If we are being honest, the biggest change that came for that 2016 offense was the unforeseen emergence of Jay Ajayi and the running game. Ryan played very very well in some of those games, that’s why some of us are optimistic about his return. As I’ve said for a couple of years now, this offense and it’s QB NEEDS a running game to succeed.
Here's one way to estimate the effect.. First, note that post #83 tells you the stat to look at is rushing Y/A and not rush percentage, attempts or yards per game. The latter three are pretty strongly affected by point differential, meaning the causal relationship is mostly "playing with a lead or playing from behind" causes changes in those 3 stats rather than the other way around. Across NFL history, the mean increment in passer rating per one yard increase in rushing Y/A is 4.35, meaning that (on average) if you increase rushing Y/A from say 4 to 5 you can expect an increase in passer rating of about 4.35 points. League average rushing Y/A tends to remain pretty stable across many seasons, and from 2013-2017 it's been either 4.1 or 4.2 so we can just look at absolute rushing Y/A for the Dolphins (instead of say ranks or so). In 2013 the Dolphins had 4.1 Y/A, in 2014 it was 4.7 Y/A, in 2015 it was 4.3 Y/A, and in 2016 it was 4.5 Y/A. So based on that 4.35 average, you'd expect passer rating from 2013 to 2014 to increase by 0.6*4.35 = 2.61 points, decrease from 2014 to 2015 by 0.4*4.35 = 1.74 points, and increase from 2015 to 2016 by 0.2*4.35 = 0.87 points. Tannehill's passer ratings from 2013-2016 are: 81.7, 92.8, 88.7, 92.5, with differences from year to year being +11.1, -4.1 and +3.8. The percent of those increments/decrements you'd expect due to changes in rushing Y/A are therefore: 23.5%, 42.4% and 22.9%.. so on average around 30% (small sample.. but you get the idea). So that's one estimate of how much the running game mattered independent of playing from ahead or behind.. maybe about 1/3 of the changes in passer rating could be explained by that. However.. keep in mind this assumes ALL the effect is in one direction: rushing Y/A => passer rating. That's probably not accurate so the 1/3 is really an estimate of the maximum possible effect, in reality it's probably less.
I had to look it up- I think it was the Bengals, so it was that Thursday night game. It's the first time I've gone to a sports bar for football in ages so I remember being so excited....and then we took the field. LOL
https://www.miamidolphins.com/video/mic-d-up-presented-by-gatorade-ryan-tannehill Been waiting a LONG time for this.
