Potentially relevant to our season: this CHFF article compiling 2010 defensive passer rating (the average passer rating that a defense allowed over the course of the regular season) and applying it to 2011 schedules. Miami has the third easiest schedule in terms of DPR in the entire NFL, using 2010 DPR as the measure. (I wish the table command would work.) What this means is that our 2011 opponents, in 2010, were very bad defending the pass as measured in passer rating, which is a pretty relevant measure of team success. This bodes well for Henne… but. What happens in one season usually has little bearing on another season. Meaning, it's not likely or even reasonable to expect those sixteen opposing defenses' 2010 performances to carry over to 2011. Some defenses will be better, some defenses will be worse. They'll produce an entirely new table of DPR numbers, meaning our actual strength of schedule as measured in DPR won't actually be the third easiest in the NFL. The Dolphins play the NFC East and AFC West this year. The AFC West is becoming a pretty good division and almost every team in the NFC East improved this offseason. Both of these divisions may very well send two teams to the playoffs in their respective conferences this year. So what happened in 2010 won't necessarily repeat itself in 2011. But this should still be a welcome bit of news to those who think Chad Henne is a franchise quarterback. In theory, he'll certainly have the soft schedule to prove it.
will be interesting to see. can we pass all over New England like I think we can? will our lack of running game play right into the hands of the Jets? I worry more about the first Jets game in that we usually beat them by playing the same style and we may have to switch to passing the ball as our running game/offensive line matures through the first part of the season.
Well, there are exceptions, and it seems there is always an exception for Miami games since Henne had the fewest dropped INTs (if any!), etc. Not making excuses or anything, but that is fact, unlike the Sanchez. I am going into this season with the notion that we are behind the 8 ball anyway, but it is a comforting stat you posted.
As a measure of strength of schedule, this is far better than using win percentage. So, yes, it means something. The problem is how (un)reliably performance from one year carries over to another.
The Dolphins won't be able to take advantage of their schedule's weaknesses if their OL continues it's poor play. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I guess to have a better idea how much bearing it would have for us would be to see how much or if the personnel of those defenses have changed. Like Philly for instance. Last year were 85.53 but added Nnamdi and Rodgers-Cromartie. So on paper anyone would logically say they should be better, although they also lost a good cover safety in Mikell. Still looks like a net gain though.
They definitely took a hit when they let Mikell walk, but Nnamdi should more than make up for it. DRC can also play some safety, so they can just have three corners and Nate Allen out there.
Assuming these teams continue to perform as or nearly as poorly as they did last season, this should help out Henne a lot. And if he can widen the margin between his passer rating and the defenses we play's passer rating, then we should see the wins stack up. As the article you linked up mentions, and my very own research (pats self on back) that differential does correlate VERY highly with winning.
[TABLE="class: grid"] [TR] [TD]Team[/TD] [TD]Avg. DPR[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Tennessee[/TD] [TD]87.81[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Cincinnati[/TD] [TD]86.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Miami[/TD] [TD]85.93[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Pittsburgh[/TD] [TD]85.74[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Philadelphia[/TD] [TD]85.53[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]NY Jets[/TD] [TD]85.51[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Baltimore[/TD] [TD]85.46[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Indianapolis[/TD] [TD]85.46[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]New England[/TD] [TD]85.25[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Houston[/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] The table setting works fine. You might need to do full grid for it to look how you want.
That's odd, because the table icons in the reply window aren't working for me. They're greyed out and don't work when clicked.
"It isn't poor play , it is fixable , defensive lines are ahead of offensive lines at this time of year" Tony Sparano. What? Me worry?
It is true that these things don't necessarily carry over from year to year, but it is also true that the Dolphins faced a tougher than average bunch of pass defenses last year. We had 6 games against the top 6 pass defenses in opponent passer rating last year (NYJ twice, Pitt, GB, Chicago and Baltimore). We also played Nos. 13 (twice), 19, 20, 21, and 22. Buffalo and Detroit were the only teams we played that had bottom 10 pass defenses (in terms of passer rating allowed). Of course, Henne had some pretty bad/mediocre games against them too.
Usually if they were that bad last year, they worked hard in the offseason to better the weakness, so in theory they may even be better than some teams that WERENT on the list last year.
I don't think there's enough difference to matter anyway, especially when we are going into a new year. The difference between us and teams 15 spots away is about 2 points. There's so much variance in this situation that it's insignificant.
These are efficiency stats. They're averages. That small variance is actually a huge difference. Same thing with YPA: the difference between elite Super Bowl winning QB Ben Roethlisberger's career YPA and career nobody QB Alex Smith? 2 yards. Roethlisberger's career YPA is 8.1 or so, Smith's is 6.2 or so. Those 1.9 yards constitute a huge difference in performance.
Well...one of the reasons is because Houston's Pass D was so horrible last season. The degree to which they have improved...we will see. Same thing with the Pats. But ...its relevant information...and will hold true IMO. I think teams will still not quite know what to expect from Miami's offense....
Lol, the difference between 8 and 6 is obviously more significant than 86 and 84. A 2 point difference in Quarterback Rating is not enough to me, especially after a year of turnover.
I heard the new strategy is for Pouncey to drop a cheeseburger taped to a 5 dollar bill - that'll take Haynesworth out of the play. then we double team Wilfork and we'll be fine
To say Henne may have got a break and then to post these stats is pure speculation. On the flip side there may be a team out there that thinks they are going to get a break against our offense this season because it was really bad last season. See how this works?
Again: these are efficiency stats. For one week, a difference between one defense allowing an 86 PR and one defense allowing an 84 PR is not significant. Over the course of 16 games? Yes, it's significant. The operative word being "may." If you don't like the stats, don't post in the thread.
Good stats - obviously these aren't something that is set in stone but it is an interesting way to look our opponents this year. Plus, this is good news for the Phins. If you look at our offense, it seems we'll have a much better chance of throwing the ball than running it this year (and that is a scary though) - so having a schedule that favors the passing game can only help.
I can see it now... If Henne has a good year it will reflect back to this thread and the schedule being weaker. Just like 2008 was a farce because the schedule was weak. I get your angle here.
I really don't get where you're coming from. This is pretty good information that points to a good season for Henne and you're attacking me for posting it. Again, if you don't like the stats, don't post in the thread. Just ignore it.
Henne has the talent to throw against anyone, his confidence just wasn't there last season. the coaches didn't believe in him, his receivers didn't believe in him. If all the praise the team has been singing about him is true, then he should have a more than competent season. and if not, well, theres always that loaded draft class.
I will say, there seems to have been some "growing up" with Henne. He seems more in control, more confident and more of a resource for his teammates (based on everything we've read and the limited preseason playing time). I wasn't a Henning fan, but with his success in Carolina and with Chad P in '08, it isn't like he suddenly couldn't coach - I wonder if he and Henne just didn't ever mesh and Henning handled him with kids' gloves. Being the #1 resource for info during the lockout and having more control over the offense in games, I kinda get the feeling that Henne feels like he is in charge out there and playing to win, not playing to stay out of trouble with his coaches. Whether that translates onto success on the field remains to be seen.
Not sure I agree that the team has been singing his praises. Sparano had good things to say about him after the Bucs game, and the players certainly seem to be on his side; but the team did try to trade for Kyle Orton, the team did apparently inquire about Brett Favre, and the team was supposedly interested in drafting a quarterback not named Ryan Mallett. And as CK has pointed out, if the plan was to put pieces around Henne, the team certainly went about it in a very counterproductive fashion: Mike Pouncey, Daniel Thomas, Clyde Gates, and Charles Clay are all very raw at their positions due to a lack of experience playing them (Pouncey at C, Thomas at RB) in college at the highes competitive levels (Gates, Clay). We're walking into a very schizophrenic season. I can't see how you would understand the statistics and then say that a 2 point difference is negligible. It's not. It's certainly not as large of a difference as a 2 point gap in YPA, as mentioned earlier, but it's certainly a statistically significant difference given the large numbers being averaged. Would aggregate 2010 DPR rather than 2010 SOS DPR do anything for you on this point?
My only point was that when you include the variance that the new season will undoubtedly bring, my opinion is that the spread in this data is not enough to cause celebration. Yes, I am glad we are at 3 rather than 30, that is encouraging, but the difference between 3 and 15 isn't something that I'm going to go nuts about. Is it interesting, and could it be relevant? Yes, I think so. But strength of schedule (wins and losses) alone has a low enough predictability from year to year, I don't see how you can extend that metric with something like this and expect it to have much forecasting value. I'd be interested to see how much variance there is in these numbers from year to year. Maybe it is higher than I suspect, but I'm not going to take the time to figure it out.
