Tua is not the Problem

Problem is cb thinks numbers tell the whole story. He just looks at numbers and ignores what his eyes tell him.

He also ignores things like supporting cast and system matchups that are hard to quantify. Fact is Tua had the best receiver duo in the league to throw to, and mcdaniel put together a smart system tailored towards his strength and hiding his weaknesses which took the league a while to figure out.

Anyone who uses their eyes and has seen both Tua and Hebert play should know who the better QB is, and its not even close.

You give Hebert Hill and Waddle to throw to and get Mcdaniel to design his offense he would break every record in the books.

 

Who here has the expertise to be able to constantly disagree with historical trends and be accurate all that often? If you think that you see something that isn't backed by results, then fine, make the argument. But, performance is performance. Stats are results. If you are arguing against results, meaning what happened, it better be a pretty convincing argument. When someone is debating cbrad and their argument is, Nuh uh... or, "your a stats guy!"... I find myself shaking my head and tuning them out.

I think Herbert is going to be special. He was his rookie year. He hasn't played better than his rookie year again yet though. So... Who really knows? Whatever I think I see from his play isn't winding up with elite results. We have to hang our hats on, but he can make any throw, and will threaten every blade of grass, and blah blah blah. Tua is actually doing that, doesn't matter what anyone thinks of his arm, he is the one that threw deep better and more often. Tua put every blade of grass under threat because of the throws he made last year. If he does it again, will that narrative die? Because based on last years results it's a narrative, not an analysis. Justin played hurt, ribs and so forth. But, every QB does. Rare are the years with no time missed. I think there were 5 or 6 QBs that started all of their games last year. (before this devolves, yes I am very concerned about Tua's health and it could cost him his career.) All that said, I still really like Herbert. He was way better than I thought he could be his rookie year. And, he really can make some absurd throws. I wonder if he needs a different offense.

 

Herbert was a rookie going against belichik and a good NE defense, and he did not start the game 3-17 like Tua did in his third year against a lousy chargers defense. He finished that game with a 50% completion rate, while Tua finished the game with a 36% completion rate against a bad chargers D.

 

Goal posts have been moved to Tua and his unknown GPA

Clearly the kind of arguments normal Dolphin fans rooting for their QB would have

 

I don't ignore what my eyes tell me with small sample size. Look at my comments after any individual game and in many cases there's no mention of statistics. But with massive sample size? Yeah it's much better to ignore those kinds of hard to quantify things because there's so much disagreement among experts.

Look for example at the claims you make in your post. "Anyone who uses their eyes and has seen both Tua and Herbert play should know who the better QB is, and it's not even close". Dude.. a LOT of football experts who don't know statistical analysis completely disagree with you. You're basically acting like anyone who knows football HAS to have the same opinion you do. And that's simply not true.

Similar to the claim Herbert with Hill+Waddle+McDaniel would "break every record in the books". You are completely ignoring how HARD it is to do something like that. No, with almost statistical certainty they would not succeed like that. You start to see how likely or how unlikely something is to occur by looking at the distribution of stats, even if they don't tell the whole story. You also start to see which stats matter more for winning, which human intuition really isn't good at. I've never seen anyone have a good intuition about win probability, i.e., how likely it is to win the game given down, distance, field position, etc. Stats are WAY superior in this regard.

There's a reason why I think numbers are far superior to "what the eyes tell you" with massive sample size. And btw the same type of disagreements occurred in many other fields, and statistics has eventually won that battle. 50 years ago doctors would routinely claim they knew more than another doc about some disease because they saw 5000 patients instead of 1000 patients lol. Today, it's all arguments about which model was used to analyze the data and whether you found statistically significant results. Same will happen in football. It's already happening, very slowly. So whatever you think, the future is going the direction of MORE stats. Just ask GMs.

 

Yes it does because the bills didnt implement the same gameplan the chargers did. They just played their regular defense they'd been playing all year for which Tua and Mcdaniel had been preparing for.

 

Dude.. you're moving goalposts by the post! You said elite QBs shouldn't start with such a high incompletion rate. I showed you Rodgers did that. I gave you examples of far worse: elite QBs like Brady starting the game terribly by a far more important measure: how many points you can put on the board! I even showed you Herbert had that same issue.

Your response: move the goalposts.

That's what you did throughout last season. Tua would never demonstrate elite play (proven wrong); Tua would never be good at the deep ball (proven wrong); Tua wouldn't be able to play at a high level behind a crappy OL like Herbert did (proven wrong); Tua can't carry the team when it's failing (proven wrong); Tua can't play at a high level against a good defense, in the winter, in an away game (proven wrong);

Each time you just move the goalposts. Only goalpost that hasn't moved is his durability issues.

 

You have got to see you are cherry picking right? It would be like me taking Tua vs Herbert round 1 and saying, "see Tua had the better rookie year". He absolutely did not despite that game. And what is your point here? That Tua didn't play at his highest level a few times so ignore the totality of his play? That Herbert was better in that game, (one of Tua's poorest) so ignore the totality of their play to compare?

I love Herbert, and would have traded Tua for him in a heart beat before last season. Tua, when healthy, is clearly better for the offense that the Dolphins run now. It's built off of his strengths. I don't like Herbert having to make as quick of decisions as Tua does. He doesn't have the aggression for it. The "when healthy" caveat is huge though. McDaniel could probably build an offense for Herbert. He absolutely did for Tua though. Did vs could. But, again, there is that "when healthy". So, if I had to pick one to be the starter next year for the Dolphins... I guess, I'm going with Tua, but it's closer than his performance justifies. If I knew Tua stays healthy, it'd be a no brainer.

 

As I remember, that is a good summation of the main questions about Tua going into this season from this thread, and the results.

 

What is amazing is how some people continue to have such conviction in their predictions regarding Tua (especially: Tua will regress to an average-ish QB) when there is a solid record of so many of their past predictions being proven wrong.

 

Tua maintained a 3.75 gpa for his undergraduate and currently maintains a 4.0 gpa for his Masters.

Hardly a meathead

 

First I personally never said Tua couldnt demonstrate elite play, I just said he didnt have many elite traits and wasnt an elite QB imo. There is a differnce between puting up some elite stats and actually being an elite QB. Many non elite QBs have demonstrated elite play over short periods of time, especially when given the right weapons and put in the right circumstances like Tua was.

Second, Tua would never be good at the deep ball. I dont think I ever said that, just said he is not a great deep ball thrower. And he still is not. Throwing downfield to wide open hill and waddle who have to slow down and wait for his ducks to arrive doesnt mean he is actually a great deep ball thrower, it just meens he has two great speedsters who excell at getting wide open in depth.

Tua wouldnt be able to play at a high level behind a crappy oline, I didnt say he would never be able, he just hadnt until last season. And the reason he overcame that again is more to do with Mcdaniel's quick throwing offense and speedsters that can quickly get open. It's not because of Tua scrambling and buying time and making great throws under pressure like Herbert or Allen do for example.

As for Tua not playing well against a good defense in the winter? He did prove a lot of people wrong on that one, but again I think buffalo defense was overrated as they folded like a cheap chair in the playoffs and in big games, and while Tua did play well against buffalo, we still lost the game.

Not moving goal posts, I just think Tua's success last season had a lot more to do with Hill, waddle, and Mcdaniel than Tua, just like his success at Alabama had a lot more to do with playing on an all-star team with 4 first rounders as wideouts.

As more defenses start to figure the system out and implement the charger gameplan things will get tougher. If its not Tua and the offense getting figured out how else do you explain that god awful performance against a lousy chargers defense?

 

That comes up if you google it but that is about someone else. There isn't any information about Tua other than him graduating after his junior year.

 

Holy ****! What are you trying to do? Act like you didn't make all those arguments you made?? Dude, I'm not going to dig up everything but both in this thread and also in that thread about the best case scenario for 2022 you made it clear what I said is true.

First, check out this entire thread:
https://thephins.com/threads/2022-best-case-scenario-for-tua.97029/

You were repeatedly arguing against something I kept saying: that the best bang for the buck in the offseason was to get top level WRs because that's what statistical analysis says would improve performance most (passing game). You kept on telling me my stats based analysis was wrong and that we needed to prioritize OL instead. Check out some of your posts:
https://thephins.com/threads/2022-best-case-scenario-for-tua.97029/page-3#post-3443251

That is very clearly a prediction we would suck this year with Tua, given obviously that our FO did what I suggested and got Hill and thankfully did NOT do what you suggested. It's only after Tua played elite that you suddenly moved the goalposts once again to say "oh that's obvious because we have Hill and Waddle". That was NOT your position before the season. So yes you predicted Tua would NOT play elite this season. There was no scenario you left open given that we didn't build a decent OL where Tua would play elite. That's the context here, not some fantasy situation where Tua has elite level surrounding cast at all positions. That is, given the situation we had in 2022 your pre-2022 season self made it clear Tua would NOT play elite. And by the way you have pages of arguments on that in that thread alone.

Secondly, you MANY times have said Tua could not elevate the team around him, that he was only as good as his surrounding cast:
https://thephins.com/threads/tua-is-not-the-problem.96818/page-38#post-3461091

In other words, he would NEVER be able to overcome a bad OL (jibes with the first quote above) or pull out wins in big games. You basically predicted there could be no games with Tua like that Ravens game, or for that matter many others where he played elite with a bad OL (elevated his team's play).

Third, you've been hammering away at Tua not having a strong arm or good deep ball ability for YEARS! How can you even suggest you were arguing otherwise? Just some posts:
https://thephins.com/threads/tua-is-not-the-problem.96818/page-49#post-3469072

That is NOT saying he'll someday be good at the deep ball. No you are categorically telling us (as you've said so many times) that he doesn't have the arm for being good at the deep ball. Another moving goalpost!

Finally, it took PAGES of me pointing out you are moving goalposts for you to finally admit he played well in winter, against a good team in an away game. You were trying for the longest of times to just act like Buffalo's defense wasn't really good when we played them. Good you can't wiggle out of that one anymore. Sorry, what you said is false (about your own claims), and yes you've been constantly moving the goalposts each time Tua proves you wrong.

I just wish you'd not be so confident in your own predictions when so many of them keep being proven wrong (and add my statistical analysis of where to improve the team, WRs instead of OL, to the list of statistical analysis being right and you being wrong).

 

He scored 19 the 2nd time he took the wonderlic after being prepped.

His first score was a 13! Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

 

Just to destroy this whole "Wonderlic" narrative.

Dan Marino and Jim Kelly each scored a 15. On the flipside, Ryan Fitzpatrick has the highest Wonderlic score in NFL history (among QBs) with 48.

The Wonderlic is overrated.

 

dude…can we ****ing ban this dude.

 

It was famously said of Terru Bradshaw that he couldn’t spell ‘cat’ even if you spotted him the C and the A.

 

I didn't hear the reverse of that when Tua had crap around him and a terrible coaching staff. In fact, his first two years are still brought up by posters trying to discredit last season. Sorry, you don't get to go there.

 

Okay, sure....

 

A test so important they don't even bother to give it anymore

 

Yes, the Bills went into that game playing a base defense with no preparation. Imagine posting something like that and wanting to be taken seriously.

 

Tua is the problem.

 

Yes, the code was broken.... but the Bills decided they didn't want to shut down the Dolphins offense. LOL. Unbelievable what people will say to continue a narrative.

 

Kind of a different argument though. Being smart doesn't guarantee success in the NFL, nor does being dumb guarantee failure. However, it is just another tool that Tua doesn't possess.

 

Except the validity of its application has been called into question, both by a study at Georgia Tech...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289615000434?via=ihub

...and an article in Psychological Reports, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pr0.100.3.707-712

 

Those studies are just showing we don't know what the Wonderlic is actually measuring. It's a general problem with intelligence tests: we really don't know what they're measuring.

What you're interested isn't "what the test measures" per se, but whether it's predictive of QB performance, and it's not. Just googling:
https://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2...rlic-does-it-predict-quarterback-performance/

Correlation to passer rating is 0.1217, so nearly zero. Take the square of that number and Wonderlic can explain approximately 1.4% of variation in QB performance. Not worth caring about.

 

In the abstract it states "but was most strongly associated with overall intellectual functioning, as measured by the Woodcock-Johnson Standard Battery IQ score."

So I'll stand by my statement that Tua isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and dumb QBs can be successful, but it's better to have the tool of being smart. Tua doesn't have it.

 

Abstract of second article.

"While scores on the Wonderlic were more strongly associated with crystallized than fluid reasoning abilities, the Wonderlic test scores did not clearly show convergent and divergent validity evidence across these two broad domains of cognitive ability."

 

Well there you go.

 

Do you know anything about this S2 test they're giving quarterbacks nowadays? Saban had mentioned it re: Tua, Young, etc.

 

The bills only had a short week (6 days) to prepare and copy what the chargers did. It's difficult to change your entire defensive scheme in less than a week. They played their same defensive scheme they had been playing all year which we had already seen before and were prepared for.

 

So which of the Bills coaches did you confirm this with?

BTW, others have argued that the Packers changed their approach during HALFTIME. Also with no evidence whatsoever. Only common thing between your claim and theirs is the agenda behind them.

 

I saw the game, they did not implement the same gameplan as the chargers. It was also a short week. You dont need to have inside knowledge to know thats its hard to completely change a defensive scheme in less than a week.

 

Looks like S2 correlation with passer rating explains 28.7% of the variance instead of 1.4% for Wonderlic (they quote 0.01% but I think they got the decimal point wrong there.. forgot to multiply by 100 lol):
https://www.profootballnetwork.com/what-is-the-s2-cognitive-test/

The basic idea of S2 is to do lots of psychophysics testing (simple tests measuring your ability to detect things), but such testing is done in very artificial situations to control for confounding variables. For example:

They're in the process of gathering tons of data to see what norms for player performance look like, but it's too early to tell if this will be successful or not. They certainly have garnered a ton of interest, as evidenced by many teams willing to try this out, but their website looks very much like that of a startup with enough funding to continue for awhile, but not enough to stand on its own: it's all marketing at this point with no full validation studies (that's not what websites of more established companies tend to look like):
https://www.s2cognition.com/football

Started by two researchers in neuroscience with some sports background in 2016. The problem with basic psychophysics applied to real life is that you're measuring very low level processes without much higher cognitive function required. Their bet is that maybe that's a large enough portion of what makes a QB successful that teams end up using it as part of their evals. Who knows. We'll see how it works out.

 

Without reading the study, I don't know what that means, and you don't know what that means.

What we do know is Tua is low IQ.

 

Yet the claims about the Packets adjusting at halftime…. Weird

 

No. What we know is that it was reported that Tua scored a 19 on the wonderlic. Anything beyond that is agenda driven speculation.

 

That doesn't make much sense. According to the article, it stated Wonderlic was "most strongly associated with overall intellectual functioning, as measured by the Woodcock-Johnson Standard Battery IQ score."

So the fact Tua scored a 13 the first time, and got prepped and scored a 19 the 2nd time, pretty straightforward he's a low IQ type.

 

Thanks. Appreciate your breakdown and perspective of this.