phinsforlife
Active Roster
This simple statement of fact will make heads explode. Nobody should care that the defense is better than the offense, but some will find this statement offensive (pun intended), and try to argue it away. What people should care about is how good the team is, regardless of which side of the ball is making them good. Having a good defense should be a point of pride. Good defense was the identity of a lot of good Super Bowl winning teams, including some Miami teams.
There are two reasons the defense is better:
-The first is quite simple, and a simple statement of fact. The defense is the 10th ranked scoring defense in the NFL (and 7th in yards per game). The offense is the 23rd ranked scoring offense in the NFL. Therefore the defense is better. This is not complicated. For those who will reflexively argue it is because Tua was out 4 games, it doesn't make up the difference. And if you want to play that game and assume all sorts of things about what the offense would have done in those 4 games, boost the defensive stats too, because there would have been less pressure on them with the offense controlling the ball more. The defense has not gotten enough attention or credit, because the identity of the team seems to rest with McDaniel, Tua and the offense.
-The defense also does not regress against the better teams. The offense does. Same thing the last two years as well. I touched on this issue before in the last section of this thread on regression: https://finheaven.com/threads/misguided-notions-and-offensive-vs-defensive-regression.385674/
Whatever the defense is, they are unaffected by their opponent. They play like they should play for the most part, with some randomness, regardless of the quality of the opponent. Ergo if our defense is average, they play like an average defense should against a good team, and they play like an average defense should against a bad team.
The defense also holds up OK despite injuries. They were pretty good down the stretch last year for the most part even after Phillips and Chubb went down (on balance did better than the offense down the stretch and I provided the data in the prior post I referenced), and the same thing this year without Phillips and Chubb. The offense, all we hear are excuses about injuries, which was last years excuse (OL injuries) for fading down the stretch, and that was total baloney. If you cannot hold up against better teams with injuries, with every team has, that also speaks to an issue with the offense.
The offense is a different deal. They are lights out against lesser opponents, especially at home, in perfect conditions. Against good defenses, especially on the road, they tend to be not very good. Other offenses do not regress like this. What value is the offense, regardless of the video game stats they can put up, if it can rarely function well in the situations that are important against the type of teams you need to beat? Despite the stats this type of offense can put up, they are pretty empty if they cannot deliver the stats when they matter.
This year, for example, here is what the offense has done against better teams: Against non-playoff teams this season, Tagovailoa has 12 touchdowns and no interceptions. He has seven touchdowns and seven interceptions in five games against teams currently in playoff position.
Why does this happen with the offense?
I had a bit of a revelation watching the 49ers game. The first pass Tyreek dropped was a dime by Tua. He had about 1mm to fit the ball in there. The ball was thrown before Tyreek came out of his break. It was all about anticipation. Tyreek had about a millisecond after his head was turned to see the ball, and then catch it. Easy to do, no, but a ball Tyreek should catch. But, for this to work, everything has to be so perfect. The degree of difficulty to execute this play is off the charts. Tua is one of the few QBs that can do it with some regularity.
But that is also the problem. Tua's skill set is really his ability to throw with anticipation, and do it with accuracy as well. The offense is designed around this strength. Tua is probably the best in the NFL with regard to his ability to throw with anticipation. Tua's accuracy is over-rated. Tua is accurate, but there are other QBs that are also very accurate. Most of the good ones are. Jared Goff actually scored ahead of Tua on the accuracy attribute in ESPNs latest attribute rankings. Where Tua is really off the charts is anticipation.
But for anticipation to matter, everything has to be so perfect. The passes have to be perfect. The routes the receivers run have to be perfect. Then all the bells and whistles wrapped around this construct also require perfection, like all the motion. And the spacing of the receivers. It is a highly complex offense.
This stuff works great against bad teams, especially at home. But that is not every game.
It is akin to having a choice between a scalpel and a hammer. A scalpel is a wonderfully elegant instrument, and you can do all sorts of things with it that you could never do with a hammer. You can cut with surgical precision, but only in perfect conditions. You need an operating room. The patient needs to be anesthetized and cannot move. And the surgeon needs skilled hands. On the other hand, any idiot can use a hammer. It takes no skill. The hammer is easy to use, no matter what the conditions, including the freezing cold. You don't even have to be accurate to make the hammer work correctly.
Tua, McDaniel, and this offense, are all scalpel, and not enough hammer. But with a QB like Tua, given his skill set, this is what you have to do. Tua's elite skill set is his ability to anticipate. So it makes sense to design the offense around Tua's strenghts. You cannot design the offense around strong armed throws (outisde the numbers or downfield) or the QB extending plays or running. Heck, we cannot even run a QB sneak with Tua, which is embarrassing (and the result is we struggle to convert 3rd and 1 all the time too). So we have ended up with what makes sense, given the QB we have.
But the end result is the offense will always be limited against better defenses. The scalpel does not work well against them. Everything gets disrupted, so the degree of precision this offense requires, is not achievable. On the road, there is crowd noise, and bad weather. Tua cannot make the strong armed throws, which render timing and precision less relevant. And he cannot run and extend plays with regularity. Or they can't do all the motion. So Tua and the offense break down. We have seen this game after game, for the last three years.
For those that say, give Tua a better OL and a running game and a big third receiver, and everything will change, nope. That does not work. When you pay the QB $55mm you do not get all the toys. That is the trade. If you want to pay a QB $55mm a year, you better believe said QB can carry the team with alot of deficiencies around them. Mahomes can do it with no WRs and no tackles. Josh Allen can do it with nobody on the offense I have even heard of. Those are the guys you give the big money to. The math works in those cases, it will not and cannot work with a QB like Tua. Heck, it didnt even work with Tua's $9mm cap hit last year, and last year we had the guards, and the running game, and the same thing still happened to the offense against the better teams - as soon as we hit the better teams down the stretch, the offense imploded. The challenge only grows now as Tua's cap hit increases. Give Tua all of those things, with his cap hit, then we will have no defense, and people will have to whine about that instead, I guess. It is an unsolvable problem with Tua making this kind of money.
To be clear, nowhere did I say Tua stinks. But he has certain limitations. Those limitations will lead to him and this offense really regressing against better defenses. The proof is already in the pudding. It is tough to argue this point.
This tweet has it right. Listent to what the speaker has to say. If it makes it easier for people, subsitute the word "offense" for "Tua."
Thusly, the Dolphins defense is better than the Dolphins offense. They are statistically better, and also are not feast or famine and they can hold up ok against better teams.
There are two reasons the defense is better:
-The first is quite simple, and a simple statement of fact. The defense is the 10th ranked scoring defense in the NFL (and 7th in yards per game). The offense is the 23rd ranked scoring offense in the NFL. Therefore the defense is better. This is not complicated. For those who will reflexively argue it is because Tua was out 4 games, it doesn't make up the difference. And if you want to play that game and assume all sorts of things about what the offense would have done in those 4 games, boost the defensive stats too, because there would have been less pressure on them with the offense controlling the ball more. The defense has not gotten enough attention or credit, because the identity of the team seems to rest with McDaniel, Tua and the offense.
-The defense also does not regress against the better teams. The offense does. Same thing the last two years as well. I touched on this issue before in the last section of this thread on regression: https://finheaven.com/threads/misguided-notions-and-offensive-vs-defensive-regression.385674/
Whatever the defense is, they are unaffected by their opponent. They play like they should play for the most part, with some randomness, regardless of the quality of the opponent. Ergo if our defense is average, they play like an average defense should against a good team, and they play like an average defense should against a bad team.
The defense also holds up OK despite injuries. They were pretty good down the stretch last year for the most part even after Phillips and Chubb went down (on balance did better than the offense down the stretch and I provided the data in the prior post I referenced), and the same thing this year without Phillips and Chubb. The offense, all we hear are excuses about injuries, which was last years excuse (OL injuries) for fading down the stretch, and that was total baloney. If you cannot hold up against better teams with injuries, with every team has, that also speaks to an issue with the offense.
The offense is a different deal. They are lights out against lesser opponents, especially at home, in perfect conditions. Against good defenses, especially on the road, they tend to be not very good. Other offenses do not regress like this. What value is the offense, regardless of the video game stats they can put up, if it can rarely function well in the situations that are important against the type of teams you need to beat? Despite the stats this type of offense can put up, they are pretty empty if they cannot deliver the stats when they matter.
This year, for example, here is what the offense has done against better teams: Against non-playoff teams this season, Tagovailoa has 12 touchdowns and no interceptions. He has seven touchdowns and seven interceptions in five games against teams currently in playoff position.
Why does this happen with the offense?
I had a bit of a revelation watching the 49ers game. The first pass Tyreek dropped was a dime by Tua. He had about 1mm to fit the ball in there. The ball was thrown before Tyreek came out of his break. It was all about anticipation. Tyreek had about a millisecond after his head was turned to see the ball, and then catch it. Easy to do, no, but a ball Tyreek should catch. But, for this to work, everything has to be so perfect. The degree of difficulty to execute this play is off the charts. Tua is one of the few QBs that can do it with some regularity.
But that is also the problem. Tua's skill set is really his ability to throw with anticipation, and do it with accuracy as well. The offense is designed around this strength. Tua is probably the best in the NFL with regard to his ability to throw with anticipation. Tua's accuracy is over-rated. Tua is accurate, but there are other QBs that are also very accurate. Most of the good ones are. Jared Goff actually scored ahead of Tua on the accuracy attribute in ESPNs latest attribute rankings. Where Tua is really off the charts is anticipation.
But for anticipation to matter, everything has to be so perfect. The passes have to be perfect. The routes the receivers run have to be perfect. Then all the bells and whistles wrapped around this construct also require perfection, like all the motion. And the spacing of the receivers. It is a highly complex offense.
This stuff works great against bad teams, especially at home. But that is not every game.
It is akin to having a choice between a scalpel and a hammer. A scalpel is a wonderfully elegant instrument, and you can do all sorts of things with it that you could never do with a hammer. You can cut with surgical precision, but only in perfect conditions. You need an operating room. The patient needs to be anesthetized and cannot move. And the surgeon needs skilled hands. On the other hand, any idiot can use a hammer. It takes no skill. The hammer is easy to use, no matter what the conditions, including the freezing cold. You don't even have to be accurate to make the hammer work correctly.
Tua, McDaniel, and this offense, are all scalpel, and not enough hammer. But with a QB like Tua, given his skill set, this is what you have to do. Tua's elite skill set is his ability to anticipate. So it makes sense to design the offense around Tua's strenghts. You cannot design the offense around strong armed throws (outisde the numbers or downfield) or the QB extending plays or running. Heck, we cannot even run a QB sneak with Tua, which is embarrassing (and the result is we struggle to convert 3rd and 1 all the time too). So we have ended up with what makes sense, given the QB we have.
But the end result is the offense will always be limited against better defenses. The scalpel does not work well against them. Everything gets disrupted, so the degree of precision this offense requires, is not achievable. On the road, there is crowd noise, and bad weather. Tua cannot make the strong armed throws, which render timing and precision less relevant. And he cannot run and extend plays with regularity. Or they can't do all the motion. So Tua and the offense break down. We have seen this game after game, for the last three years.
For those that say, give Tua a better OL and a running game and a big third receiver, and everything will change, nope. That does not work. When you pay the QB $55mm you do not get all the toys. That is the trade. If you want to pay a QB $55mm a year, you better believe said QB can carry the team with alot of deficiencies around them. Mahomes can do it with no WRs and no tackles. Josh Allen can do it with nobody on the offense I have even heard of. Those are the guys you give the big money to. The math works in those cases, it will not and cannot work with a QB like Tua. Heck, it didnt even work with Tua's $9mm cap hit last year, and last year we had the guards, and the running game, and the same thing still happened to the offense against the better teams - as soon as we hit the better teams down the stretch, the offense imploded. The challenge only grows now as Tua's cap hit increases. Give Tua all of those things, with his cap hit, then we will have no defense, and people will have to whine about that instead, I guess. It is an unsolvable problem with Tua making this kind of money.
To be clear, nowhere did I say Tua stinks. But he has certain limitations. Those limitations will lead to him and this offense really regressing against better defenses. The proof is already in the pudding. It is tough to argue this point.
This tweet has it right. Listent to what the speaker has to say. If it makes it easier for people, subsitute the word "offense" for "Tua."
Thusly, the Dolphins defense is better than the Dolphins offense. They are statistically better, and also are not feast or famine and they can hold up ok against better teams.
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