Since the Miami/Green Bay game thread got shutdown so fast. lol, I just want to add another cent to my previous 2 cents and maybe get some more thoughts on the game. To get right into the nitty gritty: Tua was certainly responsible for this loss and here’s why: Look at how many resources have been dumped into trying to make it work with Tua instead of building a complete team? If they didn’t dump so much money and resources into having weapons for Tua, we could have a better OL and better D players, etc. We could have used that money to start building a better, more balanced roster. I haven’t checked the numbers but check out how much let’s say the Bills have spent on their WRs as opposed to us. Look at how much Green Bay has spent on their receivers. So, that’s why he is responsible for this loss and making almost a quarter of a billion dollars or whatever, I expect more. Tua’s pocket presence? Wtf was that little Pirouette thing straight into the middle of the line? He’s done it better before, but that was whack. Spin out of the pocket. He missed a lot of better options on some plays and missed several throws. The drive at the end of the second quarter was a chance for Tua to shine and get us back in the game and he just flopped. Miss throws and misreads all over the place. Tyreek and Waddle and all the money tied up in them and what happened to the deep ball? Did they pay them all that money to be decoys, to open up the safe underneath stuff? All the money and big contracts…. where are the deep balls? It’s all this quick, safe s—t. Ftr, that Pats team, especially their D looked to me like the worst in football. Look at how open some of our receivers were. Their blocking was terrible. That’s what got some here so excited? But hey, what do I know? I’m just sitting on my couch eating chips. (Actually, I was). There’s a good reason why many people are calling this team soft. Even Reggie bleeping Bush recently came out and called this team soft A F and said McDaniels should be fired. lol They drafted a soft QB and brought in a soft HC to make it work with him and we are witnessing the result. Flo and Fangio were too tough. Say what you want about Flo, but with him they weren’t a soft team, but he was a meanie and Tua didn’t like that. That’s why we are considered a soft team. You all know how I feel about Grier. How did Grier’s draft picks and big FA signings perform against a good team?... at least the ones that weren’t injured. Cam Smith? How did Chop do? Did he play? Where was all the chaos and disruption? Hey, Chris Brooks looked good when he got some time. lol. He’s one of Grier’s picks that I liked. So…. All of the capitol from the Tunsil trade All of the draft picks All of the money and big contracts given out. …..and: Sparano- first 48 games as HC - 25-23 Adam Gase-first 48 games as HC – 23-25 Joe Philbin-first 48 games as HC – 23-25 Mike Mcdaniels-first 48 games as HC – 25-23 So, with that out of the way….. Bleep all of it! We are going on a run, mofo’ers! We are going on a run !! All the way!!!! It all starts on Sunday !! Here we go!!! HERE WE GO!!!!!!
I agree with a good portion of your post Sceeto but I am puzzled about one thing. With all of the front office mismanagement in player acquisition, how is THAT Tua's fault? Tua's a player, not the GM. I do agree that Tua was A reason the Dolphins lost against the Packers, but not THE reason. Waddle and Hill were double teamed all night long, taking away the long ball, hence Smith getting so many catches. As for pocket presence? I would agree with you...if there was a pocket for him to work from. Our offensive line is a joke...it's always been a joke and until things change in the front office, it will continue to be a joke. They couldn't pass block, they couldn't run block and Armstead had one of his worst games as a pro. I'm surprised Tua wasn't sacked more than he was. So while I agree with you 1000% on the organization's woes due to the poor management of the team by Grier, I can't agree with you that Thanksgiving Day's loss was TUA's fault.
Yeah, dk. It’s another angle that gets overlooked and I addressed your point in the first paragraph by mentioning we could have had a better OL as well as other positions if we didn’t have to dump so many resources into making it work with Tua, but, I hear ya’. I do think there is a bigger problem than the players. I have mentioned in this thread and many others how much I want Grier gone, but in that sense, you could go all the way to Ross for hiring and, especially for keeping Grier around for way too long. However, the result of that experiment is the play on the field and that’s what we have to observe. That’s the result of the decisions made by those in charge. Some still want to absolve Tua, make excuses for his play and put him outside of the team and the criticisms. Grier picked him as well. So, yes, as I have said before, I think the whole pie unfortunately is rancid. Yeah, it sucks. Not happy. This is why my alcohol intake has increased on game days/nights.
I don't know man. I personally think that if you can't run the ball successfully, your deep ball won't be there. I think when the opposing team runs the ball down your throat...You're essentially screwed. We couldn't run the ball, in that case it doesn't open play action. It's a collective effort in my opinion.
Yeah, but as I mentioned, if we didn’t have to dump so many resources into making it work with the QB, we could have a better OL which would in turn help the run game. I think there are other reasons for the lack of the deep ball than lack of a run game and their short passing game acts pretty much as a run game. The lack of run game also doesn’t excuse the misreads and poor throws.
But...IF your Oline isn't getting it done, the offense is going to suffer. I don't know any quarterback that's going to put up elite stats and win super bowls that has suspect offensive line play. If you want to suggest that the THill addition was unnecessary, go right ahead. He appears to have lost a step. His speed was always his main attribute. He's not a possession or between the tackles receiver. I get that you're trying to pile all of this on Tua. I disagree with you that it's ALL Tua (as your faithfully suggesting). Have fun with your thread. I don't feel like playing "the game" today.
This is just my take on the “dumping so many resources” (I’m not being disrespectful)… The resources the team has is all GRIER, not what the team needs so to speak. Is is AWESOME to have both the Cheetah AND the Penguin? ABSOLUTELY, but this is Grier’s philosophy in building a team. Grier goes after weapons. We have a good quarterback in Tua. I know there are those who disagree but he is damned good. We have an incredible running back room. They are electrifying when the break free. We have a phenomenal receiver corps headline with the two aforementioned. This is GRIER, but he places little to NO VALUE on the offensive line. It’s an inconvenient afterthought to him and that is why we struggle offensively. If we had only one of our receivers, one of our running backs and Green Bay’s offensive line? Shoot, forget about it! Love has been upright all season long, one of the fewest sacked quarterbacks and Josh Jacob’s is dueling it for the rushing title this season. But sadly until Grier is gone and the offensive line become priority #1, our team is going to be what it is offensively.
Defensively I think were headed in the right direction, but as you said until Grier makes the offensive line become priority #1, our team is going to be what it is offensively.
I know you're not being disrespectful. You've never been like that and I do appreciate that. I did address a lot of what you said in my original post. Yes, that's why I have been complaining about Grier for years. However, he doesn't completely act alone. He takes input from the coach that he hired on the best way to implement his plan for Tua and the team. That's why I said it's all three of them, four including Ross. Mcdaniel's mandate was to make it work with Tua and that's why they've built things the way they have. Yeah, that goes to what I mentioned about putting so many resources into helping Tua. Those resources could be better spent on the OL. for example. They feel because of Tua's style of play with McDaniel with the designed plays to get the ball out so fast, that they don't need a great OL that can hold up for longer. There are a lot of negative ripple effects in having to design and sustain an O like this and it doesn't hold up against good teams and it certainly doesn't hold up against good teams in bad weather. As I said, I think the whole pie is unfortunately rotten. Wish it wasn't so.
I'd be interested to see more on that. Cbrad and I have our disagreements, but he's shown unequivocally that running isn't important to the play action pass, so I'd be interested in seeing if stats back that up. Running the ball is important though.
Yes exactly, I mean, this is what we've been talking about for a couple years. You draft a guy high, you have 3-5 years to win. You can buy lots of pieces to put around a cheap QB, but once that rookie contract is up, and you've got to pay that guy, other positions have to suffer.
Saying Tua is responsible, does not absolve others of their responsibility. He's just saying, Tua is not blameless. Now, Tua can't control a team giving him a contract, so while it's not Tua's fault per se, it's still a result of him being on the team. I don't think he's saying that it's all Tua's fault, as others also have fault, but I could be wrong.
No. Not wrong. I have explained it here as well as in other threads. The whole pie is rancid. I’m showing another angle for why he is a big reason for what we are seeing on the field and yes, this loss.
Is there any other team in the NFL that has the weapons we do? Hill, Waddle, Smith, Achane? I think every NFL team would take that.
I think we could run the ball if we spread the line a little bit more. Watched Denver game goal to goal. First 2 plays they bunched everyone up and ran it getting stuffed. 3rd down they spread the offense out more and ran it in for a TD. I'd like to see us do that on running plays, and god forbid maybe a play action to the TE
Yeah the best single statistic on the effect of rushing efficiency to play action efficiency is EPA rushing vs. EPA play action. Those are in the same units (difference in expected points before and after the play) and the correlation is 0.11, so 0.11^2 = 1.2% of variation in EPA rushing explains variation in EPA play action, i.e., nearly no effect. That's a well known result in the statistical analysis of football. The limitation to this stat is that it only applies over the range of rushing attempts and play action attempts you typically see in the NFL. So the claim that running the ball is important rests on not inferring anything outside the typical range of rushing attempts. At some point, if one were to do the experiment, too few rushing attempts would probably have a serious effect on play action efficiency. But over the typical range of rushing attempts it doesn't.
This is where Grier is an idiot. If he was a GM worth a damn, he would have tried to get what McDaniel wanted but should have also been something like, “Ok, we’ll see if we can’t get you this, that or the other, but we have to get the OL bolstered to protect Tua”. Hell, I’ll go back pre-McDaniel. Tua was drafted in 2020, two years before McDaniel. If you draft a QB that high in the draft, you KNOW (or SHOULD) you better draft and/or sign OLmen to protect your investment and Grier utterly failed. Now here we are during McDaniel’s 3rd season as head coach about the OL…AGAIN!! Grier has GOT TO GO!!!! And DO NOT promote from within. Bring in someone from the outside, someone from a winning organization, with fresh eyes. I like McDaniel and do feel his offense, with the RIGHT pieces can and will be deadly but if a new GM doesn’t believe so, then so be it. But so long as Grier is here…sighs
No, you’re right. He’s not saying that at all. Sceeto and I, even though we may have our disagreements knows the common denominator of our team’s woes is Grier. There is plenty of blame to go around but to point the finger at any ONE player is nonsensical when Grier has been the one assembling this group of players.
There are things seriously wrong with this team our run game has disappeared, worst in football over a long period of time Griers record is done , it’s over, we can go over all the misses and hits if we want, I’ve done it, he’s done here McDaniel’s philosophies in coaching, motivating and practice strategies are failing in his third year we have one of the oldest teams in football We have two elite players in Ramsey and Hill. About 60 mill total per year if the team doesn’t win out then I’m ready to move on from the whole operation because it all cannot be trusted
Do you think that translates similarly for other passes? Does a good run game make regular passes better? I've would assume it does have a positive effect on regular passing plays, as a good run game prevents the defense from making you one dimensional, and generally defenses play better when they know the pass is coming.
Yeah, he didn't simply say "well guys...Tua has his issues, but we're a team and it takes a team effort either way." No...He made a thread insisting that we've put too many resources into making our quarterback comfortable which I just don't agree with. If I personally was trying to accommodate Tua, I would have built, built, and built that Fking offensive line until it was simply a concrete wall that could protect him. You know what though? All of us on here would be bashing me for not getting him a quality receiver to throw to. I do think Grier put the cart before the horse. We had Waddle...It probably should have ended there and the offensive line should have continued to be the priority. At least that's how I see it. In other words...No Chop Robinson in this draft either. It would have been OLine again because we stupidly let Robert Hunt go. Grier didn't sour on me until this past off-season. I believe in Tua as long as he can stay upright and healthy. I believe that if he can kill the concussions, he'll continue to ascend in this league. Quarterbacks have an incredibly long shelf life. If the plan was to accommodate him and play to his strengths then an elite O line should have been the goal. A good quarterback (which I believe he is) can make stars out of receivers that are otherwise no names on rosters that have bad quarterbacks. We see it every year. A good quarterback gets a receiver paid on a new team and that new team he's on has Anthony Richardson at the helm. Like I said, we had Waddle, I don't regret Hill coming here, but in hindsight it would have been one or the other.
It's similar. Correlation between rushing Y/C and passing Y/A is 0.16, so only slightly higher than the 0.11 for play action passes. Rushing efficiency has a very small (but positive) effect on passing efficiency. I think what this is really saying is that it's the rushing attempts that matter more than rushing efficiency. As long as you have a minimum number of rushing attempts you're not 1 dimensional even if your rushing efficiency is low. As to why rushing efficiency (instead of attempts) has such low correlation with passing efficiency, my guess is defenses can't just trade off one for the other that easily. What might seem easy in theory is probably not in practice.
While I’m like you when it comes to Grier, being done with him, I’m not done with McDaniel, at least not yet. I look at tenured head coaches such as Harbaugh, Tomlin, Reid et al, they’ve all had winning seasons and losing seasons. This will more than likely be a losing season for McDaniel, but his first 2 have been winning playoff seasons. A little rain must fall from time to time but if next season is a repeat of this season, then I would be inclined to take a hard look at what and why. But Grier has got to go.
Maybe...but I feel like the team is degrading since Year 1, not improving. I know many feel like McDaniel has kinda been figured out, which is a reason for some of the offensive struggles. I'm not as against McDaniel as I am Grier, but I do think McDaniel needs to go. I believe he is too buddy buddy with the team.
I just don’t see that Res. Even in year one of the McDaniel regime with Tua going down with his concussion, our offense improved by leaps and bounds. We hadn’t seen an offense like that since the days of Marino and Shula and it continued into year 2 of McDaniel’s tenure. I just don’t see the side of those who say the team hasn’t improved. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely, no team is perfect without the need for improvement. We’re still trying to get the defensive code cracked since Flores’ departure, which WAS our strong suit. This season has been a bit of an enigma. First losing Tua with another concussion and the inability of the team to consistently played complimentary football. Seems like one week the defense is on fire and the offense is frigid, the next week it’s the opposite. With what I see though as a significant improvement with the team overall, I just can’t instantly cut sling load on McDaniel because he’s has a BAD year.
Right, my fear is they fire McDaniel and he goes somewhere else and does very well after learning from his mistakes here. I'd keep coach for sure and hope he continues to learn.
I believe the DC is a good one. Problem is the talent level is pretty bad at this point. Linebackers are terrible. Safeties are garbage. DB's not much depth there. All of that is on Greer.
Well, my issues with McDaniel are: 1. Too soft on players, proof for me is how undisciplined they seem to be, and they play soft. This is correctable. 2. Bad clock management and studied suspect play calling. Correctable on several ways, but easiest is too just let your OC call plays. 3. May have been figured out, and good teams possess the players to stop us. 1 and 2 are not really a huge deal, but 3 is. My issue with the offense is that they are not consistent, other than consistently seeming to disappear in big games against good opponents. The main reason I talk about McDaniel going, is TBH, I'm really not interested in doing the whole replace the GM, but not the coach, as I don't think that has worked for us. At all. I think if Grier is replaced, McDaniel probably should go also, let the GM pick his coach.
My problem is what I saw in 11 practices and one preseason game in training camp and reported it, and I believe the results we’ve seen this year is directly related to it not even counting former coaches, current players and former players have corroborated my findings lose to the jets and your done on Monday
I agree, to me McDaniel seems like a very good OC, but not a good HC. Being a great HC requires a lot more than just being a great offensive mind. Some guys are just not cut out to be a HC even though they are great coordinators, Mcdaniels is one of them.