Run the Ball + Stop the Run = Success

[HoneyB]

Cue the people who believe Tannehill would play better with a better running game, despite that there is no objective support for that.

It will not make Tannehill better per se, but it will make the offense better. Our 3rd down yardage percentage will be better and we'll have more scoring opportunities. You've seen the stats yourself, we exchanged a fairly good running game and run defense for a passing game and pass defense. You can't have one or the other, you need balance.

 

[LANGER72]

If we go into the 2014 season with Miller and Thomas again, I'm going to scream.

It won't happen. Our new GM will get us a workhorse back....hopefully

 

[HoneyB]

hey what happened to your name.

 

[Matt Haynes]

Look at those teams in the playoffs. Look at our O-line and RB's. Cannot protect against the pass, cannot open lanes for the RB's. Nor do our RB's keep the pile moving and fight for extra yards. Look at the 3 backs in New England, look at Seatle's back Lynch. They give it their all on every run. Lamar Miller is fast but does not use that extra push to get extra yard(s). Daniel Thomas runs to upright, which is why he can be tackled by his jersey. No pop when these two backs hit the holes that are there. No RB vision to bounce outside to get yardage. These "playoff teams" do that. Those backs make the necessary cuts to get into the running lanes. Why do our backs not do that? Poor blocking there, when the blocks are there. They fail to fight for the extra push. QB play is slightly under what we expected mostly because we do not protect well enough. The only thing I saw that could be better is finding the blitzes. In the first game against New England during the second half. Ryan picked up the blitz but did not see the flop when he did. Every time he picked up the original, the defender that ended up coming on the blitz motioned to the man originally picked up. Ryan did not see that motion and was sacked and under heavy pressure each down that happened. Keller can go, Charles Clay did us great for a rookie. Sherman failed to utilize Dion Sims enough. We did not hear his name called at all since the game winning catch vs Atlanta. Look back at the Buffalo games, zero protection and not stopping the run, even Tampa Bay made our Oline look like a little league team. 2 yards rushing the QB under pressure most of the game. Some of you are failing to see the game winning drives Tannehill made throughout the season. Even on those rough protection games. Bad quarterbacks do terrible in the 2 minute drill, that's what makes Peyton Manning and Tom Brady who they are. Miami excelled when the opportunity arose for 2 minute drill before halftime and those game winning drives. Not bad for a quarterback that only spend 2 years in college under center. I would like to see more read option and screen plays. Not enough of the screen plays done. Aside from his injury, Brandon Gibson was the best offensive pickup in free agency. Dion Jordan should not play DE, he should be the 4th LB in a 3-4 scheme. Vernon, Starks and Wake would be great D-line. Use 4 LB's, i wouldn't be opposed to using one of the current LB's to trade away for draft picks.

 

[gofins60]

I somewhat agree. We went from a power running game to finesse passing team. We went from run stopping to pass stopping.
That lack of physicality will stop us in the play offs.
We need to be a physical running team that has the QB and WR's that can make the big plays and move the chains. that is today's formula.

YES!!! This is why I hated the hiring of Philbin. Miami was not too far away from being good before Philbin; they needed some o-line help and upgrades at the playmaker positions to go along with the 3rd ranked rushing defense. Ross should have fired Ireland at the same time as Sparano, got a new GM, and chose a Head Coach who would improve on what Miami already had. This would have been the quickest way to success. Hiring Philbin and his plan of completely redoing the entire offense and defense was not very practical.

 

[cltchperf]

Having your qb play better than the opposing teams qb = success.

not always so. I wouldn't say Wilson played better than Drew Brees yet the hawks won. Brees struggled but so did Wilson. The difference was the dominance of the hawks defense and the ground game from the Beast running wild on the saints.

 

[cltchperf]

Cue the people who believe Tannehill would play better with a better running game, despite that there is no objective support for that.

You have a better running game, you have men stacking the box and more lanes to pass and freed up more. A better running game, means the defense has more to think about and watch for. A better run game allows tannehill to have a much better chance of utilizing play action and making a defense bite on it. A helps keep the pass rush off as they can get gashed up the gut with big run plays. When a team has a crappy run game, defenses have less to worry about so they can have more guys in coverage and at the same time, just blitz and tee off with their pass rush. It really makes it tough for the oline for pass protection, because the defense has to no fear so they are going to play the offense like their plays are going to be a pass. This gives the qb less time to pass, more guys in coverage. Simply, a qbs chance of performing well diminish the more one sided the offense is because it makes it so much easier for the opposing defense to play the offense. So a good run game takes the pressure off the qb more so, which in return, may not necessarily mean the qb will play well, but it gives the qb definitely a better chance to perform well or better than he would with no run game. Don't you want your qbs chance of performing well to be better?

 

[j-off-her-doll]

I don't think anybody is disputing you need balance to be successful, how you achieve balance with a below average QB is the sticking point.

If you believe Tannehill will just never get there, that's a different argument. I think Tannehill can break either way, but I don't think he'll ever be a QB you want throwing 40+ times. You have to either scrap Tannehill or generate a game plan to help him succeed.

 

[Shouright]

You have a better running game, you have men stacking the box and more lanes to pass and freed up more. A better running game, means the defense has more to think about and watch for. A better run game allows tannehill to have a much better chance of utilizing play action and making a defense bite on it. A helps keep the pass rush off as they can get gashed up the gut with big run plays. When a team has a crappy run game, defenses have less to worry about so they can have more guys in coverage and at the same time, just blitz and tee off with their pass rush. It really makes it tough for the oline for pass protection, because the defense has to no fear so they are going to play the offense like their plays are going to be a pass. This gives the qb less time to pass, more guys in coverage. Simply, a qbs chance of performing well diminish the more one sided the offense is because it makes it so much easier for the opposing defense to play the offense. So a good run game takes the pressure off the qb more so, which in return, may not necessarily mean the qb will play well, but it gives the qb definitely a better chance to perform well or better than he would with no run game. Don't you want your qbs chance of performing well to be better?

If you've watched the amount of football we all have, and you've listened to the commentary involved, then of course you know all of that makes sense in theory.

However, the plausibility of all that in theory doesn't mean that for a given quarterback it will play out in reality. It doesn't mean that when that particular quarterback has a better running game, he will play better individually. It's also plausible that a more effective running game could have no significant effect for a particular quarterback.

An example might bring this home to you (and others). Let's give Chad Henne a top-flight running game. Just how much of an improvement is that going to equal in his individual performance in the passing game?

In other words, every quarterback has a ceiling on his individual performance in the league. At this point we don't really know what Ryan Tannehill's ceiling is. It could be that he's already reached it, and that improvements to his surroundings would do nothing significant for him. Or it could be that significant improvements are in store for him, and that they're a function of improvements in his surroundings, or not.

However, when you look through the game-to-game statistics from 2013, and realize that when he did have a better running game, he performed no better individually than when he didn't, it isn't a promising sign.

 

[mithga13]

Lets not over-estimate running versus passing. IMO, what you see in the final 4 teams....the two best offenses and 2 of the top 3 defenses. Look over the past two decades, I think you'll find that the final 4 teams were passibly acceptable on one side of the ball....and very very very good on the other side of the ball.

Our defense is much closer than our offense, we should continue to improve our defense and rebuild the offensive line. That should get us into the playoffs.

 

[roy_miami]

If you believe Tannehill will just never get there, that's a different argument. I think Tannehill can break either way, but I don't think he'll ever be a QB you want throwing 40+ times. You have to either scrap Tannehill or generate a game plan to help him succeed.

I agree. I do think all this passing we're doing is accelerating the learning curve which is why I'm optimistic our offense is really going to take off next season. Like I said earlier, the Bills and Jets were two of the top teams in rushing attempts which proves attempts doesn't necessarily equal success with a mediocre to bad QB, so if you can have similar success and accelerate the learning curve by being unbalanced towards passing then why wouldn't you take that path?

The other thing is had we hit on some of those Wallace big plays that were open early in the season I think that would have softened up defenses just enough to be better balanced. For example we could have ended that Carolina game before the half with Wallace being open for 4 TDs so if you're game planning against us and see that your first instruction as a coach will be "DO NOT let that happen!"

 

[Mindtornado]

Cue the people who believe Tannehill would play better with a better running game, despite that there is no objective support for that.

But the announcers on t.v. say it all the time. :rolleyes2:

 

[gofins60]

Lets not over-estimate running versus passing. IMO, what you see in the final 4 teams....the two best offenses and 2 of the top 3 defenses. Look over the past two decades, I think you'll find that the final 4 teams were passibly acceptable on one side of the ball....and very very very good on the other side of the ball.

Our defense is much closer than our offense, we should continue to improve our defense and rebuild the offensive line. That should get us into the playoffs.

The defense is closer, but IMO it should already be "there". The problem is that while Coyle got better play from the secondary, his and Philbin's scheme changes and Ireland's personnel changes caused everything but the secondary to regress. If they had just worked on improving the secondary and left everything else as is they would be in a better position right now, and would be dominant if Ireland had done a better job with picking LBs. Miami still can't cover passes in the middle to TEs and RBs, but at least they had the 3rd ranked rushing defense... until these guys turned it into the 24th ranked rushing defense! Coyle has shown me that he is a good secondary coach but not a good DC, and Philbin has shown that he doesn't know the difference.

Ross is keeping Philbin (huge mistake!), so the only hope this team has to improve the defense is if Coyle gets replaced.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

Lots of good info in this thread. None of it should be news. Can you believe the sports media has done such an incompetent job, that in 2014 we are discovering and debating the value of yards per pass attempt differential or rushing attempt differential? That's what I think about every time I change the channel instantly as soon as a fantasy football segment shows up. Fantasy indeed. The public is clueless toward the most vital categories and how to weigh them, and there's absolutely no excuse for it.

As a gambler it actually works in my favor because the lines would be adjusted toward the teams with strength in the critical areas, if the public were aware of them. I would lose the 4-7% advantage that I've had since learning about the important stats in 1987, and figuring out how to apply them going forward. But in terms of what the public should know prior to a game, and what should be flashed on the screen during a game, it's runaway incompetence by the networks and media in general.

I still think the best summary is, "Run the ball often, pass the ball well." I started using that phrase on Las Vegas radio in 1988 and I'm sure I mentioned it here very soon after registering. Discouraging runs and stopping the pass is vital also but a memorable phrase needs to be brief. Hence the focus on offense.

Just a damn shame, and unbelievably stupid, that Joe Philbin is incomparably ignorant of the first requirement. j-off-her-doll is correct that Tannehill needs a severely altered approach, that 21 rushes per game will never allow him to reach anything close to all the adjusted hopes for him. I was kidding when I suggested Barry Switzer for our coach recently, while knowing darn well that he'd fix our dunce tendency of shunning the running game within his first hours inside the building.