbin or Tannehill because no matter how well the team plays, I feel like the chance of either one or both together costing us a victory is significant, and I know that when its all stacked up, we could be a 10 win team based on what we are capable of on the field, but I know coach and QB don't have what it takes to seal those wins.

 

[Fins1971]

Bump,

That is now 10 in a row that RT17 has left to the defense, what a horrible streak that could have ended today.

 

[CO-Gator]

 

[NJPHINFAN79]

Philbin is the worst 4th quarter game manager of all ****ing time 2 games this year are squarely on his shoulders....

 

[Miami1]

Philbin continue to come out flat. And finish weak. If Philbin could just coach in quarters 2 and 3 we may be a playoff team.

Where is the play calling in the 4th quarter? It drops off, and the team drops off.