Ben Volin breaks down Patriots vs Dolphins coaches film

I love that Volin does his homework, unlike many sports beat writers.

1) That first throw he analyzes, the deep one to Hartline, interesting to see how much respect our running game got on that playaction. I didn't realize it was off playaction.

2) The second throw, behind Reggie... we don't know if Reggie ran his route with the proper timing and depth so I don't know that we can say that's definitely a Tannehill mistake.

3) Yeah, he placed it poorly for LCay. Wonder if the wind was a huge part of it, since Brady struggled a bit too.

4) Disagree that Fasano is wide open.. the guy along the goalline is covering him and FASTER (looks like a DB) so could have gotten out there to make the tackle short of the endzone. Still, a TE vs a DB is a one-on-one that I like. On the other hand, I like that Tanny made the more aggressive throw to the middle of the field area, since I want to see him cultivate that willingness.

5) Bad underthrow to that COver One hole to Hartline. Not sure what happened there... just bad accuracy, or bad choice of where to put it. I'm not sure these are mechanical accuracy sometimes, and not more about Ryan overthinking where to place the ball and then screwing it up because of that. Or it's just the wind.

Volin's photos of Rashad's INT and Clemons getting duped for a 31 yd catch by Hernandez on virtually the same play design are a great example of why we want Jones as a Safety but need to replace Clemons.


But THIS is what scares the **** out of me... because it will turn him into Chad ****ing Henne if it becomes a habit:
"Another troubling trend emerged on Sunday: Tannehill escaped the pocket a bit too early on several occasions, and almost exclusively rolled to his right. Sometimes, that’s the smart play, but many times he could have bought himself even more time by stepping up or spinning back to his left"

Volin makes a great point...
"Tannehill only played 19 games in college, so it’s natural that his instincts are still a bit raw when it comes to facing the blitz. But that’s the difference between Tannehill and Wilson, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, who all started for three or more seasons in college."
- Let's PRAY Tanny leanrs to STEP up and work the pocket more. That's when, against Aldon Smith's rush, I want to see Tannehill stepping UP when Martin rides Smith wide. None of this rolling right every third pass play.

 

The real risk for Tannehill is that he's doing most of his development as a QB in the NFL, rather than at lower levels of football. That I think creates more of a probability for developing bad habits.

 

Yes and no. With bad college coaching, it would mean he could develop bad habits. With good college coaching he would develop good habits.

Anyways, he is GETTING college level coaching NOW (Zac Robinson and Sherm), but against NFL caliber D-Co-ords and players.

 

I don't see that part about escaping the pocket troubling, nor do I think he did it too early, nor do I think it is at all similar to Henne. He's a good athlete who can make plays with his feet. I'd like to see him do it more, not less. His numbers against the blitz are pretty comparable to his non-blitz numbers. He isn't panicking. It is actually fairly unusual that he is as good under pressure as he is when he is not under pressure. When you look at those numbers, the problem is much more the "not under pressure" numbers. When "under pressure" Tanny's efficiency numbers are better than Wilson's and Luck's. The difference is that Wilson and Luck have been much better when not under pressure.

 

The only thing i don't like seeing is Tannehill rolling out to the right almost exclusively, it seems that anytime he feels a little bit of pressure he just runs to the right and attempts a sideline throw. When he does this he virtually cuts the field in half and i think we have seen defenses in the last few games react to this tendency.

 

If you are going to roll, you only have 2 choices -- right or left. Either way you are shrinking the field, but much moreso when a right handed QB rolls to the left. Rolling to the left makes every throw very difficult. Rolling right leaves much more field to work with. I don't understand why one would want to encourage a right-handed QB to roll left more.

 

Should have been more clear, you're right about only two options when rolling out... I think tannehill is developing a bad habit of rolling out when there is really no need to. I for one would like to see him step up more in the pocket like he did at the end of the Seattle game. Hopefully he can show some more pocket awareness because rolling out to the right is NOT always the right move.

 

I think we have been seeing more of that. That isn't always available though. On the rollouts, what are we really seeing 2-3 a game. And some of the reason for them isn't really to make a play, but rather to get outside the pocket where he can throw the ball away and live to play another down. I'd much rather he be doing that to the right than the left.

 

And it's worth noting that stepping up only works when the LG-C-RG do their job.

 

Volin doesn't mention it, but I love the block Kevin Burnett made on Aaron Hernandez after the Reshad Jones interception. As soon as he gets up Burnett levels him at a dead run and he doesn't realize it until a split second before.

 

Wish I'd seen that! Hernandez got him back though when he left Burnett flat-footed out in the flats on a critical third down with the Pats backed up on their own goalline.

 

And that's the issue. The game may be going too fast for him to implement what he's learning.

 

Jesus ****ing Christ @ that Low Block Penalty!!!



How the **** do you re-spot the ball to penalize one team at the SPOT WHERE THE OTHER TEAM COMMITTED A FOUL?






Anyway, great breakdown by Volin.

 

****ing Belichick. Had Jerod Mayo pull a Chad Cascadden in the 4th quarter. Ran through the left side B gap drawing the shadow from the tailback, but he had absolutely no intention of pass rushing. His lone goal was to get behind Jon Martin and shove him in the back straight to the ground while Trevor Scott counters to the inside and gets a clear shot straight to the quarterback.

 

Cartman.

 

He's missed a lot of throws this season that could have been huge.

 

Sherman is NFL level. He has been OC, HC, GM. I have no idea if Zac Taylor is good or not. But it is hard to imagine he was the best guy they could have found for the job. I understand this is how stuff works sometimes, but I would rather have my rookie QB spending most of his time with a guy that coached at the NFL level.

 

Interesting to see the impact plays Bush could have made if the ball had been delivered to him. I think his versatility is sometimes underutilized and under appreciated this season

 

Yeah, Shem was NFL, but as you say he is not the guy doing the hands-on development with Tannehill. That's a 22 year old guys job.

 

Someday I'll be able to watch the all-22 live as the game is in progress... and football will never look the same again. The veil will be lifted and I'll actually have a clue what happened and why.

 

For just $210 a pop, you can!

 

This. Continuing to run Bush up the middle is Einstein's definition of insanity.

 

The problem is it either pops for 8-12 yards or -2-0 yards. There is no real in between. I imagine we have had more 2nd and longs than any other team this year.

 

They shouldn't re-sign Bush. It's pretty clear at this point he can't play in a zone-heavy scheme. He's going to give you loads of unsuccessful runs, then one or two chunk yard gains when he outraces defenders to the front-side or reverses field or something like that.

Also, I think it's about time for the idea that Bush is all that gifted a receiver to fall by the wayside. He's good in space and he can physically catch the ball well, but there's way more to it than that. He doesn't run routes well enough to be the slot receiver people keep claiming he could always be, and he doesn't do a good enough job making himself available.

He's not Darren Sproles, he's not Ray Rice, he's not Matt Forte or Arian Foster or anything like that.

 

Volin is only stating the obvious folks, Tannehill is killing the offense with missed opportunites due to inaccuracy.

This is why when I hear "..if only he had better Wr's..."

I kinda know whomever is saying that probably does not know very much about the Dolphins and why the offense is struggling.

 

I disagree about Bush (assuming the price isn't excessive). He's a very good and dynamic player and I think he is perfectly fine in a zone-heavy scheme. He ran well on zone blocking plays last year and, despite all the complaining about him, he's at 4.4 ypc this year, which is pretty good. Yes, he'll give you a mix of unsuccessful runs and chunk yardage runs. Personally, I think some people complain too much about the unsuccessful ones. Not because unsuccessful runs aren't a problem, but because most of them aren't really his fault. Sure, Reggie will take some 2-3 yard losses on plays that another back might have only lost 1 or might have gotten back to the LOS, but I don't see him taking losses on plays where many other backs wouldbe getting positive yardage. On almost all fo them, there were numerous defenders int he backfield and nowhere to go. Some other backs would plough forward and maybe get back to the LOS and Reggie will dance a little and try to create something. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. On balance, however, he gets more out fo those than he loses, as evidenced by his 5.0 ypc last year and his 4.4 ypc this year. Sure, I'd rather have 3rd and 10 than 3rd and 12 when he takes the loss, but I don't really see that as such a huge difference in that you are still going to run basically the same play. And there are those plays when he makes chunk yardage out of nothing and this team doesn't have many other guys that do that (most teams don't).

I agree that something is off on those relatively few occasions that we go to Reggie when he is running a pass route. I'm not completely sure the blame rests with him, or that it is irreparable. We don't use him very much for that. He certainly has all the athletic ability necessary for that role and I don't get the impression that he is too stupid to be able to learn how to run a decent route. I suspect it is more that we don't do it very often and the timing between him and Tannehill on those plays is not particularly good as a consequence.

 

I don't see how a player can possibly be perfectly fine for a zone blocking scheme when he rarely sees or hits cutback lanes. He doesn't have to be a one-cut runner, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if you went through his runs on the year and he tried to reverse field completely more often than he successfully hit a cutback lane that was on the backside of the play. If he had the vision, he'd be phenomenal. If his aiming point isn't adequately blocked, he either races as fast as he can to the front side of the play or he tries to reverse field. Sometimes that results in a highlight reel play, but much more often it a negligible gain or a loss.

The blocking isn't particularly good, but it's nowhere close to as bad as the product on the field. The fact that the coaching staff has switched to a more man-oriented blocking scheme when Reggie Bush on the field I think pretty much proves my point for me. They don't trust him to see the field.

I think it's also worth noting that Reggie Bush is one of the most "stuffed" players in the league, and Daniel Thomas is one of the least behind the same line.

Pretty much all those players around Bush have 50-60+ more carries than him.
http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?type=Rushing&range=NFL&rank=005

Daniel Thomas has been stuffed on the 7th least plays in the NFL.
http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?year=&type=Rushing&range=NFL&rank=006

It's not just this coaching staff. Virtually every year Bush has been in the NFL his number of targets has gone down. When the Saints drafted him, they tried to make him a focal point, and then they moved away from that(but from their acquisition and use of Darren Sproles, it clearly wasn't because they wanted to). He spiked a bit when he came here last year, but he clearly wasn't heavily utilized.

 

Really? Well let me give you an opportunity right now. Name 5 teams right now that would trade us WR cores.

Tannehill has missed some throws, but if you think our struggles are mainly Tannehill and not the WR's and O-Line...you font know much about Dolphins football our our struggles IMO.

 

-Oakland
-SD
-NYJ
-SF
-KC

I'm certain of it, seen this time after time, the OL play has not been great, the Wr's and Te's have been fine, Tannehill inaccuracy is holding back the offense, I've seen it game after game.

What Volin did for this one could be done for pretty much every game save vs AZ.

 

I don't think any of those teams you listed would trade us WR's.

 

I do, Jax's Wr's have not been very productive either, but they just drafted a Wr Top 10 or I'd toss them in that mix as well.

Though since Gabbert has been out, golly, that previously poor Wr corps has suddenly become highly productive..wonder why?

 

Sure, we could fixate on the 26 carries in which Reggie got stuffed and ignore the majority of his carries. I think that misses the point, especially since some of that is just a product of his style. He is a something of a high risk high reward rusher. For every (almost) stuff he has also has a big run (10+ yards). http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?year=&type=Rushing&range=AFC&rank=069 Barry Sanders used to consistently lead the NFL in stuffs every year, not because he sucked, but becqause that was a product of his style. But even as risk/reward runner, Reggie ranks fairly well in terms of rushing success rate. http://www.footballperspective.com/running-back-success-rate/ On that measure, he is ahead of guys like CJohnson, JCharles, RRice, etc. and is right in the same ballpark as guys like Lesean McCoy and Alfred Morris.

Yes, DThomas has been stuffed less. Part of that is due to his different style and part is due to the different types of circumstances in which he carries the ball. He's been used more in short yardage and similar situations on plays designed for quick hits and short yardage gains (or where short yardage gains are expected). It is no big surprise that his ypc is similarly almost a yard below Reggie's. I'll also say that his very low carry number makes the significance of his stuffs number pretty dubious.

I think most fo the reason his receiving targets have gone down is that he is being used a lot more as an every-down ballcarrier in Miami. His last few years in NO his targets went down because he missed a lot of games.

 

I think many of the struggles lately have been Ryan Tannehill missing throws or missing where to go with the ball (that Bush throw deep he missed and he ended up getting sacked and fumbling).

However, I don't think those teams you listed would trade for the Dolphins WR, especially the Jags.

Cecil Shorts has been phenomenal this year and Justin Blackmon has begun to break out of his shell with Henne feeding him targets.
San Francisco, not at all. They're happy with Manningham, Crabtree (who's had a productive year this year), Moss, Morgan, etc.
I don't think San Diego would either. Alexander has been a beast the past 4-5 games, along with Malcolm Floyd who has played admirably.

I don't think our WR's stink, but I think many teams are content with their group, like we are. The Jets, heck yes they'd trade anything right now for an adequate WR.
I'd have said no to Oakland before Denarious Moore fell off a cliff and Heward-Bey regressed from last year. Streater has come along though.

 

The point I just made is that if you can't find 5 teams that would trade WR's with us we are in the bottom 5 at WR at least. You can't clarion the Wr's and Te's are not part of the problem when they are clearly some of the worst in the league as a unit.

I think you take those current guys and add a speed threat and a solid big possession guy you have a good unit. We don't have the tools right now to make Tannehill successful.

 

I do, Floyd is pricey and Alexander has done this before only to disappear with injuries, Oak is just a mess, Manningham is good but Crabtree costs how much for what level of production?

KC and NYJ are just terrible.

And keep in mind, the league sees what is really going on in Miami, mainly Tannehill is just not that accurate right now.

He is leaving way to many plays on the field and it is killing the offense, unpleasant, but it is the way it is.

 

Until THill starts hitting on those throws it won't matter who is at Wr.

We've been through this with Henne, a Wr does not magically make your Qb a better player, it is the other way around.