Sports Buzz: Four unproven Dolphins thrust into first-team roles as OTAs begin

I am so ****ing sick of Dallas Thomas.

The coaches always say positive ****, but he gets blown up by everyone in practice and games.

 

Conversely, one of the BEST things I heard today is that McCain made a play vs. Stills on a short catch. McCain has pass rush ability at OLB. If this mofo can also drop into coverage he WILL get snaps!

 

Psyched about McCain. Hope he keeps progressing. What a huge boost that would be for the LBs.

 

Would be nice if McCain and Jenkins became a dynamic duo for us

 

I hope we all realize that we really have some great talent at LB....We still have Tripp who I still think would be good if he played more and the 4 UDFA's all have really decent talent...Luc,Vigil,Hull, & Hewitt...everyone was worried about LB but we will be OK and the new guys could really help ST's. Keep your eyes on Luc(Luke).....this kid is a beast and creates allot of TO's Like Bobby McCain...We need to get them both on the field.

 

McCainnnn!

Seriously thinking about chiming in like a cigar smoking chief of a downtown police station in a bad cop flic every time McCain makes a good play.

"McCain! you just destroyed a guard, a tackle, a rb and not to mention a million dollar yacht in Biscayne marina...Just what the hell do you have to say for yourself?!! You better be God Damn glad you managed to sack the QB...

 

I remember CK suggesting that it should be McCain playing DE and Jordan playing OLB last year. Not sure if he still feels the same way, but it would be nice if McCain became the player we hoped Dion would become. I don't want to get too ahead of myself over an UDFA, but McCain showed some serious flashes last year. Didn't he block a punt also? Or am I remembering wrong?

 

Favorite McCain moment last year was when Brandon Marshall started fighting with one of our corners and McCain stepped in and just looked at him and Marshall wimpered away.

 

We (the fan base) deserve some good fortune for our team. There hasn't been much of that the past 15 years.

 

That's an understatement. We are DUE...

 

If Dallas Thomas continues to start and it is a disaster, it's a damning indictment on pretty much the entire football structure on the team.

Tannenbaum and Hickey should have solved it more decisively, given it's fairly obvious at this point that Joe Philbin isn't going to figure out who the best five are without help.

 

Love McCain (as evident by my sig), but remember he had difficulty staying healthy last year. Let's not jump ahead of ourselves with him just yet.

 

We have too many McCain's to keep track of!

Chris, Brice, Bobby... NNNNOOOO!!!!!

Hopefully he can be an answer at LB though, considering it's probably the weakest spot at the depth chart after Guard. Well, the two are neck and neck.

 

I like this group of LB's and the undrafted guys brought in.

 

I just want us all to take a minute and reflect on how funny this is. Well-written, too. Bravo.


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He's never been a disaster at OG.

 

You're right, disaster doesn't quite convey how badly he did versus McCoy in that preseason game.

 

If you believe in your coaches and they're going to bat for a player, you probably ought to listen. And if you don't believe in your coaches you should've fired them. So it's a bit of a catch 22. We're viewing this all through the lens of people that are skeptical of the staff's qualifications for making these sorts of calls. But if they shared our skepticism, there would be a new staff in place.

You also have to consider that within the context of the signs we've seen that Mike Tannenbaum does not value the guard positions at all in terms of resource allocation. IF that is your mindset, and your coaches are going to bat for a guy that sucked last year, then it's really not that big of a deal to let them continue with that experiment as it's not an important position to you anyway.

 

I'd honestly feel a lot happier if we had someone like Mathis manning that guard spot. Then again, we've only just entered OTA's and the coaches want time to see what sort of performance they're doing to get out of a healthy Turner and Thomas back at his more natural position.

Mathis, by the way, is sitting out OTA's (for the moment) and so clearly isn't happy. Evidently he's open to something different, the problem seems to be that he wants too much.
Philly.com article "He is believed to be in search of performance-based incentives that would make him among the five highest-paid guards in the NFL."

 

Lol @ preseason. How about games that actually counted, Buffalo, Jax, KC, Oakland?

 

I don't have access to PFF, what were his pressure numbers when he played at G? I realize his pass pro was better at G than T, but that's not saying much. I want Thomas to succeed but he doesn't give much reason for optimism.

 

But why gamble? Mathis is still there.. the guard position is the only one where I can't say this FO has done a good job. Of course, they may not be done yet.

 

Mathis wants more money, and he's already due 5.5 million this year and 6 million next year. With Miami's payroll situation that's probably to steep to pay a guard along with Pouncey and Albert's contract. Plus you need to talk about trade compensation to acquire him. Given the situation, i think you need to let the young guys play and hope they can lock down one of the guard spots. Having 1 bad/below average guard is something an offense can work around.

 

If you can work around it, great! I just remember Dallas Thomas pancakes on sale too often. Whatever works is fine with me man.

 

Obviously it depends on the trade compensation, but there's also speculation that Mathis could be a salary cap cut so maybe it isn't. Either way, I'd be comfortable paying the $5 - $6 mill and late pick to lock up a G spot and just be banking on one young guy to fill the other G spot rather than have to rely on two young guys to step up.

 

Are you proposing that despite Dallas Thomas being in the midst of competition for a starting job, he did not take the preseason game seriously? That would reflect pretty poorly on him.

 

Can't spend big money on every position.

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Among 85 guards that took at least 100 pass blocking snaps AND at least 100 run blocking snaps, Dallas Thomas' pressure percentage ranked 75th.

If you want to account for his run blocking as well, you can use PFF's run blocking grades, dividing them by run blocking snaps (since PFF's grades are cumulative in nature). He ranked 81st of the 85 players this way.

A simple composite of the two rankings (75th plus 81st) puts him 83rd out of 85 qualifying guards.

So yes he was one of the very worst guards in the NFL in 2014.

That doesn't mean he will be that in 2015.

 

It means it is quite likely to be a surprise if he isn't at the poor end of that list again .

 

How is his pressure score with 100+ guard snaps so poor if he gave up no sacks? Is he giving up a hurry on every other play? Or are his pressures from Tackle snaps being figuring into that ranking as well? Neither is good, but if it's the latter than at least one can claim it's apples v. oranges.

Also, did you do all that math involved in this post. (Or are there accessible algorithms with PFF for "dividing by run blocking snaps" or comparing the "simple composite" for all 85 players?) Either way, kudos; that seems like a ton of work.

Last question, do you think subscribing to PFF is worth the fee?

 

I'll take these one at a time:

1. His pressure rate is high (which is bad) because he gave up 14 pressures on 209 pass blocking snaps. The resulting percentage (6.70%) ranks 75th of the 85 qualifying guards. The pressures are constituted by 0 sacks, 2 hits and 12 hurries. Personally, and this is where I disagree with some people, I'm completely ambivalent to whether a pressure attributed to an OL resulted in a hurry, a hit or a sack. The result of a pressure being a sack, hit or hurry is far more dependent on the QB's skill and actions than the OL who let the pass rusher get by him. So from that OL's standpoint, a pressure is a pressure.

2. No I did not include any of his snaps at tackle. At least, if PFF included any of those in the stats, they are doing it secretly while claiming they are guard snaps. This is indeed apples to apples.

3. Yes I did the math and modeling myself. It's not new to me, as I do similar things for a living and it took me no more than 3 or 4 minutes. But thank you for the kudos.

4. I find a subscription to PFF to be essential, personally. There's nothing else like it. I have nitpicks with their grades. My problems with the grades are more about what I believe to be flawed structure, as opposed to the subjectivity involved in them, the latter of which being what most people seem to dislike. However their high-resolution statistics are amazingly helpful.

 

Young players tend to rise. They don't tend to go meteoric though. So maybe a good handicap would be for him to go from 98th percentile to...88th percentile?

Just spitballing.

 

You're awesome, thanks.

However color me shocked. If you figure 30ish pass attempts a game, that's two pressures a game. If you asked me would I accept two pressures a game and no sacks from a new mystery guard, I'd say sign me up. (Still, I assume Thomas is involved in a lot of plays, that while not ticked as a pressure, is involved in lowering the probably of a play's success. Right, probably, maybe?)

Obviously, his run game is why he needs to replaced. (Then again, we had one of the most efficient run games in football last year, which he was part of.) However, honestly, how much improvement in pass protection can one expect by allocating a big contract to an Evan Mathis?

Curious, nonetheless.

 

Olivier Vernon's pressure percentage went from 7.75% as a rookie to 9.50% as a second year player and then 10.69% as a third year.

That rookie number was about 81st percentile all told, so if you were to point out that in 2012 he was one of the worst pass rushers in football you'd have been correct. But then he improved to 59th percentile and now he's all the way up at 46th percentile.

So young players can improve off the bottom to a respectable level.

But given the trajectory I doubt Olivier Vernon is ever going to develop into a Cam Wake, who was 3rd percentile in 2012, 2nd percentile in 2013 and now still 6th percentile in 2014 despite being 32 years old.

In that way I don't think it's terrible to expect that we'll never be referring to Dallas Thomas as a pro bowl caliber guard.

 

Problem.

An average of 6.4 pressures per game happen that are not attributable to OLs. If you allow that average amount, AND each of your OLs allow 2.3 pressures per game (which is what Dallas Thomas allowed), your quarterback is taking probably the most pressure in the entire NFL.

So are you sure you're willing to accept that?

 

I would not accept 2.3 pressures a game from each Olineman, especially the million dollar men. However, I would absolutely accept 2.3 pressures a game from the absolute worst starter on either side of the ball who is still on his rookie contract. Considering the resources used, and if you resign yourself that every team is going to have a weakest link, 2.3 pressures still surprises me. Plus, extrapolating zero sacks, silly or not, is just icing on the cake.

Semi-obviously, Dallas is the team's weak link, but you made me wonder what is the value of resources should spent removing his 2.3 pressures. (I don't know how much better Evan Mathis, Billy Turner or Jamil Douglas would perform.)

It seems like this discussion should veer towards his terrible 81/85 run blocking grade.

 

that's true. If I thought Thomas could even be average, I'd be fine riding with him. But the potential difference between Mathis and Thomas is so extreme, the office really should still be considering trading for Mathis.