I don't have much to say this week since we just watched two really poor offenses waiting for someone else to win the game. At least Brock was safe and efficient; that's all you can really ask for with most of the starting offensive line out. Think about this- I counted three dropped passes by our defenders today, which means that we could have had 7 overall picks (instead of the 4 we walked away with). The defense did its job and that's why we won today. I was a little worried though- why didn't Jones play? We didn't miss him since it was the Jets but I'm not really understanding the move. But hey, we swept the stinking Jets folks- it doesn't matter how ugly it was. We've had crappy Jets teams beat Super Bowl bound Miami teams and vise versa...sweeping the Jets is sweeping the Jets.
I didn’t see all of the game, as I was on my way back from watching Manchester City score six. I think it was 3-0 when I put it on. It was a very scrappy game, but a win is a win. The defence played well and it was great to see them getting four interceptions.
Brock was God Awful! I will give him credit for not throwing a pick, but that is it. He was bad in the pocket, bad with time, bad with pressure, bad throwing balls longer than 5 yards, bad throwing balls shorter than 5 yards. This is up there with one of the worst quarterback performances I have seen. But at least he didn't throw a pick, which I guess is the main reason we won the game. Where was this defensive performance the last few weeks? Since the second half of the Bears game, the Miami Defense has been god awful. Today they pretty much won the game. If memory serves me right, I don't want to check because that game was boring as **** to watch, both field goals were set up by interceptions and the interception for a touchdown. Heck, the defense dropped 2 interceptions and the McTyer drop could have been another touchdown. Those street free agents helped in the defensive tackle rotation. Minus the facemask, that was probably one of the best linebacking performances of the year. I am honestly surprised Miami won the ball game because I was waiting for the one lucky play that causes Miami to lose when the offense is putrid and the defense is playing well. I guess I don't mind if Jones took himself out, because this was one of the better secondary performances of the year as well.
I think it had a lot to do with our opponent. As bad as we are the Jets are worse. And if Darnold doesn't pan out.. umm.. BUAHAHAHAHA!
While I am sure the Jet's badness helped, the Dolphins of the last few weeks would have given up 450 yards of total offense to that crappy team. Miami has made terrible Jets quarterbacks look spectacular in the past. I am not saying that Miami would have beaten the Lions or the Texans in the last two weeks, however, if the defense would have played as well as they played today, they would not have been embarrassed at least.
For the Lions, I think Matt Patricia knew the Dolphins pretty well and was able to make a good gameplan to beat the defense. The Texans game was a short week on the road which never turns out well for the traveling team.
You know something that shocked me today? Brock zipped a perfect pass to Amendola along the sidelines for around an 18 yard gain. At first, it looked like a stupid throw but the slow-mo replay showed a toss with awesome velocity and perfect placement...I don't think the defender could have knocked it down even if he was looking. Anyway- that pass was an absolute rocket...where was that arm the rest of the day? How do you nail one of the tougher throws in football yet miss on everything else? You mentioned Fales in another thread and I'd honestly prefer to see him as well. I know zero about him and intentionally haven't watched his college games, but he's supposed to have excellent instincts and a very good arm. If we reach a point where the season is definitely over, I hope we give the kid a shot for a few weeks.
LOL, Darnold had that "domestic violence victim" look in his eyes much of the 2nd half. The only way they moved the ball at all was the two face mask penalties- I absolutely love playing rookies because the strategy is always the same. Get after their asses! It helped that we were generating a lot of pressure with just a four man rush on most downs.
Congrats to Gase and burke. You tweaked the defense and got a spectacular performance from them. We even got sacks?!?! The defensive line actually kept gap integrity this week and didn't try to run around their blockers. Using Minkah as a CB and FS was great. The communication in the secondary looked good and the rookie linebackers did much better attacking the right gaps, though they still have a ways to go, McMillan especially.
Let’s not get too carried away with thinking our defense was that great. 3 of Darnold’s intercepted throws came when he was behind in the 4th quarter and in desperation mode, and it’s hard to believe he would have thrown the second pick if he wasn’t behind in the 4th, and the 3rd and 4th picks would have been punts if they were tied or ahead. So 3 of the 4 picks today were primarily due to the game situation, not the defense playing well. Also to note is that we would have had better field position on the last 2 interceptions if the defender had batted the ball down rather than catching them as they both were on 4th and long. On the 3rd interception we would have started with the ball on the edge of field goal range if it had been batted down. So the smart play would have been to take the turnover on downs and hope the O could make 5 or 6 yards on three plays for the field goal. Discounting the last interception that was made, which came as time ran out, the O was only able to generate 3 points from the 2 drives which followed the interceptions. Without the pick 6 it’s a tied game. Even then the Jets generated more yards/passing attempt and more yards/rush than the phins. So it is great to beat the jets, but the Pats, KC or the Rams would have dropped 50 on us today.
PS Keyfin, I know it can be tough after a week like this, but I have really enjoyed your post game write-ups this season.
LOL! As I was scrolling down the posts, I was thinking the same thing. He had one perfect pass all day. On a different note: I know I have been hard on Parker, but his numbers would have been better if Brock's passes were more accurate.
Thanks, I've always enjoyed writing them and try to remain unbiased based on what the tape shows! There just wasn't a lot to say this week since both teams were so stinking bad. I thought the same thing on the last two picks but I guess if you're in the NFL, you want that on your stat record regardless so you make the dumb pick. Kiko's was a great read/play though and Baker looked like his heart was going to pump out of his chest from excitement...it's always awesome seeing a rookie make a big play to change the game. I think Osweiler played as well as possible under the circumstances- it's a shame he's not accurate deep. Unlike others here, I like him as a QB because of his poise and how he reads the field...he's just not reliable past about 10-15 yards though. He sort of reminds me of Pennington and that magical season and I think we can win with him now; it's just a different type of game plan that works against what we're really built to do (chunk yards). By the way, do we still have Fales? I remember some great deep balls from him over the past few preseasons. I'd give him a chance to throw the rock if RT can't go this Sunday. Green Bay is really a must-win game if we want a shot at the post-season. I know it's silly to even think about that at this point but anything can happen in the NFL.
I don't think you understand how bad the Jets are..a high school team could put up a stiff challenge to the Jets
The Jets have put up 42 against the Colts, 34 against the Broncos, and 48 against the Lions. The Dolphins defense is supposed to be historically bad right now and yet they held the Jets to their lowest output of the season. I, for one, am not going to say this win, as ugly as it was, was pure luck or only because the Jets are bad.
Why is it do difficult for some to state that the defense played a good game. Even more impressive is that they had little help from the offense.
I wasn’t saying the defense did not have a good game. I think that the D did not have a great game because the headline stat “4 INTs” is less impressive than the reality. Then pair it with the offense only managing to put up 3 points by themselves (7 points from the return, 3 points from good field position following Kiko’s INT) makes it hard to feel excited about the D when the O did so little.
As long as we're just taking things away, let's add in the other 3 picks that they dropped. That's not just a QB being bad.
Not sure which one it was, but my first thought is body mechanics. Was it a pure arm talent throw or did he manage to get his full body involved? The difference between two 'identical' throws can be dramatic when one uses only the arm and one is thrown using good body mechanics bring in the legs, core etc. Could be he threw that pass perfectly, but then relied only on his less-than-stellar arm at other times?
This is the first time I have ever seen interceptions as a reason for the defense not playing as well.
Exactly. lol....I hinted at this in another post/thread. It would be like saying, "Mahomes threw 6 TD's in one game. I'm going to subtract those and say he didn't play that well because that number is extraordinary. lol
There is a blind spot in that thinking. The assumption is that INTs cause losing and TDs cause winning. Which is true in part, but not entirely true. For example if we look at this link from pro-football reference https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2017/splits.htm Scroll down to passing stats according to win probability. The strory is true for other years that p-f-r have this data but the numbers jiggle around a little. The key stats are attempts, TDs and INTs. Win probability 0-19% A: 4970 TDs:126 INTs:216 Win probability 20-39% A: 2816 TDs:69 INTs: 73 Win probability 40-59% A: 2913 TDs: 108 INTs 58 Win probability 60-79% A: 3059 TDs 141 INTs 40 Win probability 80-99% A 3723: TDs 295 INTs 43 If we look at splits by scored differential Leading A: 5019 TDs: 257 INTs: 95 Tied A: 3435 TDs: 130 INTs: 76 Trailing A: 9027 TDs: 352 INTs: 259 I don’t have the time to break that into percentages, but the numbers are clear enough without doing that. What that is showing is that the majority of your D’s interceptions and your passing TDs occur when you are already in position to win the game. So sometimes winning causes the other team to throw interceptions, which is precisely what happened with interceptions 3 and 4 on Sunday, and arguably interception 2 (the pick 6). The basic explanation seems to be that trailing teams have to be risky and leading teams can play it safe. Good field position and defenses selling out to stop the run are My hypotheses for the extra TDs when leading. As for the dropped interceptions, from stats I’ve seen but I didn’t bookmark where but probably PFF, roughly half of potential interceptions are dropped. Which makes sense because if a young kid was great at holding onto the ball he’d become a WR not a DB. So if we exclude the last 2 INTs (because they were 4th down throws that we would have been better off in a closer game to dropping not holding onto the INT) then turning 4 interception opportunities turning into 2 actual INTs is in line with normal expectations. Going back to the last 2 INTs, we reduced our chance of winning the game by holding onto them rather than letting them hit the turf. In this game it made no difference, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see that holding onto an INT 20 yards downfield rather than letting it hit the grass and taking over on downs at the LOS could be the difference between winning or losing in another game situation. As for the Mahomes throwing 6 TDs example. It is impressive in a back and forth high scoring game, and less impressive in a blowout where the opposition is throwing INTs and giving him good field position, but more impressive if he has to carry his team back from a substantial deficit where the opposing D is expecting him to pass it all day. Also I have heard reported, but not seen the numbers, that rate of fumbling is also tied to winning/losing position of the team. Again this makes sense in terms of the losing team having to play riskier football and the leading team avoiding risks. So my view is that the D had a 0TD, 2 INT game with 2 extra INTs padding the stats.
Brock was safe and efficient ????When???Did you watch the game??? The Jets so many times to intercept the for he couldnt throw but a few good passes..Almost every pass he throw was short and the ones that were caught they had to stop or slow down or catch it behind them if they were lucky considering just how many passes was too short for them to catch or over thru the ball no matter how Tann ehwide open they were.. Tannehill is not a great QB but he is hell a lot better then Brock and the only reason he look ok at time is because the plays Gase had to call so he wouldnt mess it uo too much and yet Brock still looked extremely bad in the last too games..
I'm honestly only about half sure what you are saying as it doesn't appear English is your first language, which is no biggie just saying. From what I could get though, you described a safe QB exactly.
Brock doesn't have much of an arm for intermediate stuff, but at least he threw those deep passes where either our guy was going to run them down or they weren't going to be caught at all. He also threw a lot away- that's being safe. I agree with you though; he hasn't looked very god the past few weeks. We are all ready to get Tannehill back!
It's probably just me, but think about who we have left on offense. We have lost a lot of key players, and the guys we do have like Tunsil and James are walking wounded. Our OL was shaky at best when healthy, it's a total mess now. It amazes me that we win any games at all. I give Gase and his staff a lot of credit for coaching up the guys we do have and holding it together even if it's against a rookie QB. It's hard to win games in the NFL. Something that I seem to forget often, among other things. :-)
I agree....we just don't have enough pieces. Stills is back but Brock can't hit him or Grant deep. Our RB's are healthy but we don't have a line to open holes. Basically we're a defense with some other guys who goof around on the field a little bit until it's time for the defense again. It's almost comical how pathetic we are with 2nd stringers.
Imo Brock did not play as bad as being hyperboles around here..I’ve seen worse on this team starting in New England.. He’s not better than ryan but posting very close to a 80 rating with no picks isn’t disgusting.. It wasn’t a good performance is the way I would describe it.
Not sure I totally agree with this. At the beginning of the year the O Line looked really good. As soon as the Center went down the wheels started to shake.
I can agree to disagree. I sure hope they really address the OL this off-season and I don't mean with aging, barely able to function, veterans. The interior of our OL has been neglected for far too long. We need to be able to run the ball for our offense to be effective.
