some are saying that Hartline would out-produce Marshall in this system and that he is essentially just as good. Yes I know, I giggled as well.
Every time I see the metrics for "downfield threat" Hartline's metrics are up there with the better downfield threats. I think people over rate how many times a wide receiver gets a long catch. Having a catch longer than 50 yards doesn't happen every game. I know Hartline isn't the type of player to catch it 8 yards and then take it too the house or a player who just runs a straight fly patter and gets open deep. He is a player who constantly gets open passed 20 yards down the field and is a threat to do so on every play. While I agree that Hartline isn't an "alpha" wide receiver and I would love to have an "alpha" wide receiver on the team. However I think the problem with Miami's passing game isn't that Bess and Hartline are the two best wide receivers. The problem is that Bess and Hartline are Miami's only receivers and everyone else is playing like total crap. Other than Hartline, Bess and Fasano, no one else has stepped up at all. In fact they have caught a staggering 75% of the catches. Throw in Bush, you have 88%. Defenses are keying on Bush too much to make him a viable target. Top 3 for top 5 in passing yards Lions 60% Giants 60% Saints 57% Ravens 58% Cowboys 55% Other than the Lions, these teams have 6 viable targets to get the ball too. Lions don't need one as much because they have Megatron. Too bad Saban helped coach the team to win 4 out of 5 games after the terrible 1-6 start. I was so excited for the chance to draft Calvin Johnson.
On paper, Hartline has been a better receiver than those other players Sunday b/c Arizona allowed him to be. That's our whole point. Hartline's performance wasn't a win-win for us. It was a win-lose, slightly more emphasis on the lose considering all what we did was rob Peter to pay Paul, only we got less in return, and if it weren't for an outstanding play design & perfectly timed execution by Bess on the 80 yard TD where Zona completely botched the coverage, then Zona's plan of stopping Bush and allowing Hartline all the stuff he can handle would've played out perfectly for the Cards. Even with the 80 yard TD it still worked for him as the Cards forced us to redistribute our yardage in a less scoring-efficient manner by forcing us to put the ball in the hands of our rookie QB and mediocre receiving corpse rather than our stellar ground game that racked up 448 yards, 5.2 YPC, and 6 rushing TDs the previous 2 weeks, including a couple back-breaking TD runs of 23 & 65. Hence, we were left with 86 rushing yards and 3.0 YPC.... and b/c of it, in OT, we put the game on our rookie QB rather than the ground game, and it resulted in an INT. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul. IE: It took away from the playmaking Bush (who had 2 game-changing TDs in 1 week) and gave it to Hartline (who previously had 5 TDs in 47 games). It was obvious by watching the game that Zona didn't really care about Hartline until we were in the redzone, and then what happened? Patrick Peterson shut him down all by himself, just as other corners have routinely done in the redzone. Zona practically gave him most of his yards. I'm not saying he didn't have a great game, but it should be taken with a huge grain of salt considering the coverage he faced, the talent level of corners he faced in 1 on 1 coverage w/o any safety help ever, how relaxed the coverage was which allowed for a bunch of easy high-percentage completions, how many botched coverages there were, and the fact that his 80 yard TD was b/c of play design and botched coverage. Anyone could've made that play as long as the ball wasn't dropped. There was a 37 yard completion that was courtesy of Tannehill avoiding the sack, looking like he's gonna scramble which caused Peterson to hesitate, and then dropped it in over Peterson to Hartline for a big gain, which 80% of the play's success was on Tannehill.
The day Hartline shows he can consistently put up good numbers w/o it costing us success elsewhere (like the ground game) is the day I'll call him a great receiver with the likes of the league's other greats. The Ravens have an awesome ground game, but you don't see defenses ignoring Torrey Smith & Boldin in order to stop Rice the way Zona did Hartline. So I'm not concerned with one player's inflated stats if it allows the other team to win. So far, Hartline has shown that he can have a great day when teams pay him little attention so that they can instead focus on Reggie. If Hartline were truly up there with those other great receivers, he'd draw some actual coverage which would lend some breathing room to the ground game, and in turn Brian would still be good enough to beat that coverage just like great receivers around the league do.
There is no such thing as a plan to stop Bush and allow Hartline to do whatever. The Cardinals do put safeties in the box pretty frequently, but they do that against everyone. They did it against the Patriots. They did it against Mike Vick and the Eagles Dropping a safety into the box is not inherently a significant concession in the passing game. Defensive gameplanning in football is not A or B, allocate assets to defending run or pass. You're expected to be able to do both, and do both within the same framework. The Cardinals were not conceding the passing game. They most certainly had a gameplan for shutting down the passing game, and it was within the framework of what the Cardinals frequently do. And you take away that 80 yard touchdown and Brian Hartline has 10 catches for 173 yards. That's not in any sense playing out perfectly. The Dolphins putting the game in the hands of their rookie quarterback did not lose them the game or give the Cardinals an advantage. Ryan Tannehill really didn't make errors on either one of those interceptions, his receiver A- Fell down, and B-he was hit as he threw because the fullback didn't pick up a blitzing defender. Patrick Peterson did the opposite of shut Brian Hartline down. He wasn't on him in coverage predominantly and still gave up 3 of 4 receptions for 44 yards. This is not accurate.
I disagree. Those other receivers often produce no matter what coverage they face, where as Hartline's production is more dependent upon what the defense gives him depending on whether or not they decide to focus their attention on stopping Reggie now that he's putting fear into teams. Calvin Johnson (and other great receivers) command attention no matter what, and as such, not only does that attention create favorable match-ups for other receivers but it also prevents defenses from focusing so much attention on shutting down the run..... and then even against this stiffer coverage, these great receivers still put up numbers and score points. But we don't have that benefit with Hartline. Defenses aren't going to fear him and pay him extra attention to open the ground game for us, but if they did, he'd be shut down unlike the top 15 to 20 receivers in the game who can still make plays against tighter/tougher coverage. Hartline didn't really "take it" from Zona; they pretty much gave most of that to him b/c they cared more about stopping our run. Basically, what guys like Fitz, Johnson & Johnson do verse tight coverage, combo coverage, double coverage (what ever you want to call it) is consistently more productive than what Hartline does against relaxed 1 on 1 coverage with no safety help over the top against a rookie corner, nickel corner, backup corner, or corner who hasn't played since 2010. I love him on this team and think he has tremendous value as a #3, but he is what he is- a player who can be quite productive against a defense's nickel corner, backup corner, or #2 corner on a team that's weak at the position.
We spent a lot of time debating Hartline in this thread. I just skimmed thru 380 or so posts, getting caught up. But to even be having this debate we have to give credit to Tannehill / the pass protection / and the offensive play calling (for the most part). You kidding me? From how we looked in the preseason till now? What a major improvement! Those three components are allowing Hartline and Bess to be the best they can be. Could the production (TD's) be even better if we had a receiver group with above average skill sets? You bet your ***.
Nothing changes the fact that Zona was geared to shut down the run, and it worked, and by doing so they took away the strength of our offense and instead put it in the hands of a rookie QB and a WR who had caught only TDs in 47 games. It doesn't change the fact that his yards were a product of what Zona basically allowed him to have outside of the botched coverages, which I presume they didn't intend for. I rewatched the game and they certainly were conceding the passing game. If they had a gameplan to shut down the passing game they wouldn't have been giving up so many high percentage throws in off coverage or left their corners in 1 on 1 with little to no safety help over the top most of the game. Again, they gave him most of his yards; he didn't take it from them. Out of those 10 catches, he had 2 great route/catch combinations where the success was mostly b/c of him. The rest of it consisted of: -a bunch of quick, easy, high-percentage passes vs off coverage (most of which were line calls by Tanny IIRC) -2 drags across the middle where either nobody picked him up or the rookie DB didn't bother to stay with him -19 yarder on 3rd & goal from the 20 where Zona was in off zone and content to give up the underneath throw to Tanny and stop him short of the EZ. -37 yarder thanks to Tannehill breaking containment and beating a DB caught in no man's land b/c he was caught hesitating. None of it was special. It's not like a Calvin Johnson 173 yard day where he has to take every single one of those 173 yards from the defense. ... and if our run game weren't shut down and we actually had to capability to run it? Then what? I'm sorry but that's wrong. He shut Brian down in the endzone. He shut him down on a 2nd & 3 where Hartline couldn't beat an open field tackle on a quick pass (just like he rarely to never beats an open field tackler) which led to a punt, and PP shut him down the rest of the time. 37 of those 44 yards were thanks to Tannehill avoiding a sack and catching Peterson hesitating in the process. It was not b/c Hartline beat Peterson on the play. Hartline had one good route & catch vs Peterson, and it was more thanks to a great throw by Tannehill than it was Hartline. It's completely accurate. Most of the game he faced: Greg Toler 1 on 1: backup corner who didn't play in 2011. Jamell Flemming 1 on 1: rookie nickel corner William Gay 1 on 1: backup caliber at best soft zone where he ended up having a safety or LB on him Respectfully, if you think Patrick Peterson overshadows all that, then I'd have to heavily disagree.
Because he's essentially saying that Brian Hartline having a big game doesn't count if the running backs don't have a big game. He's trying to make it into some kind of either/or proposition to have a built in excuse that the opponent somehow chose to let Brian Hartline have 200+ yds. I really would like to hear all the WRs in NFL history that were among the league leaders, simply because defenses let them. Thats the most bizarre argument I've ever heard.
If that is true, and the opponent's best idea to not let Bush beat them, I hope everyone else we play does the same thing.
WADR you're kidding yourself if you think there's no category between elite and average. There's above average, good, great. Then there's Megatron, Fitz and Dre in a class by themselves.
Jeez, one good game and the anointing oil comes out. Is Tanne putting up Aaron Rodgers numbers then? No, he just had one good game. Let's see what the Hitman Hartline does week in and week out before we declare put him on a pedestal with the upper tier wideouts. Keep in mind that "good thru elite" WRs not only produce for themselves, they also dictate coverages in a way that makes it easier for their teammates to be productive. For example, Reggie Bush's presence caused AZ to stack the box, making room for The Hitman & Bess to work in the secondary. When DCs prioritize stopping The Hitman over clamping down on Bush, and he's still able to produce big numbers, then we'll know he's producing like an upper echelon player. But he's never done that, not even at Ohio St.
When that happens, won't it mean something in itself, especially if it frees up other players to produce? If and when that happens, it'll be a direct reflection of the fact that if you don't prioritize defending him, he'll torch your *** like he did last week. You think Legedu Naanee would've torched their *** under the same conditions, and thereby potentially changed the way opposing teams defend him in the future?
Brandon Marshall is better than Brian Hartline, but Hartline is no slouch. He's coming into his own as a solid number 2 receiver. You want to know the difference between Davone Bess and Wes Welker? Welker had Brady, and we had Pennington/Henne/Moore. THAT'S the difference.
I'm not sure that Ray Horton agrees with you. AZs game plan was to take away the run and they stuck with it throughout the game even though The Hitman had proceeded to "torch" them. Keep in mind, we only scored 21 pts and we turned the ball over 4 times, all thru the passing game. Sure Tanne threw for 400+ plus, but teams would much rather see him dropping back to pass than handing off to Bush and I don't see any WR on this roster who's going to change that.
You're more knowledgeable than that so I dunno why you're pretending not to be. Obviously AZ didnt "choose" to allow The Hitman to go for 200+, but they were intent on slowing down the run game and they were willing to take the risk on the outside. It's common sense. Our running game has been borderline dominant and our WR corps is one of the leagues worst. It only makes sense to stack the box and force us to pass. The Hitman's increased production and the drop off for Bush are not at all coincidental. What's funny is that you're acting like AZs strategy wasn't successful. A, they won the game. B, they held us to 3.0 ypc, C they forced us to pass, and while we made a lot of plays in the passing game we also turned the ball over 4 times in the 2nd half, via the pass. Add in the Wilson INT that was over turned and we're at 5 TO's. Bottom line, with this WR group, the more we are forced to pass, the more likely we are to lose. Period.
I can see the passing game improving as Tanne improves. I don't see it improving to the point that he is viewed as a bigger threat than Reggie Bush.
The cause of one Int was the receiver falling down. Hartline as I recall. The catch and fumble culprit, is no longer on the team. The WR group didn't cause the Rhodes Int or the Washington forced fumble. So, going forward, I do not see the WR group as any more likely to be the cause of many more negative turnover ratios than the typical NFL WR group. The Cards didn't treat us any different than they did their other opponents. The used the same basic defenses in their 3 prior games too.
It is my opinion that people put too much in the receiver falling down. The cornerback was sitting on that route and the ball shouldn't have been thrown.
Sounds like you didn't watch the NE-Arizona game. It also sounds like you're calling their DC an idiot. Why on earth would they play NE's or Philly's offense the same way they play ours (or Seattle's)? They wouldn't and they didn't. To your other point, it really doesn't matter who's "fault" it was. You can blame Nannee for fumbling, Hitman for falling down, Lane for missing a block, Tanne for not getting rid of the ball, Sherman for calling too many passes, Ireland for not upgrading the position, whatever. The rest of the season will tell us what the other teams think of Hitman, the offseason will tell us what our coaches and Irish think of him. It sucks that a good thread got pigeonholed into one player when the overall result of the game is what really matters. AZs defense dictated to us all game long. And while we had some success, nearly won the game anyway, I look forward to us having the personnel to dictate to other teams. Our defense pitched a shut out in the first half, and 2 of the 3 2nd half TDs came as a result of passing game TOs when we barely gave them half a field to work with. They also bailed us out after another pass game TO gave AZ the ball at the 3 yd line. Then in OT they get a stop, give us decent field position and we turn it over near mid field again, and via the pass game, again. They beat us by forcing us to pass is what I'm saying, and we're going to see a steady diet of that until we get some better receivers.
Is this something you've seen on the field, or is it in your crystal ball somewhere where only your eyes can view it?
