Jonathan Martin sucks.....that is, according to PFF

It seems like you may not understand how PFF does it's ratings. They do not evaluate technique nor do they "scout" for for physical attributes, e.g., quickness, agility, strength, etc. Their analysis is result-based (but dependent on context as well). Here is how they explain their grading system: http://www.profootballfocus.com/about/grading/

I hear a lot of people say they disagree with PFF's ratings/grades, but one really has no basis to do so unless you have similarly reviewed every play and graded it accordign to the same criteria. I don't think anyone else is going that. That doesn't mean PFF's ratings or grades are the gospel or show definitively that one player is better than or more talented than another. They are not even claiming to do that. They are simply evaluating how well a player carried out his assignment on a given play and on all plays. It is entirely retrospective and is not intended to show who has more potential or who will do better in the future. Especially for a young player like Martin, a poor PFF grade in 2012 doesn't mean he'll be similarly poor in the future. But I'm not sure there's all that much room for meaningful argument as to whether or not he was overall an effective OT in 2012. He was not.

Personally, I am a fan of PFF and believe in their philosophy of grading.

 

There is a major flaw in that they don't know exactly what that player's assignment is. It could certainly appear that Jon Martin missed an assignment, when in reality it could have been a bad call by the QB, or a missed assignment by someone else.

 

I'm wondering the same thing.

 

Chip block and chop block are not the same thing.

 

Unless you can go back and watch and rate every play by every player in every game, they serve a worthy purpose. Maybe you have the time and inclination to do that, but I would suggest that most fans do not. PFF may not be perfect, but at what they do, they are the best game in town, so to speak.

 

Me too.

 

I think Martin's play at LT has been a little overrated around here.

Against SF, he consistently had assistance.

One on One, he far too often gets knocked back into the QB. He's been the main contributor to the collapsing/lack of pocket this season.

That doesn't mean I don't believe he can get better and probably will as he gets stronger. But it also doesn't mean Jake Long's absence hasn't been felt and that he's all of the sudden expendable.

 

Agreed, a chip is when a runner or tight end in most cases helps bump/chip a defender who is partially engaged with a OL to begin with. A chop block is something completely different and would a hell of a move to chop block someone and then get up and look to provide a lead block somewhere else in the play. That guy is an athletic specimen to say the least.

 

I do have a basis, both on Martin and Hartline, the game Tannehill missed Bline twice deep down the field they commented that Bline "only caught 3 of 6 passes thrown his way", or something along those lines.

When you watched the game, BLine was quite open, THill just missed him.

When it comes down to what I've witnessed vs their grading system, it is far wiser to trust what one sees over what someone tells you that you saw via their grading system.

 

I'm not saying Martin is better than Long either. Long may go on to a Hall of Fame type career. However, the Giants didn't need their LT to be a Hall of Famer either to win 2 recent Super Bowls. They had a dynamic offense with skill all over the place paired with a fierce pass rush.

Not saying that is the the formula, but at this point, we need more skill than brawn. And if we believe Tannehill is the guy and its his ability to extend plays and move around that makes them feel that way, then an elite LT as your highest paid players a poor decision of your spending, IMO.

 

Actually, chop blocks are what linemen now get flagged for. Cut blocks are legal, and what one often wants zone blocking linemen to do.

 

I don't think that is a major flaw. 95%+ of the time, figuring out the assignments is not that complicated. And while there may be times that they get it wrong on a particular play, there is no reason to think they are getting the assignment wrong more often on Jon Martin plays than on any other OT. As long as they are applying the same methodology to all OTs, the comparison of OTs is still valid and the error margin becomes largely irrelevant. Again, it doesn't mean they are 100% correct and a guy they rate as +5.2 may not have done better than a guy they rate as +4.0, but he almost certainly was more effective than they guy they rate as -15.5.

 

Saying Hartline only "caught 3 of 6 passes thrown his way" is not at all inconsistent with the fact that Tannehill missed him on some of those. They didn't say that those passes were Hartline's fault. They gave Hartline a +1.3 pass rating for that game (assuming you are referring to the home NE game), so it doesn't look like those plays negatively affected his grade for that game.

I watch games pretty intently and pay attention to a lot of things beyond just where the ball is going, but I can't come anywhere close to evalauting how each player performed on every play or even most plays. If you can, then you are a much more discerning fan than I am.

 

Martin needs more muscle and perhaps a little more confidence in himself. Should help quite a bit. Right now he does not look too defined muscle wise. Confidence goes a long way in the NFL plus a little kick *** mentality would not hurt either.

You have a kid that graduated from Stanford. Both his Mom and Dad graduated from Harvard. His Grandpa graduated from Harvard. I am sure his upbringing was not of the tough love kinda stuff. LOL.

 

You don't think people who go to schools like Harvard push their kids hard or are hard on them?

 

All offensive linemen think that when a ref throws a yellow flag for a chop block, that it was really a cut block. [refs got it wrong] It's a fine hair and defensive linemen hate ZBS, because they get there knee's get cut out from underneath them.

Once again over 50% of this forum has no clue what zone blocking scheme even is. Yet what type of linemen prospects, we should be looking for. I bet at least 33% do not even know who Alex Gibbs was? [ZBS was his brain child} I bet the same 33% have no clue, that the best current ZBS coach is Tom Cable in the NFL. Now what offense line, did he just turned around in a couple of year's. Guess right and I will give you a bag of Skittles.

 

Their context was 'Dolphins Wr's had a bad game with Hartline catching only 3 of 6 passes"

I watched the game, Hartline played fairly well, not 100% which game it was atm.

 

Hate to break it to you, but the next time you watch the Broncos, Texans or Seahawks play football. Watch how many times they pull on running plays. [C, G, T and TE] Our line did not pull on plays that much, why because our guards can not do it very well. Once again if you watch a lot of football? Plus know what you are looking for, you will understand my point on pulling guards.

If you are a High School football coach, you would not want to pull tape from the 2012 Dolphins for teaching zone blocking. You pull up tape of the Broncos, Redskins, Seahwks and Texans. We do not even look close to running it right.

 

Excellent response.

 

Exactly.

We need a guy at Guard who is 6'3" , 287lbs and has great lateral agility.

 

For as much as people complain that critics of Jeff Ireland always bring things back to criticism of Jeff Ireland, I feel like a lot of the time the opposite is true.

I liked Jon Martin as a 2nd round draft choice. He played like crap this year. If every criticism of mine against a player was intended to make myself look good and Jeff Ireland look bad, I wouldn't say a word about Jon Martin because I liked the pick and said as much. But I owe nothing to trying to make Jeff Ireland look bad or myself look good. I owe only to the truth of what's in front of me. Jon Martin has been pretty bad thus far in his young career. Won't necessarily always be the case.

 

Actually one could make an argument that it's based on our offensive coordinator's scheme. If you tracked what he did back at Texas A&M you'd find that he ran power only about 1 out of 5 run plays. Probably the same ratio in Miami.

 

Not physically.

 

Focusing just on Martin, or comparing him to Long is missing the point.

What was the effect of losing Long, on our oline as a whole?

 

I don't necessarily agree with that.

Either way, its very likely that certain teams and schemes make one position look worse than another, at least to the point where PFFs subjective rankings can become somewhat biased.

If Team A's RB is routinely making bad reads, it could very likely make that team's offensive linemen look worse than they are, or vice versa. If a QB is making bad line adjustments, and the OL carries out those bad adjustments, it could make the OL look worse than it is.

 

The soft underbelly of his refined upbringing is his soft underbelly

 

Lol..there is something to be said for him looking better with his coordination and kick step from the left as opposed to the right..he did look better in that dept...and he needed to because it was ugly on the right.

 

Specifically?

Offensive scoring went down from 17.4 points per game to about 14.9 points per game. Including the first shut out the team has had since 2010.

 

Was that drop in output due to Oline, specifically? I mean, that last game could have been mailing it in (I'm asking, because I didn't get to watch the game was out snowboarding and wifey forgot to record it for me).

 

I got no feel from the players that they were mailing it in during the Pats game, at all. And yeah the offensive line's offensiveness had a big role in being shut out for the first time since 2010. Chandler Jones was dominating Jon Martin, and everyone was taking turns at Nate Garner. Actually I think Deaderick got the better of Martin as well, and Justin Francis. So everyone on the Patriots were taking turns on both tackles. It was pass rush bukkake.

 

Be glad she didn't. It was Sparano level bad.

 

No hooker drug dealer mom to worry about. No pimp daddy to worry about.

 

And how exactly does having a hooker drug dealer mom or pimp daddy make one a better, or tougher, football player?

 

Did you know that bukkake is a porno style as well as a flavor of udon? Crazy stuff I tell you.

 

If you want to make a statistical case you can make a statistical case. It's all there.

If you do the cut-off prior to the first NE game which Long only took 11 snaps in...

Offensive Points Per Game: 17.3 ==> 15.4
QB Sacks Per Game: 1.8 ==> 3.0

Tannehill Pressures Per Snap: 28.8% ==> 34.5%
Tannehill Sacks Per Pressured Snap: 19.2% ==> 25.4%
Tannehill Passer Rating on Pressured Snaps: 74.3 ==> 56.6

Note: Before when I said 17.4 points per game versus 14.9 points per game I was splitting the first NE game in half as I thought I recalled Long getting hurt just before half time. That was not the case, he only took 11 snaps in the game so for all intents and purposes I score that entire game as a game played without Jake Long.

 

I was talking about the noodles. Why, did you think I was talking about porn? Sicko.

 

Since when did they start using bukkake noodles in Porn Films? Who want to watch that? Is the Porn Film also a cooking show? Or is the joke... that bukkake noodles when cooked are very limp?

 

Is it your position that the Dolphins' schemes make their OL's PFF rankings better or worse? My general sense from watching the Dolphins OL was that Pouncey played well, Long and Incognito were pretty mediocre, Jerry was below average and Martin played poorly. That is pretty much what the PFF rankings reflect, so I have no major quibble with them. Do you have reason to believe that many of the plays on which Martin was apparently given a negative grade were misgraded due to the PFF grader not understanding the blocking schemes or assignments?

 

Really? I don't think there is any evidence to support that idea.

 

Back to the concept of whether the players were mailing it in during the Pats game or not...I was more disturbed by the fact they weren't.

I was arguing about this with someone on Twitter on the day of the game. When the Dolphins played the Patriots in Week 17 of 2010 and the Patriots were absolutely walloping the Dolphins 38-7, you definitely got a feel from some players that they just wanted this game to be over. This felt like a similar butt-whooping but not a similar attitude. The players weren't mailing anything in. They were just coming up THAT short...28-0, first shut out since the Tyler Thigpen game against Chicago in 2010.

That probably makes me feel worse.