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Ryan Tannehill

Discussion in 'Other NFL' started by bbqpitlover, Oct 16, 2019.

Ryan Tannehill is...

  1. A terrible QB

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. A below average QB

    4 vote(s)
    5.7%
  3. An average QB

    7 vote(s)
    10.0%
  4. An above average QB

    39 vote(s)
    55.7%
  5. An elite QB

    16 vote(s)
    22.9%
  6. The GOAT.

    4 vote(s)
    5.7%
  1. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    It makes every bit of sense when you realize how many of those coaches and players completely washed out of the league.
     
  2. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    You're also coloring stuff a bit. Tannehill was a very raw rookie, playing on absolute **** teams. I'd hope an established veteran would play better, in similar circumstances. And they're is no comparing Flores coaching and results with anyone before him that Tannehill played for.
     
  3. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    1) is completely false. 2) is completely false

    Nothing else you say matters when your premise so completely wrong.

    Far better? He had an 85 passer rating............ LOL.
     
    resnor likes this.
  4. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I've never disagreed that Tannehill is far more dependent on his offensive line than the average QB.
     
  5. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    It doesn't do the discussion any good when you simply say something is wrong without showing why it's wrong. It makes it look like we're supposed to simply trust that "FinFaninBuffalo" knows everything.

    The statistics certainly aren't wrong in and of themselves -- there is relatively meager variation among offensive lines, and pass block win rate doesn't predict passing game statistics, including sacks. So if you have information that stands in contrast to that, then offer it up -- don't just say "you're wrong" with no supporting information.

    That was five points less than the league average, with the worst offensive line in the league.

    There were nine QBs in the league with worse passer ratings in 2019. All of them had better offensive lines in terms of pass block win rate.
     
  6. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Don't take my word for it. Take the actions by every team in the league. What you are contending makes no sense. Why pay some linemen more than others? Why some positions more than others. Why change linemen at all unless for injury or retirement? Why have rankings for lines? Why draft any linemen in the first round. They're all the same. Get 7th round picks. Better yet, undrafted free agents.

    Rather than thinking that PBWR is the be all, end all stat that is the perfect measure of offensive line effectiveness. Maybe take the logical approach and understand that it is just one stat and may not be the sole way to measure lines. You constantly look for the single measure. It doesn't make any sense.

    Secondly, you have no idea how differences in PBWR affect the passing game, because you don't understand the passing game or any part of football.

    In summary, if PBWR does predict passing success, maybe it is the wrong stat. It doesn't mean that the performance of the OL has no impact on the passing game.

    There are plenty of bad QBs in the league in addition to plenty of bad OLs.
     
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  7. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The things you're saying teams do (highlighted above), in and of themselves, don't necessarily cause lots of variation among teams in terms of offensive line play. The result of all of those preferences with regard to the offensive line could easily be that teams don't vary much from each other in that area.

    We're talking about variation in offensive line play among teams. We're not talking about the importance ascribed to the offensive line by the league as a whole. The league could believe the offensive line is ultra-important and there could still be meager variation among teams in that area.

    In other words, when you say teams don't vary from each other much in that area, you're not saying the league doesn't find that area important. Those are two different concepts.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2020
  8. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The point is that the bad QB play and the bad offensive line play aren't strongly related. They're largely independent of each other.

    Again here are the statistics for pass block win rate and passer rating in 2019 -- notice the lack of a (or very small) correlation between the two:

    Green Bay Packers, 72% 95.3
    Baltimore Ravens, 69% 109
    Indianapolis Colts, 65% 85
    Cleveland Browns, 63% 78.4
    Oakland Raiders, 63% 101
    Tennessee Titans, 63% 108.3
    Arizona Cardinals, 62% 87
    Buffalo Bills, 62% 82.8
    Houston Texans, 62% 95.3
    Pittsburgh Steelers, 62% 76.1
    Chicago Bears, 61% 83.9
    Dallas Cowboys, 61% 99.5
    New York Giants, 61% 86.4
    Kansas City Chiefs, 60% 104.4
    Detroit Lions, 59% 88.2
    New York Jets, 59% 80.6
    Los Angeles Chargers, 58% 89
    New England Patriots, 58% 88.2
    Philadelphia Eagles, 58% 92.1
    Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 58% 84.1
    Washington Redskins, 58% 83
    Los Angeles Rams, 57% 85.6
    Minnesota Vikings, 57% 103.9
    Jacksonville Jaguars, 56% 90
    New Orleans Saints, 56% 110.2
    Denver Broncos, 55% 84.1
    San Francisco 49ers, 55% 103.1
    Seattle Seahawks, 54% 105.3
    Atlanta Falcons, 50% 93.8
    Carolina Panthers, 50% 74.7
    Cincinnati Bengals, 47% 76.2
    Miami Dolphins, 41% 80

    Notice also that 25 of the 32 teams fall between 55% and 65% pass block win rate. That's what we mean by "meager variation among teams."
     
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  9. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Why do you think the variation from 55% to 65% is meager?

    Why do you think there should be strong correlation between PBWR and passer rating?

    You never explain either.
     
  10. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    You haven't established that they don't vary.
     
  11. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Here is the 2019 distribution of pass block win rate again:

    Green Bay Packers, 72%
    Baltimore Ravens, 69%
    Indianapolis Colts, 65%
    Cleveland Browns, 63%
    Oakland Raiders, 63%
    Tennessee Titans, 63%
    Arizona Cardinals, 62%
    Buffalo Bills, 62%
    Houston Texans, 62%
    Pittsburgh Steelers, 62%
    Chicago Bears, 61%
    Dallas Cowboys, 61%
    New York Giants, 61%
    Kansas City Chiefs, 60%
    Detroit Lions, 59%
    New York Jets, 59%
    Los Angeles Chargers, 58%
    New England Patriots, 58%
    Philadelphia Eagles, 58%
    Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 58%
    Washington Redskins, 58%
    Los Angeles Rams, 57%
    Minnesota Vikings, 57%
    Jacksonville Jaguars, 56%
    New Orleans Saints, 56%
    Denver Broncos, 55%
    San Francisco 49ers, 55%
    Seattle Seahawks, 54%
    Atlanta Falcons, 50%
    Carolina Panthers, 50%
    Cincinnati Bengals, 47%
    Miami Dolphins, 41%

    The kurtosis of that distribution is 1.91. The standard error of kurtosis is 0.809. Ratio of kurtosis to standard error of kurtosis is > 2, and so the distribution is non-normal -- it's highly peaked, with more values in the center of the distribution than with a normal distribution.

    In other words, teams cluster in the middle rather than being spread out. They don't vary greatly.
     
  12. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    So what. They probably cluster in the middle on height, weight, shoe size, BMI, 40 times, bench press reps, short shuttle time, etc, etc, etc.
     
  13. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I don't think there should be. But when people discuss the performances of quarterbacks and propose that they varied as a function of offensive line play (e.g., "Ryan Tannehill played the way he did in Miami because his offensive lines were crap"), they're implicitly proposing a strong relationship between quarterbacks' performances and offensive line play.

    If we consider pass block win rate and passer rating as adequate measures of those variables, then the correlation between them indicates the strength of the relationship, and that relationship is weak.

    Now, certainly we can not consider pass block win rate and passer rating as adequate measures of those variables, and then we have a different matter altogether.
     
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  14. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Well hold on -- you said above that it was "completely false" that offensive lines don't vary a great deal throughout the league.

    Now you're saying "so what -- other things probably don't vary much either."
     
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  15. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Let me see if I can explain why one stat doesn't cut it. PBWR using 2.5 seconds as the cutoff. Keep your blocks at least that long and you win. Right? Two hypothetical offenses:

    Offense 1: 100 drop backs. 88 of those were passes thrown in 2.5 seconds or less. None of those resulted in pressure. Of the 12 that took longer. 9 were passes without pressure and 9 were passes with pressure. The PBWR is 91% on all passes but only 50% on the longer times to throw.

    Offense 2. 100 drop backs. 12 of those were passes thrown in 2.5 seconds or less. None of those resulted in pressure. Of the 88 that took longer, 70 were passes without pressure and 18 were passes with pressure. The PBWR is 82% on all passes but 79.5% on the longer times to throw.

    Which OL is better? Which passer is likely to have a better passer rating?
     
  16. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Plenty of things don't vary that have no impact on their performance. The performance varies even is some measurement doesn't.
     
  17. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Finally wrote the program to look at every QB season z-score. It turns out that Tannehill's 2019 z-score is #12 all time since 1978 for 250+ passing attempts (1978 is a good demarcation point because the nature of the passing game changed dramatically).

    Best z-score ratings in a (regular) season since 1978 with 250+ attempts:
    Steve Young, 1994, z-score = 3.570
    Joe Montana, 1989, z-score = 3.071
    Kurt Warner, 1999, z-score = 3.000
    Tom Brady, 2007, z-score = 2.998
    Aaron Rodgers, 2011, z-score = 2.952
    Peyton Manning, 2004, z-score = 2.932
    Dan Marino, 1984, z-score = 2.823
    Nick Foles, 2013, z-score = 2.802
    Steve Young, 1992, z-score = 2.722
    Steve Young, 1997, z-score = 2.573
    Chad Pennington, 2002, z-score = 2.561
    Ryan Tannehill, 2019, z-score = 2.553

    So anyway, once adjusted (and you have to adjust for era) Tannehill is #12th. Still impressive of course but not #4.
     
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  18. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    This is actually an illogical position to take because the "adjusting" is done by descriptive stats. That is, for each year you have a league average passer rating and a standard deviation for the passer ratings. That's just describing what happened in that year.

    So if you're fine with using standard deviations above/below the mean to compare QB's (this is what a z-score is), then you're fine with "adjusting" by year. Can't accept standard deviations and argue you shouldn't adjust because z-scores ARE the adjustment!

    To "adjust" = transform a z-score into a passer rating, you take a z-score and use the mean and standard deviation in the desired year to turn it into a rating. And if there really aren't any important differences between years (measured by performance), then "adjusting" will do almost nothing, which is consistent with the whole concept. Besides, who can precisely tell independent of the stats whether a rule change or an interpretation change led to a major effect?

    So.. it's not only perfectly fine to "adjust" from one year to the next, it's the correct thing to do from a purely descriptive stats point of view.

    One last note: there's a really good approximation to the correct way of adjusting (using z-scores) by just multiplying by the ratio of the league average ratings from current to target year, at least if you're doing this from 1978, because the standard deviations have stayed relatively stable since then. But sometimes you will get some different results, so proper approach is z-scores.
     
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  19. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I don't think I've advocated for zscores. But while I find it useful to adjust to compare eras, I'd be completely fine with doing no adjusting whatsoever. The NFL doesn't adjust anything for the record books. But I don't think adjusting year to year is at all the same. The only reason I don't argue with the eras argument for adjusting is that there is a reasonable argument to be made for it...understanding that like I said, it doesn't matter at all for how the records are kept.
     
  20. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    I would think a sliding multi-year average would make more sense.
     
  21. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    If the adjustment does close to nothing (for years close to each other), why worry?

    For post 1978 that would work, but the difference will be truly minor whether you do that or not. However, there is one problem with a sliding window: it obscures immediate changes to the game, like what happened in 1978.
     
  22. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    I don’t and you shouldn’t. It is causing you to come to illogical conclusions.
     
  23. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Going back that far, even using z scores might not cut it especially when using passer rating as a measure of the QBs passing ability. I would think successful pass heavy offenses would have been much harder to defense (relatively speaking) then than now because of the unfamiliarity most defenses would have had with it. I think there are probably cases of QBs whose adjusted passer ratings over estimate how they would do in today’s NFL.
     
  24. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah, that's why I always start QB comparisons from 1978 because the standard deviations in passer rating have remained relatively stable since then (standard deviations were on average much higher before that).

    However, while what you say is true about individual QB's, passer rating itself as a measure has similar validity from the 1970 merger because its correlation to win% has remained relatively stable since then. It's actually interesting that that's true even though run/pass ratio has vastly changed and, as you say, defenses weren't as well equipped to handle the best passers.
     
  25. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Who?
     
  26. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    There's an even bigger surprise if that's what you're looking for. That list is the same for 150+ passing attempts except for one name that gets in at #5: Wade Wilson who gets in with a z-score of 2.985 in 1992 for as anomalous a year as you'll ever find:
    https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WilsWa00.htm

    But that's really a "small sample size issue" because he only started 3 games while playing in 9. In other words, the 150 attempt threshold doesn't remove all backup QB's in this case. Nick Foles at least started the majority of games in 2013.
     
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  27. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    First, no statistic is perfect.

    Second, when you hypothetically introduce a degree of variation that doesn't exist in reality, certainly that would affect the perception of the validity of the statistic.

    The average pass in the league is thrown at 2.5 seconds after the snap, and teams held their blocks for at least that long 58.5% of the time on average in 2019. Those figures don't correspond to the scenarios you outlined above. There is no team throwing the ball prior to 2.5 seconds 12% of the time, and there is no team throwing the ball prior to 2.5 seconds 88% of the time. Likewise, there is no team that is 100% successful (or even close) at pass blocking prior to 2.5 seconds after the snap.

    The question really is, is pass blocking win rate beyond 2.5 seconds related linearly throughout the league (across teams) with pass blocking win rate prior to 2.5 seconds, and my guess is that it is, which would mean the degree of variation there is throughout the league prior to 2.5 seconds would be the same degree of variation there is throughout the league beyond 2.5 seconds.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2020
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  28. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    What's interesting there as well is the variation for even the great QBs, where they as well had single seasons that were likely significantly different from the rest of their careers. Why do we have only one season from Tom Brady's career above, for example, when he's played nearly 20 years in the league?

    So the exploration of situational advantages, like we're doing here with Tannehill in 2019, holds as well for the greatest QBs of all time, with regard to single seasons of their careers as well (Tom Brady in 2007). Just because you're exploring for situational advantages in a season doesn't mean you're necessarily talking about a bum.
     
  29. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I don't think we know that there is definitely a high degree of variation in offensive line play throughout the league, that is in turn strongly correlated with quarterback play, thus making statistics that suggest otherwise automatically invalid. It could be that what seems logical really isn't true.
     
  30. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah it's definitely true that situational advantages that rarely occur can lead to exceptional performance even for great QB's.

    But I'm not sure you can infer that from a QB making only 1 appearance in the top 15 because there's so much competition. I mean.. you can easily list 10-15 really good QB's since 1978 so you really wouldn't expect most to make more than 1 appearance in a top 15 list, and some like Brees don't even make an appearance (his 2019 season comes in at #17).
     
  31. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    There are plenty of teams who on average throw the ball in well less than 2.5 seconds and plenty that throw it on average in well above 2.5 seconds. That alone invalidate PBWR as a lone stat to measure OL performance. Simply put, not all OLs are being asked to do the same thing. If you understood football that would have been obvious and you wouldn’t have suggested it as a lone stat.
     
  32. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Okay, sure....... no variation in OL play. If that’s true, they why would there be variation in WRs, TEs, RBs, defenses, or QBs. They’re all equal. Every game ends in. 24-24 tie.

    Just watch some games ....
     
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  33. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I stop reading when I see "...I would guess that to be true. Therefore, X,Y, and Z."

    Why are we guessing about things, and then extrapolating our guess out to come to a conclusion? Silliness.
     
  34. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    There have been lots of articles in recent years about the dearth of offensive line talent in the league. In a league geared toward parity, that scarcity alone will diminish the variation in offensive line play among teams.

    Just read a little....
     
  35. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Regardless of when individual teams throw the ball on average, for your point to be true, the relationship between pass block win rate at 2.5 seconds (which is the actual PBWR measure) and pass block win rate beyond 2.5 seconds (which is where you're saying there is greater variation among offensive lines) would have to be non-linear across teams. Where is your evidence of that?
     
  36. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    FinFaninBuffalo is the one doing the guessing. He's guessing the relationship between pass blocking effectiveness at 2.5 seconds and pass blocking effectiveness beyond 2.5 seconds, across teams, isn't linear, without any support for that position.

    But since you agree with that position, then there's no silliness involved in holding it without any objective support. It's only when people don't objectively refute that position that silliness enters the equation for you.
     
  37. Cashvillesent

    Cashvillesent A female Tannehill fan

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    Titans oline gets alot of love but honestly they dont have any talented players besides Lewan and maybe Saffold??

    Conklin wasnt the same player ever since his injury in 2017. He consistently got beat up on the right side of the field ALOT of times.

    They do an AMAZING job at creating holes for RBs to run. But the pass block sucked. Dont care what the stats say.
     
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  38. mooseguts

    mooseguts Well-Known Member

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    Ask him why he went from saying there's no universal OL ranking. Then using PBWR as his ranking of choice to measure OL performance on page 173.

    Now you're using PBWR just like he was on page 173 post #6891. NOW it's invalid as a lone stat to measure OL performance on this page? Which is it??? I thought I'd have to wait for summer time to see these many flip flops.
     
  39. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    I love it! I absolutely ***LOVE*** that after all of this time, so many folks here are still trying to make the "yea, but..." argument about Tannehill.
     
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  40. Etrius24

    Etrius24 Well-Known Member

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    Love Nick Foles.

    Foles battled through injuries and then went to another team... But he came back elevated his level of play won a superbowl... He was the MVP... He showed that his 2013 season was not some fluke.

    So are you ready to admit Tannehill proved you wrong?
     
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