claytonduper
Starter
- Joined
- May 23, 2004
- Messages
- 2,420
- Reaction score
- 3,229
No, but our LB at #11 should
Phins Sign Terence Garvin
- Thread starter NyPhan23
- Start date
DefensiveEnd76
Football Guru
Yet another scrawny underpowered LB to join our roster.
Dolph N.Fan
Active Roster
Hull isn’t doing too bad for an undrafted player. If anything he’s exceeded what minimal expectations he had. Not sure what people are expecting from Hull.
Wishfishin
Waterboy
Can't help but think of this when I hear the name Garvin.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/fred-garvin-male-prostitute/n8669?snl=1
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/fred-garvin-male-prostitute/n8669?snl=1
Wasn't specifically calling anyone out brother and I was speaking in general relativity. In general people dismiss these types of acquisition as camp folder when in reality the bottom of your roster might be the difference in playoffs and missing them.
No one knows when that injury bug is going to bite.
Jimmy Johnson made a killing backfilling his team. If he better than one of the other 53, sign him. It only makes the entire roster better.
ckparrothead
Premium Member
Miami's defense was, snap for snap, the slowest in football a year ago.
That's not hyperbole or exaggeration.
There were three big reasons they were as slow as they were:
1. Unlike some teams, they didn't have real linebackers with speed. Lawrence Timmons was never particularly fast when he was a young man. As an old man, he was sluggish. Kiko Alonso is a 4.7 guy. Chase Allen moves like he has ankle weights, regardless of the testing. Raekwon McMillan spent the year injured. Neville Hewitt spent the year injured. Mike Hull is slow. They grabbed Stephone Anthony and eventually brought him onto the field out of desperation. As a draft prospect out of Clemson, coverage was always his biggest question mark, regardless of his forty time. But Miami had to put him out there on obvious pass situations in nickel because he was the ONLY player at the position with any speed whatsoever.
2. Unlike yet other teams, Miami does not make use of a growing class of hybrid LB/S players that come out of college with more experience playing S or Rover than LB. In the old days, these were just strong safeties. No real confusion there, nothing hybrid about them. They were strong safeties and that was that. Today they're hybrids. We're talking about guys like Mark Barron, Ray Ray Armstrong, Su'a Cravens, Adarius Glanton, Deone Buccanon, Shaq Thompson, Darron Lee, and yes Terence Garvin was one of those players. I have a big, running list of them. This is sort of tied in with the first point but not precisely the same. These guys generally play more like defensive backs even if they're referred to as linebackers.
3. Unlike most of the teams in the NFL, the Dolphins eschew Dime personnel packages altogether. They used 6-DB packages a total of I think 7 times in 2017 and only maybe 20 times in 2016 (maybe less). The rest of the NFL uses 6-DB packages, especially if you count the hybrids as what they are which is basically strong safeties, nearly as often as they use BASE defense. I'll say that again. The average defensive personnel package in the NFL is now a Nickel defense (5-DBs), and Dime (6-DBs) is used nearly as often as Base (4-DBs). The "front seven" as a term...is outdated. So are "4-3" and "3-4". But the Dolphins never use Dime. They were one of the handful of teams to never do that. But unlike most of those other teams, they did NOT have points #1 or #2 going for them. No speed in the linebackers unit, no hybrid players. They just over-used traditional linebackers, and it didn't work out very well for them.
So with that context in mind you look at what they're doing signing a Terence Garvin, who was a rover at West Virginia and came out about 6'2" & 222 lbs, and to me it represents a significant change in philosophy. They're going to start correcting some of their mistakes.
On tape, Garvin actually looks like he could help. The Dolphins sniffed at Emmanuel Lamur, formerly of the Bengals playing under Matt Burke there, and he's another guy that came out of college a safety, has since been moved to linebacker. The Bengals had him at Sam linebacker while Burke was there. Garvin and Lamur are similar and the Seahawks often had him on the line in a Sam-like role.
Miami's defense had a number of problems last year even getting aside from them being the slowest in the NFL. They allowed too much on passing from BASE personnel. They allowed too much in running from NICKEL personnel. And then their 3rd & Long defense (ehem, DIME) just absolutely sucked.
Terence Garvin as a SAM would actually impact the first of these problems, which is allowing too much on the pass from BASE. He's got the speed and coverage chops to change that equation a little bit.
Does he help you defend the run when you've got NICKEL on the field, and it's not an obvious pass situation? No. That's not where you want him.
But can he turn around and help you in DIME situations (3rd & Long)? Absolutely. His speed and coverage chops would be useful there, certainly more so than Stephone Anthony who played that role a year ago.
All that said, do we hope that Terence Garvin is doing all this? Maybe not. It's nice, it feels like a warm security blanket, to know that they have him there and he can be the floor for what you can have going for you in these situations. But they may have an opportunity via the draft to shoot for a little bit better.
That's not hyperbole or exaggeration.
There were three big reasons they were as slow as they were:
1. Unlike some teams, they didn't have real linebackers with speed. Lawrence Timmons was never particularly fast when he was a young man. As an old man, he was sluggish. Kiko Alonso is a 4.7 guy. Chase Allen moves like he has ankle weights, regardless of the testing. Raekwon McMillan spent the year injured. Neville Hewitt spent the year injured. Mike Hull is slow. They grabbed Stephone Anthony and eventually brought him onto the field out of desperation. As a draft prospect out of Clemson, coverage was always his biggest question mark, regardless of his forty time. But Miami had to put him out there on obvious pass situations in nickel because he was the ONLY player at the position with any speed whatsoever.
2. Unlike yet other teams, Miami does not make use of a growing class of hybrid LB/S players that come out of college with more experience playing S or Rover than LB. In the old days, these were just strong safeties. No real confusion there, nothing hybrid about them. They were strong safeties and that was that. Today they're hybrids. We're talking about guys like Mark Barron, Ray Ray Armstrong, Su'a Cravens, Adarius Glanton, Deone Buccanon, Shaq Thompson, Darron Lee, and yes Terence Garvin was one of those players. I have a big, running list of them. This is sort of tied in with the first point but not precisely the same. These guys generally play more like defensive backs even if they're referred to as linebackers.
3. Unlike most of the teams in the NFL, the Dolphins eschew Dime personnel packages altogether. They used 6-DB packages a total of I think 7 times in 2017 and only maybe 20 times in 2016 (maybe less). The rest of the NFL uses 6-DB packages, especially if you count the hybrids as what they are which is basically strong safeties, nearly as often as they use BASE defense. I'll say that again. The average defensive personnel package in the NFL is now a Nickel defense (5-DBs), and Dime (6-DBs) is used nearly as often as Base (4-DBs). The "front seven" as a term...is outdated. So are "4-3" and "3-4". But the Dolphins never use Dime. They were one of the handful of teams to never do that. But unlike most of those other teams, they did NOT have points #1 or #2 going for them. No speed in the linebackers unit, no hybrid players. They just over-used traditional linebackers, and it didn't work out very well for them.
So with that context in mind you look at what they're doing signing a Terence Garvin, who was a rover at West Virginia and came out about 6'2" & 222 lbs, and to me it represents a significant change in philosophy. They're going to start correcting some of their mistakes.
On tape, Garvin actually looks like he could help. The Dolphins sniffed at Emmanuel Lamur, formerly of the Bengals playing under Matt Burke there, and he's another guy that came out of college a safety, has since been moved to linebacker. The Bengals had him at Sam linebacker while Burke was there. Garvin and Lamur are similar and the Seahawks often had him on the line in a Sam-like role.
Miami's defense had a number of problems last year even getting aside from them being the slowest in the NFL. They allowed too much on passing from BASE personnel. They allowed too much in running from NICKEL personnel. And then their 3rd & Long defense (ehem, DIME) just absolutely sucked.
Terence Garvin as a SAM would actually impact the first of these problems, which is allowing too much on the pass from BASE. He's got the speed and coverage chops to change that equation a little bit.
Does he help you defend the run when you've got NICKEL on the field, and it's not an obvious pass situation? No. That's not where you want him.
But can he turn around and help you in DIME situations (3rd & Long)? Absolutely. His speed and coverage chops would be useful there, certainly more so than Stephone Anthony who played that role a year ago.
All that said, do we hope that Terence Garvin is doing all this? Maybe not. It's nice, it feels like a warm security blanket, to know that they have him there and he can be the floor for what you can have going for you in these situations. But they may have an opportunity via the draft to shoot for a little bit better.
Or to replace Michael Thomas on special teams