Sure. SB teams were tied for 9th and tied for 17th (with 5 teams) for most inside 20. Oakland was tied for 5th. Whoopie. Fields was tied for 24th (with 4 teams). So, your theory is proved false by it effecting winning and by how good Fields was. A great punter is nice to have, it is not necessary. All that is necessary is an average punter. Now maybe if you had numbers about the percentage of potential punts inside the 20 dropped inside the 20, then we can talk.
why? it doesn't really matter in the end. Sure, punters can be important, but lets not sell Darr short. Plus, as soon as he shanks one, we can all yel Darrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
cap hit of 2.5 and dead cap of 1.6 make it 0.9 and maybe you didn´t want to read it, so you can go on *****ing, but it is already documented that Mathis wanted to go to a contender and felt Denver was the best team out there to provide that, he left money on the table to sign with them jesus christ you really manage to make every thread a "should have signed him thread", and your track record of the players you want sucks balls....
The average draft spot for a punter is 162, fifth round. If a great punter was so damn important, that number would be lower.
Lol, you said AVERAGE punters put the ball inside the 20 just as well as elite punters. Now your just posting team records and how some good teams didn't have elite punters, duh, and how some bad teams did, duh, just like any other position ion the field. LOL
No I didn't. I was told a punter (not qualified good, great or otherwise) puts the ball inside the the 10 (they didn't say always or how much, just that they do it). I said an average punter can do that too. And, if the punter is so important, then there should be some correlation between winning teams and great punting....right? And btw, you still have yet to back up your posts with numbers as you've asked me too. I have. You haven't.
Going back to why Sturgis not being cut yet and Fields is... I think the team is actually trying to put added pressure on these two kickers (Franks and Sturgis) for the 4th preseason game. Got to try to re-create as much of a pressure packed kick as possible to see who handles it best. Pretty damn stressful knowing if you miss a kick it will cost you your job. More stressful than an end of game / playoff kick? I don't know, but it's comparable.
Havent you heard .We dont need Mathis . In a way I am happy that we are sticking with young guys .Mathis would have been an expensive band aid .We have had too many band aids in the past to make up for draft deficincies. The way you build a championship team is to draft well and build from within. This regime will favor youth over experience in general. .In fact I think the Dolphins are one of the youngest teams in the NFL. And the younger guys are cheaper while they are in their rookie contract ,an important point when two players take up a large chunk of your cap.
I've never run the correlation, but I'm sure punting abilities do not correlate very highly with winning percentage. Always sad to see a good player go, but it's a business. Who knows, maybe they sign him back to a more cap friendly number. Isn't that what the Bills did with Moorman a few years ago? Personally I'm hoping this offense is moving in a direction where the punter is an afterthought. You never hear about punters being a critical player on teams with good offenses. Without looking - who is the Patriots punter? The Packers?
Tell that to Seattle. Over 200 transactions Carroll and Schneider's first year. The way to build championship teams is to draft well AND sign well. We all know about Green Bay and how few they sign players. Seattle has had more success.
I really haven't seen our Gs as much of a liability this preseason outside of some whiffs from Turner. Thomas has been very consistent at G and Douglas started off like a rookie but seems to be developing quickly. I've seen LT as a bigger issue with Fox, Thomas and that other turn-style they had out there. At the beginning of the preseason I pushed hard for Mathis, but in watching the games I found that concern lessened. Mathis wouldn't have helped much there. What I would have liked to have seen was a big push for Fred Jackson. He is arguably one of the best RBs in the league at pass pro. I think his veteran leadership could have been a boon to our young RBs. Ajayi could do worse than have a guy like Jackson to learn from. I think the player leadership on this team is much improved from years past and the vets are a big reason for that. I think you see that on many of the units. Moore has helped developed Tannehill. Jennings and wise beyond his years Landry helped the WRs. Albert has helped the OL. Suh has helped the DL. Delmas helped the secondary. I think Jackson could have had a similar impact on the backs. I think just having Jackson for a year could have paid dividends for years down the line. Not to mention that I think he's still a pretty good back in his own right.
This. Well... Most of this. I don't agree about your position on guards. Interior pressure is the worst kind of pressure an offense can experience. It creates a ripple effect of offensive disruption from the QB to the running game (which largely takes place between the tackles). But as you say, punters are luxury. I like Brandon Fields. He had a down year last season, but I still think highly of him overall. It would be nice to keep him, but the reality of Miami's cap situation going forward makes accounting for every penny a necessity. Reggie Bush got 4y/$16m from Detroit in 2013. Given Miller's age, lack of wear and tear, and production (I'm going to assume he has a good year...), Brandon Fields $3.5 million that would of counted against the cap next season should go Miller's way, IMO.
You can be a better team by allocating money to star positions rather than special teams positions. Cut Fields and Sturgis. Find a cheaper kicker. Pay for people like Suh and Miller. Win Championship.
FTR, I'm not saying guards aren't important. I'm saying the difference between a great guard and an average guard isn't important.
The more I think bout it, the more I like this philosophy, because it also maximizes the effect of our draft picks. When you overspend on punters and kickers, you can't afford to keep one or two FAs... so then you lose a guy like Lamar Miller and find yourself looking to use a mid-round draft pick to replace him (if the pick is successful). So not only do you expend a mid-round pick, but there is risk. When you spend relatively little on punters an kickers, you can retain your starts when they hit FA and only have tto use 7th round picks or UDFA signings to nab your next kicker. It costs less in terms of draft picks to replace kicking talent than other positions, so I'd rather cut high paid guys at easier and cheaper to replace positions. Better use of resources.
[video=twitter;638752153646026753]https://twitter.com/Dus_Phins/status/638752153646026753[/video] [video=twitter;638752367995977729]https://twitter.com/Dus_Phins/status/638752367995977729[/video] [video=twitter;638753454970793984]https://twitter.com/Dus_Phins/status/638753454970793984[/video]
Agreed. Extremism of any kind is almost never as productive as the middle ground. There's a number of ways to acquire players in this league and successful teams do all the above well. The draft is the foundation of a championship team, true. No championship team drafts poorly. That doesn't mean FA and trades don't have a significant role in shaping a team. Whereas the draft should almost always be about getting the best players available, FA and trades are about finding talent at positions of need and acquiring accessory pieces. Green Bay's story about have a roster 90% + of home grown players is a cool. It's certainly unique. But they've missed so many opportunities to improve their team, namely that defense and better position themselves to win championships. When you've got arguably the GOAT QB of all-time (certainly of his generation) and you draft as well as GB and still have almost $20 million in cap space at the start of every season, you're not doing it right. Under Aaron Rodgers, GB is 7-5 in the playoffs. His QB rating is 101. In 4/5 losses, Aaron Rodgers has a 97 QB rating w/o including rushing stats. They've got a SB and that's all well and good, but they're also wasting some of Rodgers prime years by refusing to participate in FA/Trades, which are fundamental to the game.
[video=twitter;638753394308579328]https://twitter.com/AbramsonPBP/status/638753394308579328[/video] [video=twitter;638753590656528384]https://twitter.com/AbramsonPBP/status/638753590656528384[/video] [video=twitter;638753633144819712]https://twitter.com/AdamHBeasley/status/638753633144819712[/video]
LOL. I was gonna just reply to your post with a pic of a Galant. Not sure why it literally replaced your quoted post.. that made it look like YOU posted the Galant pic. lol. I thought it was too weirdly funny to change so I left it to confuse us both.
Ahh, so ranking DEAD LAST by a wide margin in punt return percentage had nothing to do with the punter, eh? It's all Rizzi's fault is it that 63% of Fields' punts landed somewhere within the field of play that allowed them to be returned rather than either fair caught or nicely placed along the sidelines?
No worries. Even the best among us are wrong sometimes. At least you are man enough to admit when you're wrong.
I am really hoping. Franks has the obviously stronger leg. He is also a weight room warrior. As kickers go he is a physical stud. Sturgis looks like a golfer in shoulder pads.
I remember reading on this forum two years ago all the comments about how happy many of the posters were when the Dolphins cut Carpenter and kept Sturgis. While Carpenter certainly was coming off a very mediocre the season before, he has ended up being a far better kicker for the Bills the last two years than Sturgis has been for the Dolphins. Last year was certainly not Fields most productive year, but he was dealing with some nagging injuries. Prior to that, he had been one of the best punters in the entire NFL. He also is one of the top punters in the league when it comes to dropping his kicks down inside the opponents 20 yard line. I realize this is a cost cutting move by the Dolphins, but it won't surprise me in the least if Fields goes somewhere else and he once again becomes a pro bowl punter, while our punter becomes the next young kicker who is not as good as the player he replaced.
