Because they're a team you can count on to always be good. Brady hasn't shown any signs of wearing out physically yet. His efficiency was way down in 2013 because they hit the reset button on his pass catchers. But now Julian Edelman is established, Brandon LaFell joined, and Danny Amendola will give them whatever few games he tends to give when he's not hurt, and a year of chemistry probably makes Kenbrell Thompkins the fourth guy. Gronk comes back too. They get Wilfork and Tommy Kelly back, they have Chandler Jones and Rob Ninkovich, added a 1st round DL in Dominique Easley, and the guy on defense that I think is really intriguing is Jamie Collins. Oh yeah and then there's the whole Brandon Browner/Darrelle Revis adds in the secondary. My question is why wouldn't they be top 5.
Dude, sorry to break it to you but nobody gives a **** about our team, we've been completely irrelevant, a loser franchise that's been a laughingstock most of the time, the national media doesn't care enough about the Dolphins to actually hate the team.
Irrelevant when it comes to discussing contenders probably. This is a game, it's about winning. If you suck each year, you're irrelevant to that game, of winning. You can still be laughed at. That said I do not agree with us being irrelevant, but when people laugh at our favorite team it isn't completely unwarranted. 1-15, Bullygate, Is your mother a whore-gate, etc etc. The only thing good to come out of the Dolphins in 13 years is wildcat. That's it. Nothing else since our last playoff win has warranted extended national praise. Oh I just depressed myself. Great. Tanny better be the bidness this year!
Peyton Manning is older than Brady, yet the Broncos are rated ahead of the Patriots. Brady is still the best QB in the AFC East and one of the top five QB's in the NFL at this time, no matter how old he is.
I disagree. When the team is consistantly mediocre to average, then there is reason to think that they will remain that way. There is NOT reason to consistantly think that they'll tank and become one of the worst teams in the league. That is what I'm sick of.
Vegas had the Dolphins as favorites vs the Pats and dogs vs Buffalo so did they correctly pinpoint the week Philbin would **** the bed or do you think there might be other factors at play? Joe Philbin himself knows that winning breeds winning which is why he wanted to spend the picks and money on Brandon Albert long before the season began. Jeff Ireland had to wait and see what Martin was capable of before committing more resources to the o-line. The Dolphins were 1-6 against top 10 defenses, and the one win we got it took OT and our defense to score most of our points. In my estimation one of the biggest reasons our team sucked against the best defenses was because Jeff Ireland used less resources on offense than every other GM in the league, in all of his infinite wisdom. Its laughable that you say Jonathan Martin gave the team life when Martin was one of the many reasons we were so terrible against the best defenses. Our defense didn't perform significantly better or worse after the fiasco, they were consistently good all season holding opposing QBs to a 75 passer rating on average only giving up two 100+ performances. Show me some evidence that the team rallied around the fiasco and played with so much more passion. Ryan Tannehill, on the other hand, was inconsistent as all hell, when he played well we won and when he played like **** we lost. Joe Philbin is 12-1 when he gets a good performance from Tannehill, and the only loss came against Luck who posted a great performance himself that game which was the week Chuck Pagano came back into the locker room before the game after being out while getting treated for cancer. If you are looking for scapegoats for the "collapse" Jeff Ireland was culprit number one and Ryan Tannehill was a close second. Tannehill has some legitamate excuses (Ireland being one of them), Ireland was just a putz.
There is a stat called "passer rating differential," its kind of an important thing when it comes to winning. Google it then look up the PRD the last two games, though you don't really have to cause I'll tell you they were 2 of Tannehills worst performances of his career. And on top of that in the first Buffalo game late in the game Tannehill changed the play from a run to a pass and let the defender take the ball from his hand. We had the lead, all he had to do was make one play, scratch that, all he had to do was make sure the defense didn't make a play. So yes, Tannehill cost us games.
he played like sh'&& the last two games, he didn't take it upon himself to make a play..do something!!!!! You have the ball in your hands all the time, run you mother, take off when the pressure is coming and run!!, I'm tired of this BS carp about awwwww how he was forced to stay in the pocket, have the damn sense to make a play for cryin out loud.
Yeah, remember that play he slid feet first a yard short of the first down week 17 with the playoffs on the line no less. I guarantee Russell Wilson or Andrew Luck gets that yard.
Also I said Tannehill had some legitimate excuses. There is a reason 6 year vets tend to do better than rookie QBs for instance.
Because Tom Brady is still great? You have a yearly hardon about Brady's imminent demise. It's not happening. p.s. How old is Peyton Manning?
This brings up an off topic question I had, if anybody has inside access to PFF. How did Brady rate last year overall? I know where Tannehill fell in, just haven't seen/heard where Brady was.
JW I agree with you....it's until Philbin is gone that we will really see what we have. I have lost my faith in Philbin after last season. The denials in the bullying scandal - either he is a bold face liar or a complete idiot - how could he know nothing - that just never came across as real to me. And then the last two games, with a playoff spot on the line and you can't get your team motivated ? That was the last straw. Now I am just biding my time watching him, and expecting the worst, but hoping for the best.
Id respectfully recommend you know what passer rating is before you lecture anyone on it's importance. Passer rating measures the overall effectiveness of the passing game, not anyone's individual performance, for instance. So if RT throws a perfect pass to Wallace on an out cut but Wallace falls and the ball is picked off by Dee Milliner PR simply calls it an INT. Or if RT hits a wide open Matthews on a crossing route for a potentially huge gain on 3rd down late in the first half but RM drops the ball then it goes down as a simple incompletion. Long story short I've seen the last two games, and the 14 before that, several times, broadcast and coaches tape. I don't need Google or silly stats to tell me what happened. Did RT play well in those two games, no. Was he the main reason we were ever in position to grab a playoff berth in the first place, yes. There's no stat for that, either.
Every stat in all of sport can be discredited with that argument, and in my experience its an argument coming from a desperate place. Lets see if you can figure out what all of these QBs have in common: Aaron Rodgers Joe Montana Peyton Manning Tom Brady Steve Young Drew Brees Kurt Warner Ben Roethlisberger Phillip Rivers Russell Wilson Whoop dee ****ing doo. He was the reason we were in position to have a perfect season after the 3-0 start, but guess what? It didn't happen. His job is to win football games, that is his only job. Joe Philbin's job is to not lose football games when the QB puts us in position to win, and he's been very good at that, like I said earlier, the team is 12-1 when Tannehill plays to an 88+ passer rating. If Aaron Rodgers was our QB we would be winning 13 games a season consistently. Ryan Tannehill's play was inconsistent and average and our record was average, those things are not unrelated.
How about you throw together a list of the mediocre QBs with rings too, just for comparison's sake? There are plenty. Tannehill's job is to play his position to the best of his ability within the system he's operating under...has NOTHING to do with winning games, although that's a natural result of him doing his job perfectly, but it's still not guaranteed. To say his only job is to win games is to say he's playing all 22 positions at once...doesn't wash. He had some great games and he had some stinkers, yes, but overall he was far better than you're making him out to be. I don't see how it's possible to earn the 7th ranking from PFF being average/inconsistent. If the rest of the team played as well as he did, they'd have made a deep playoff run...like it or not. He WAS uncharacteristically bad in weeks 16/17 though...I'll give you that much. Was he shell-shocked from all the sacks/hits? Folded under pressure? Small but hindering injury we don't know about? Nobody knows...but the fact remains, they were NOT his norm, and he shouldn't be judged solely by those last 2 games.
Its just coincidence that Peyton Manning's old team went from amazing to picking first overall and his new team went from average to amazing?
It's called dumping...and the Broncos already had a lot of pieces in place...why do you think he picked Denver? Since you like coincidences, is it a coincidence you compare Tannehill to arguably the best QB ever to play?
I'm not judging him, I'm still in wait and see mode. Just like I am with Philbin. And Tannehill did get injured during the Buffalo game and was wearing a sleeve most of the week, it was a very similar injury to what happened to Flacco and they both sucked major *** week 17. The announcer during the Ravens game made the point that an injury like that doesn't just affect your throwing motion but it effects everything you do all through the week, its all you think about and its really tough especially on QBs.
They did go from Peyton Manning to Curtis Painter. It is not like they started a good second string quarterback, let alone a quarterback who is worthy of being a starter. His new team went from playoffs with Tim Tebow to Peyton Manning. It is not like they had a quarterback who is worthy of being a starting quarterback before Manning went there.
No I'm not, I know that qbs have to make individual plays in this league when pressure arises, manipulating the pocket with speed and precision or, Taking off and improvising, one or the other is Imperative.. Right now Ryan is a pendulum of a Qb. He had room to make some plays in those last two games in those two depts, on his own, and he didn't get it done, knowing it was coming. Listen, we can praise, but he has weaknesses that are not off line related that he must get better at if he wants to be a champ Qb. I do believe he is doing things to improve his own game, and I do believe Lazor is smart enough to use what he has, so we should see better improvement from that position.
You want to eat your cake and have it too? The Brady-less Patriots went 11-5 but missed the playoffs. The Tim Tebow led team went 8-8 and made the playoffs.
I agree. If he corrects his weaknesses to an at least "average to above-average" level, he'll be fantastic.
The good news is he has worked very hard on his body the last two offseasons, I'm confident there has been a ratio change in his body which will allow more physical quickness.
Was he? I think our top 8 defense in pts allowed was the main reason we were in position to grab a playoff berth. We were 26th in the league in scoring. 26th. This is Oakland Raiders/Buffalo Bills territory. Am I saying that's Tannehill's fault? Of course not. Run game, playcalling, etc. etc. But we were very competitive against NO before Tanny went on a football give away spree. But the whole offense is what held us back, so the guy leading that offense isn't the main reason we were in position to land a playoff berth, even if he played well (I think he played okay, good at times, bad at times). The Dolphins were 8th in pts allowed, and 11th in yards per play allowed. It was, for all intents and purposes, a pretty effective defense. They were the main reason we were in the playoff berth, not the leader of the 26th ranked scoring offense.
That is not both ways. Both prove that they had good teams. Can't control what other teams do against other teams.
During our losing streak of 4 games, his QBR 57.9, 86.1, 71.2, 60.8. He then progresses to a steady mid-80 QBR, and we alternate wins and losses. He goes to 90+ and we rail off 3 wins in a row, culminating with a 120+ effort against NE. Then two 40's the last two games. As Tanny goes, the team goes.
Except for the point that a commonly forgotten fact about QB rating is that it is a more true/realistic rating of what the PASSING OFFENSE did, than a singular reading of the QB. With last year's roster, I'm in total agreement that as the offense goes, the team goes.
Ok, but you make it sound like we have Weeden or Leftwich back there playing QB. Some QBs NEED to get out of the pocket consistently bc they either can't read the field or can't make throws from the pocket, RT can do both so limiting his exposure to big hits kinda makes sense. I agree he should take off every once in a while to keep the D honest but I don't think it should ever be a focal point.