Dolphins lead league in fewest penalties, 5th in time-of-possession

thank you. all about what you do with that time. If you're sloppy as hell like the Cowboys and Chargers, then yes, it's a meaningless stat. Just like our game vs New England. If you minimize turnovers and costly mistakes, and maximize your time in the redzone, then it does increase your chances of winning the game. There are exceptions, like the Indy and Saints games last season, but we had the "costly mistakes" on defense. To think it's a meaningless stat is just plain stupid

 

TOP is not meaningless by far. However, like already mentioned, it's not a stand alone stat. Although, the only stat I would say is stand alone is Win vs Loss. If we were 5-0 nothing else matters. Are you willing to call all other stats meaningless?

Now, when you take TOP and, for example, a team has the ball 45 minutes a game, this means a WHOLE lot. Every minute the team has the ball is every minute they have a better chance to score. Sure, sometimes if you take that stat on it's own it can be misleading, but more often than not the team that has the ball more/longer is going to score more. The few exceptions to this rule are when a 2-4 team has a good TOP average. However, if a person were to look further into those wins and losses I'd bet that the 2 wins were games where they had the ball a lot longer and the 2 losses the opposite.

 

That makes no sense.

 

Theres nothing inefficient about getting first downs, which has to happen in order to sustain long drives.


The team's effectiveness in the red zone is another issue all together.


If you were given the choice between a 5 minute TD scoring drive, or a 1 minute TD scoring drive, which would you choose and why?

 

As long as I was assured the 5 minute drive would be a TD, I'd pick the 5 minute drive everytime there was more than 5 minutes left on the clock.

Reason? The longer I have the ball the less points the other team can score.

 

Miami's Special Teams play into the 3-2 record as much as it plays into their opponents low TOP imo.

It is an important stat but I think it only works for a team with all three phases funtioning properly.

 

Our two losses had a huge ST failure element with major chunk yards vs NYJ for short fields; and points vs NE.

 

Yep, and all year the opponents have had short fields to work with which cuts down their TOP

 

Well, that is the difference between "good" and "elite" and why the Lions and Browns of the NFL never make it over the hump.

A elite team pressures every phase of the opponent's team, they force the opponent to know their weaknesses and eliminate them or they will be exploited and lose the game.

One cannot just dismiss Special Teams as an afterthought, they are not, they have to be as complete as every other area of the team, and they were not for those two games.

And contending teams saw it, and exlpoited it, the Jest and Pasties drove a truck through that weakness..we rarely do so consistently.

 

Exactly, and here is what is missed when A)Joe Average Fan B)Stat Monkeys look at ToP, they assume that it is meaningless to own ToP if you do not score TD's.

That overlooks the fact that if your Defense is even competent, you can beat a much better team's Offense by forcing them to be perfect in fewer possessions than they normally have.

That is how the Giants beat the Patriots in 07, for all of the hype about "best offense ever" they simply forced them to be perfect and they weren't, no offense is, so controlling the ball and the clock reduces the opponent's opporutnites to score.

That is also why turnovers, for us, are so devastating, as it makes the opponent's offense job A)easier B) denies us an opportunity to score even a FG.

I've watched hundreds of NFL games, rarely does a team who controls the ball, and the clock, lose, if they do not also turn the ball over at the end of long clock eating drives.

That is what makes Henne's Red Zone turnovers so painful and something he must tighten up..