Football Outsiders Almanac 2013 - Miami Dolphins Chapter - (ALERT: Pessimism)

I personally don't understand the continuity argument of the offensive line. As it stands now, there's only 1 new starter and he's a grizzled and successful veteran. If Ritchie and Jerry are replaced it will be because they were outplayed as part of a unit. If they are replaced because of injury than that's the same concern for every team and isn't a unique concern for the Dolphins.

 

6 wins...wow. I get their arguments as to why Miami may not make the playoffs. The oline is a big question mark, and Tannehill is the one who will have to take us where we want to be regardless that we got Wallace. Basically they are implying that Ryan has a sophomore slump; I do not see that happening.

It seems pretty vague but this might be because this is a summary of what you read.

 

There is a great deal more optimism regarding the Dolphins on this forum than there is throughout the rest of the league. That is to be expected because fans of a team always see the positives more than they see the negatives with their own team.

The fact that Vegas has them with a win total of seven and a half as the over under, clearly shows that the expectations for this team are that they will once again be a mediocre football team. I just have to wonder how all those pro Ireland supporters will feel if this Dolphin team should once again finish the season 7-9 for the third year in a row. In fact I have to think that Philbin will be on the hot seat if the Dolphins don't finish at least 9-7 this coming season.

If the OL jells and the secondary comes around and Tannehill takes a giant leap forward as an NFL QB, the Dolphins should be able to at least win nine games this season. If either of these units or Tannehill don't show improvement over last season, another losing season won't be a surprise.

 

I think as long as Lance Louis is healthy, he'll be starting over John Jerry. But he's a veteran as well, so I think the main cause for my concern would be Jonathan Martin for obvious reasons. Now, if Miami goes ultra-cap conscious and gets rid of Incognito to save money and plugs in Dallas Thomas at LG (I think he's the future at LG), things could get messy for a while. I like Thomas more than most on this board I think - I've seen him 3 times in person and came away most impressed last year at his LG play against Alabama - but having a rookie next to Jonathan Martin right off the bat could be rough. Not saying that happens though.

I think the OL is solid, regardless if it's Jerry or Louis at RG, with the only real question mark being Jonathan Martin. Not having Anthony Fasano might hurt a bit as well. But, I think the line will be better than last year.

 

Bovada has Miami at 8 but with the juice tilted toward the under. Different books will vary. I have no doubt there are still a good number of books in Vegas that have not moved off of 7.5 so I don't think he's necessarily wrong. Bovada and the online books are very publicly accessible, and so the movement in their lines are probably subject to more crowd sentiment than other books actually in Las Vegas, for example the group of 13 or 14 casinos that felt like they were getting so little action on the Dolphins at 50/1 to win the Super Bowl that they had to move them to 60/1...at a time when Bovada is at 40/1.

 

One nice part about Clabo is that he's familiar with the zone-blocking scheme from his two stints with Denver, though I think he might have only been practice squad guy. I believe Atlanta was running the ZBS in his early years there as well.

Not sure about Louis, but I remember CK detailing his play when he was first signed and seemed okay. John Jerry was on the ground WAY too often last year IMO.

 

Continuity on the offensive line is not a line of reasoning I'd explored much, but it's a valid one. I don't see Dallas Thomas beating Richie Incognito for a job any time soon. I don't know where they get the idea that there's better than a 50/50 chance that happens.

But they left out one of the more likely scenarios. I could foresee a scenario where Dallas Thomas is good enough (in the coaches' eyes) to start at left guard, and so they move Richie over to the right side on a "best five" basis.

That would be the only scenario where Football Outsiders is right, and Mike Pouncey becomes the only player still playing the same spot as he did a year ago.

They bring up a good point that these upgrades at wide receiver don't often flow through to the passing game's bottom line in the first year.

But 6.1 wins seems like a very low estimate. There are a couple of scenarios where I could see that happening, but it's not what I would predict.

 

Clabo fits a zone protection scheme but not necessarily zone run blocking. He's not very athletic anymore and really a pedestrian run blocker period. Lance Louis is also really good in a zone protection scheme, but a lot more up and down when it comes to zone run blocking.

Saying that they both fit the zone blocking scheme seems to me to imply that they're good run blockers in the zone blocking scheme. I don't think they are. I think if your offensive line features Jon Martin, Richie Incognito, Mike Pouncey, Lance Louis and Tyson Clabo, then your only reliable run blockers are Incognito and Pouncey. And if the tight end blocking next to the line is Dustin Keller, you're probably in for trouble on those run plays.

The Dolphins could make up for some of that with help from Vonta Leach and Dion Sims if he's as good a blocker as a rookie as people figure him to be long term.

 

I wasn't aware the total had risen to 8, but I'm not a bettor, so I was just going on the latest odds I had heard on TV recently.

I realize I come off as negative in regards to this team but I just want to see the results on the field before I am willing to buy into this team being better than the other Dolphin teams in recent years.
Since I purchased four season tickets and my wife and I are going to travel to the game the Dolphins play against the Saints, I obviously want them to be an exciting and winning team. I just have experienced, along with other Dolphin fans, too many high expectations in the past twenty years. Only to see the vast majority of those expectations shattered once the season was over.

I look forward to seeing how this young team develops, but I really don't care how good this team looks on paper. I want to see how they play once the real games start. My hope is that they finish at least 9-7 and even if this isn't enough for them to make the playoffs, it will at show they are headed in the right direction as an organization. Anything less than 9-7 will be considered a disappointment and the jobs of Ireland and Philbin would have to be in jeopardy, as far as I am concerned.

 

While I generally agree that OL continuity is a big factor (IMO more than individual talent), I think there are a couple of factors change dynamic from the typical situation. First, I don't see a great deal of change on our OL from last season (only Clabo unless Louis just plays better than Jerry). IMO we do have a quite a bit of continuity so I wouldn't put us in the category of having only one constant up front as they claim. Second, I see several factors that will make the OL play easier. In the run game we should have a back with better vision than last year. A back with better vision always makes the OL look better. A running QB makes the DL hesitate a beat and makes the job easier for the OL in general and the Ts in particular. Those ends can't crash down on inside runs if they have to wait to make sure the QB isn't going to run outside of them. Miami is basically a quick pass team. It is a great deal easier to block for 1.5 - 2.0 seconds than it is to block for 5.0 seconds on the majority of your plays. Then add in the fact that the only likely changes (Clabo and Louis) are vets very familiar with and excellent fits in a zone blocking scheme. (IMO many big time OL signings fail when players are put in ill-fitting schemes). So while I see the OL as a reasonable concern in general, I don't think the general comparisons are analogous to Miami's situation.

As for overall expectations, I believe that 7.5 - 8 wins is a reasonable expectation, but also see 9 - 10 wins as as an almost equal likelihood. IMO I would put the odds of 7 - 10 wins at about 80% with a 10% chance we'll be below that and another 10% chance we'll be above that. I would also say that I think the odds of 9 wins is slightly higher than the odds of 7 wins.

 

I enjoy these types of posts.... providing a fairly reasonable outside source and then adding your own critique to it. Well done, Stringer.

The way the schedule looks, it seems pretty important that the offensive line gels quickly during the preseason. Then, too, with the new linebacking corps and perhaps an infusion of youth on defense, the offensive line isn't the only unit that needs gelling. The back half of the defense is going to have to come out a lot better than they played last year, or the Dolphins will be in for a world of hurt. After Cleveland, which is on the road, the next four games (Colts/Falcons/Saints/Ravens) are like staring down the barrel of a cannon. Not to mention, both the Colts and Ravens games may prove important at the end of the season when the Dolphins may be fighting for a wild card birth. Teams that go 1-4 don't make the playoffs, so it's pretty vital that the Dolphins pick up a couple of early toss-up wins. Aside from Weeden, who, like Tannehill may have a jump in performance, but isn't among the perceived elite, the Dolphins will be facing the Luck/Ryan/Brees/Flacco quartet. I think it's safe to say, our defense needs to come out and make a positive statement early against these teams. In these first games, I don't think there's much of a question - we're going to have to score points. Lots of them. Even the best defenses in the league have a tough time with these QBs. Our defense needs to look competent and keep us in these games with a few stops and turnovers (which we didn't see last year), but even if they do that, these teams will score points.

Tannehill, who I think and from a number of reports we've heard from within and around the team, appears to be on the up. This is one place where I think it actually helps being closer to the team than having a more agnostic view, at least in getting the feel how the vets and coaches "feel" about how Tannehill looks. This year, he'll be more acclimated to the speed of the game, more familiar with defenses he faces, and he'll have a better assortment of weapons. In a quarterback-driven league, all this points to the Dolphins putting up more points than they did last year. Hopefully, a good number more. It would be swell if, early on, he found a comfort level in the pocket. Although they might be moving him around more, it's still pro football and he needs protection in the pocket. So the Almanac is astute in that argument, but as alluded above, I think the line will pass the minimum threshold and probably end up being at least an average NFL line throughout the year and maybe a good one by the end.

To the point of the article, despite the question marks players, the schedule, the veterans, the newcomers, the culture feel, the line questions, etc., this feels in my opinion like a 8-9 win team that could go a game higher or lower than that if things went well or badly. I'd be pretty disappointed if this team wasn't at least a playoff contender (which is the 8-9 games the article states).

I'm not much of a betting guy, but give me that 6.1, and I'd slap down at least a hundred bones on the over, for sure.

 

Who wrote it? Last year it was Mike Tanier and I don't think pessimism was the word for it, it was more of a questionable hatchet job.

 

Nobody should mind a little pessimism. It's the works of fiction like Dukes and Evans that people hate.

 

For me, the arrow is pointing upwards for a better performance from the offense line then in 2012, especially if Louis beats out Jerry at RG, as replacing under performing players with proven vets is usually a net plus in terms of performance.

Of all of the questions on the OL, the biggest is J Martin, and to me he played passably well in 2012, there is room for improvement but no reasons to think why he won't improve. That is one of the issues with statistical analysis, it can only look at the past to project the future and players improve in an unpredictable manner.

 

True, but talking about our line needing to gel when we have 1 new starter is bordering on that level of fiction.

 

Yes he did.

 

I really only see it as one new starter (Clabo). If there is more than 1 new starter, it's because there are better players

 

I wouldn't necessarily assume that. NFL history is littered with examples of coaches putting the wrong guys on the field, keeping the wrong guys on the bench.

And then of course there's the logical flip side to that argument. You're saying, how bad can the no-chemistry line be if the new guys are new because they beat the old guys who had chemistry? But the logical opposite of that argument is, how good could the chemistry line have been if subbing in guys with zero chemistry is still an upgrade?

The fact that a guy beats another guy isn't a good thing or a bad thing. Only the play on the field can tell you that. But it is also generally true that poor offensive lines are generally marked by lack of chemistry and history playing together.

 

Is it Aug. 4th yet?

 

I think what Maynard is saying, is that if they replace someone on the line it will be if that person already gels with the remaining starters well enough to be effective. This isn't Sparano, this is the same coaching staff that limited Miller's snaps even though he was the better runner because he wasn't grasping the pass protection.

 

Fair points. I'm sure there are people smarter than me that can figure this out, but barring major injuries and obvious talent issues, I have found that trying to predict how an offensive line will pan out over a season is a bit maddening.

Chemistry is a valid concern and it's possible that Philbin would make a mistake here. He still has my good graces at this point though. I tend to trust his judgement, rightly or wrongly. I'm not as sold on Turner as some others though

The other flip side is that chemistry may not mean jack if you can't do your assignment

 

Basically. As Da' Fins brought up the other day, Louis (with the way his contract is) will likely not make it out of camp if he doesn't start. He is going to have to go above and beyond. Dallas is still young. If neither pan out for this year we still have Cogs and Fatty

 

I think the offensive line thing is overblown. Miami went 2-1 over the final 3 games with Martin at LT, and that was with Nate Garner subbing at RT who's obviously no Clabo. Not saying that was a direct reason for the .667 win percentage but just sayin- spontaneous offensive discontinuity didn't kill us then so I don't think it will hurt us now that Martin will have spent even more time at LT, so in that regard I'd say this season translates to more continuity based on where we left off last season, not less, and Claybo having all spring and preseason to settle in at RT is certainly better in the continuity department than throwing Garner in after one week's preparation. Considering Jerry & Incognito weren't terrible last year, it would likely be a plus if they lose their jobs to Louis & Thomas, not a minus.

 

There's a lot of detailed analysis here, and then they just sort of throw this against the wall:

Based on what? Because from his second-half improvement to his teammates' observations during OTAs, all signs point to growth from where I'm sitting.

 

GIFSoup

 

That gif is freakin me out man..

 

Very much so. And the long term determinant seems to rarely be amount of resources spent on the unit, or how wisely you've spent the resources, but rather who you have coaching the unit.

I realize it makes people nauseous when I keep pointing this out but it deserves to be pointed out...Joe Philbin is not the General Manager. It just seems like there's this tendency to attribute personnel moves FIRST to Philbin before anyone else.

 

I'm getting tired of constantly hearing from the media how Wallace's signing could somehow be either a negative or non factor in regards to success. Did none of these idiots watch us play last year? Do they not have a clue as to what our receiving corps looks like without Wallace? He upgrades it, period, and the last I checked, an improved WR corps isn't a bad thing in a passing league.

Now, I understand quite well that a receiver alone won't help you win. Brandon Marshall showed us that. HOWEVER, if the pieces are in place for the team to be successful, then it's difficult to maximize that success with sh** for a receiving corps, and in that regard Wallace should be integral to our success just as he was during Pitt's 2010 Super Bowl season, including giving them the trophy via his game winning catch rather than sending them home as runner ups.

 

Fire Jeff Ireland.

 

I think they view the line as unit, like they do the dline or the wrs. I think for them its not so much about how good an individual player is, but instead how the whole unit functions. If someone new is better player but causes the unit to malfunction because of gelling issues then they'll weigh that against the worse player that might have the unit playing better as a whole. The simple fact of the matter is if 'gelling of the line" is important enough to screw up the entire season as this article contends, then why would our coaches put a player that doesn't gel into the line up?