With all the Injuries to Quarterbacks do we...

"The Guy wrote:

If this team had a quarterback with that capability, combined with a defense that could stifle other teams and keep games close on a regular basis, complaints about the offensive line would dwindle to about nil.

Russell Wilson had one of the worst offensive lines in the league in 2013, and despite that his team won the Super Bowl in a blowout that season, precisely because of the above two factors.

How much do you think Seattle Seahawks fans were complaining about the team’s offensive line that year?

Russell Wilson was also responsible for more sacks than other QBs because of his play style, which often gets his linemen out of position because he's moving around so much. They had that stat up during a Monday Night Football game a year or two ago. So, looking only at the raw numbers isn't really an accurate way of looking at that stuff.

"resnor wrote:

Russell Wilson was also responsible for more sacks than other QBs because of his play style, which often gets his linemen out of position because he's moving around so much. They had that stat up during a Monday Night Football game a year or two ago. So, looking only at the raw numbers isn't really an accurate way of looking at that stuff.

The Seahawks were among the worst teams in the league that year in percentage of pass dropbacks in which there was pressure on the quarterback.

I've been pleasantly surprised with the pass-blocking of the O-line so far.

I would blame the lackluster offense more of the lack of a running game (run-blocking). After that I would look to the QB (Fitz) as being underwhelming. But if you asked me whether Josh Rosen would be at risk behind the O-line, I would say no.

He got some playing time last week and was able to push the ball down the field almost immediately. If we overlook the 1 INT which occurred as time expired he was 7 for 17 for 97-Yds. I think that also included Grants drop on that big pass, too, did it not?

"The Guy wrote:

The Seahawks were among the worst teams in the league that year in percentage of pass dropbacks in which there was pressure on the quarterback.

That's fine. I'm just saying, when it comes to the QB who was most cause of the sacks that occurred, that honor went to Russell Wilson. Regardless of the pressure he faced, he was still the QB who caused the most sacks.

"The Guy wrote:

If this team had a quarterback with that capability, combined with a defense that could stifle other teams and keep games close on a regular basis, complaints about the offensive line would dwindle to about nil.

Russell Wilson had one of the worst offensive lines in the league in 2013, and despite that his team won the Super Bowl in a blowout that season, precisely because of the above two factors.

How much do you think Seattle Seahawks fans were complaining about the team’s offensive line that year?

The Seahawks staff was smart enough to tailor their offense around Wilson's ample skills and even gave him help while learning the speed and nuances of the pro game, and gave him tools to counter the oline's significant deficiencies, in the form of not abandoning the run game, allowing him to call audibles, shirking the field with play calling, calling more read options and roll outs.

"The_Dark_Knight wrote:

Are you kidding me?? I WATCHED those games and with today’s restrictive rules on defenses, quarterbacks of yesteryear would carve up defenses of today.

Quarterbacks then used to get HIT. Suck it up, that’s part of the game. You’re a football player.

Receivers were essentially mugged running routes and PI was only called when there was a BLATANT interference. That was called good coverage.

No you can’t even think of touches quarterback in the pocket less receiving a roughing the passer penalty.

Now you can’t even TOUCH a receiver beyond 5 yards if the LoS less you receive a holding or PI penalty.

If you want a true test of ability, transport today’s quarterbacks back to the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and you’ll see them throw interception after interception...if they survive the physical punishment they’d be subjected to in the pocket

So you'd predict that the world's best kickboxers would beat the world's best boxers in a boxing match because they would now be fighting under more restrictive rules? We know this doesn't happen.

You're totally underestimating how difficult it is to adapt to a different set of rules, whether they're more or less restrictive. Even the slight differences between NBA rules and FIBA rules have visibly caused American basketball players problems.

The best today beat the best from yesterday in today's environment and vice versa. Only time that's not true is if there's a clear discrepancy in talent. The best soccer teams from today would destroy Pele's Brazil squad from the 1960's under any set of rules that's been in place (and by "talent" in this case I mean the obvious difference in athleticism.. players today have vastly greater fitness levels, are much faster than back then and play a much more physical style that was legal in the 1960's but not practiced).

"Fin D wrote:

The Seahawks staff was smart enough to tailor their offense around Wilson's ample skills and even gave him help while learning the speed and nuances of the pro game, and gave him tools to counter the oline's significant deficiencies, in the form of not abandoning the run game, allowing him to call audibles, shirking the field with play calling, calling more read options and roll outs.

Having the luxury of not abandoning the run game is partially a function of having a defense that can keep games close.

"resnor wrote:

That's fine. I'm just saying, when it comes to the QB who was most cause of the sacks that occurred, that honor went to Russell Wilson. Regardless of the pressure he faced, he was still the QB who caused the most sacks.

That’s why the better measure of offensive line play is percentage of pass dropbacks in which there was pressure on the quarterback.

And if the Seahawks were among the worst in the league in that regard, imagine how much Russell Wilson’s mobility avoided sacks the team would’ve otherwise had, given its offensive line play.

Also, Wilson’s passer rating that year was 101.2, so the pressure the offensive line surrendered didn’t result in an equally bad performance by the quarterback.

"The Guy wrote:

If you don’t believe that teams that are behind by significant margins throw the ball more frequently, and that opposing defenses are well aware of that and consequently play differently against them, which makes an offensive line’s job more difficult, then we should agree to disagree at this point.

That has nothing to do with what you first stated...better pass defense results in better offensive blocking.

"The_Dark_Knight wrote:

That has nothing to do with what you first stated...better pass defense results in better offensive blocking.

I didn’t think you would have trouble recognizing the relationship between pass defense and points surrendered.

Between 2004 and 2018, the correlation between passer rating surrendered and points surrendered in the NFL was 0.76.

And again, the Dolphins so far this season are surrendering an astronomical 155 passer rating, as well as an astronomical 51 points per game.

"The Guy wrote:

If this team had a quarterback with that capability, combined with a defense that could stifle other teams and keep games close on a regular basis, complaints about the offensive line would dwindle to about nil.

Russell Wilson had one of the worst offensive lines in the league in 2013, and despite that his team won the Super Bowl in a blowout that season, precisely because of the above two factors.

How much do you think Seattle Seahawks fans were complaining about the team’s offensive line that year?

Again, whenever I say Miami need to focus more on the offensive line, someone says "Russel Wilson." He's the exception to the rule in this conversation and although there have been other QB's who were successful like that (RG3, Newton, etc.) most of them have short careers due to injury.

Do we really want to draft Tua...only to see him go the Tannehill route of ACL after ACL injury? Of course not. So until there's several "Russel Wilson" types that have sustained success in the league without serious injury, maybe it's better if we don't try to replicate that.

"KeyFin wrote:

Again, whenever I say Miami need to focus more on the offensive line, someone says "Russel Wilson." He's the exception to the rule in this conversation and although there have been other QB's who were successful like that (RG3, Newton, etc.) most of them have short careers due to injury.

Do we really want to draft Tua...only to see him go the Tannehill route of ACL after ACL injury? Of course not. So until there's several "Russel Wilson" types that have sustained success in the league without serious injury, maybe it's better if we don't try to replicate that.

There is little difference between an average NFL line and stellar one. There is, however, a cliff between average and awful.

We don't need stellar. We need average. Then we can focus assets into more impactful areas like DL, secondary, WR

"KeyFin wrote:

Again, whenever I say Miami need to focus more on the offensive line, someone says "Russel Wilson." He's the exception to the rule in this conversation and although there have been other QB's who were successful like that (RG3, Newton, etc.) most of them have short careers due to injury.

Do we really want to draft Tua...only to see him go the Tannehill route of ACL after ACL injury? Of course not. So until there's several "Russel Wilson" types that have sustained success in the league without serious injury, maybe it's better if we don't try to replicate that.

What I’m for is simply a talented quarterback who can evade pressure and extend plays, coupled with a very good pass defense. Under those circumstances the offensive line becomes considerably less important.

"Fin D wrote:

There is little difference between an average NFL line and stellar one. There is, however, a cliff between average and awful.

We don't need stellar. We need average. Then we can focus assets into more impactful areas like DL, secondary, WR

Okay, but how do you draft for "average"? It's not like our GM will say, "Oh, that guy's too good for the 4th round....let's draft this less talented lineman instead." Just like any position, you draft the BPA that fits your scheme. And if they do take 1-2 linemen in the first few rounds, then we're definitely not hoping for average.

"The Guy wrote:

What I’m for is simply a talented quarterback who can evade pressure and extend plays, coupled with a very good pass defense. Under those circumstances the offensive line becomes considerably less important.

It does...until it doesn't. Personally, my favorite QB of all time was probably Randall Cunningham or maybe Rice that played for Notre Dame; I love those highly mobile, elusive quarterbacks because every play is exciting. The problem though is that 80-90% of the time, they suffered a career ending injury or enough of a setback to where someone else started in their place.

So while I agree with you that I love those types of QB's, that's not what I want under center long term.....especially with a questionable line. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

"KeyFin wrote:

It does...until it doesn't. Personally, my favorite QB of all time was probably Randall Cunningham or maybe Rice that played for Notre Dame; I love those highly mobile, elusive quarterbacks because every play is exciting. The problem though is that 80-90% of the time, they suffered a career ending injury or enough of a setback to where someone else started in their place.

So while I agree with you that I love those types of QB's, that's not what I want under center long term.....especially with a questionable line. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

I would welcome either the Russell Wilson type that evades pressure, or the Dan Marino type.

What we can’t have is the Ryan Tannehill type, because then all of the sudden the offensive line becomes ultra-important again.

You need to be able to miss in compiling a five-player unit and still be able to be successful. Your team can’t hinge on finding five players in a single unit that are all good, under contract, and healthy. Some of the responsibility for the functioning of that unit has to be offloaded onto other parts of the team, namely the quarterback and the defense.

"The Guy wrote:

I would welcome either the Russell Wilson type that evades pressure, or the Dan Marino type.

What we can’t have is the Ryan Tannehill type, because then all of the sudden the offensive line becomes ultra-important again.

You need to be able to miss in compiling a five-player unit and still be able to be successful. Your team can’t hinge on finding five players in a single unit that are all good, under contract, and healthy. Some of the responsibility for the functioning of that unit has to be offloaded onto other parts of the team, namely the quarterback and the defense.

Or commit to running the football, allow your QB to audible, call better plays, allow him to roll out....or things like that.

"Fin D wrote:

Or commit to running the football, allow your QB to audible, call better plays, allow him to roll out....or things like that.

I’m not in agreement with predicating team functioning on a commitment to running the football when it’s clearly become a passing league, and running the ball has thus become used primarily to run out the clock when a team has a significant lead late in games.

In fact you could argue that the best way to have a commitment to the run game is to have a quarterback who passes the ball so well that he facilitates a lot of scoring, and now we are back discussing (like above) what kind of quarterback you need, how good the offensive line needs to be, and how good your defense needs to be.

"The Guy wrote:

What I’m for is simply a talented quarterback who can evade pressure and extend plays, coupled with a very good pass defense. Under those circumstances the offensive line becomes considerably less important.

The two things dont have to be mutually exclusive. I'd say a dual threat QB is a heck of a lot more dangerous with time in the pocket.

Receivers drift down field taking the safeties, the ends get pushed around wide and it opens up the whole field.

"The Guy wrote:

I’m not in agreement with predicating team functioning on a commitment to running the football when it’s clearly become a passing league, and running the ball has thus become used primarily to run out the clock when a team has a significant lead late in games.

In fact you could argue that the best way to have a commitment to the run game is to have a quarterback who passes the ball so well that he facilitates a lot of scoring, and now we are back discussing (like above) what kind of quarterback you need, how good the offensive line needs to be, and how good your defense needs to be.

I'm sorry but its not true.

You have to run the ball, not even particularly well, just to keep the defense form teeing up on the pass rush. NE, who obviously don't take their foot off the gas when winning by running out the clock, ran the ball third most in the league last year.

Running the ball is still important, but it's not as important as it was in the past.

I haven't updated this graph to include 2018 but you can see how league average rush% has changed over time (black line) and what the rushing percentages were for playoff teams (green circles) and SB winners (blue filled circles). As you can see, SB winners and playoff teams in general don't need as high rushing percentages as they used to.

And just to ward off a possible misinterpretation: remember that the primary difference in rushing percentages between winning and losing teams is due to killing the clock in the 4th quarter, all on average of course. Lots of variation in games. So what's important here is not the relative positioning of the green circles and filled blue circle, but instead their absolute position.

"cbrad wrote:

Running the ball is still important, but it's not as important as it was in the past.

I haven't updated this graph to include 2018 but you can see how league average rush% has changed over time (black line) and what the rushing percentages were for playoff teams (green circles) and SB winners (blue filled circles). As you can see, SB winners and playoff teams in general don't need as high rushing percentages as they used to.

And just to ward off a possible misinterpretation: remember that the primary difference in rushing percentages between winning and losing teams is due to killing the clock in the 4th quarter, all on average of course. Lots of variation in games. So what's important here is not the relative positioning of the green circles and filled blue circle, but instead their absolute position.

Until recently, most of those blue dots have been at or above the 50% mark- but I don't think that actually tells us anything other than the current trends in football. The trend is to run less often but that doesn't mean running the ball is less successful- those are two completely different things.

I remember my old high school coach as a freshman loved saying, "Ain't nobody gonna stop the wishbone!" He was an old, short, fat, dumb country hick that had no business being an assistant in South Florida, and I particularly hated the guy because he was always talking crap to me. Well, almost everybody stopped the wishbone and we switched to an I-formation once we had Autry Denson coming in as a freshman. Then nobody stopped the wishbone or the I since he could run like the wind. And I used to think my coach was the dumbest person on the planet since he literally said that phrase 10+ times per practice...but it actually holds true. If you can average 4 yards per carry, there's no reason to ever stop running the ball. Teams just don't do it.

Anyway, stats saying teams don't run as often doesn't prove running is any less effective in this era...cause ain't nobody gonna stop the wishbone if you have the personnel in place to execute.

That's my story time and my PSA for the day. =)

"KeyFin wrote:

The trend is to run less often but that doesn't mean running the ball is less successful- those are two completely different things.

If you assume that coaches adapt to the ever changing rules of the game so that as they experiment they find what tends to work better, then yes one follows from the other. To claim that one has nothing to do with the other means you're assuming coaches are changing run/pass ratio without any consideration as to how effective either is given the rules of the game.

That's an untenable position.

"cbrad wrote:

If you assume that coaches adapt to the ever changing rules of the game so that as they experiment they find what tends to work better, then yes one follows from the other. To claim that one has nothing to do with the other means you're assuming coaches are changing run/pass ratio without any consideration as to how effective either is given the rules of the game.

That's an untenable position.

I don't think that's what it means at all- the league is simply more geared towards passing so teams pass more. There haven't been any major rule changes that limits the run and as someone recently said above, NE is one of the more active running teams despite perception. Philly is as well and they won a Super Bowl.

As long as the run makes linebackers crowd the LOS and forces the safeties to cheat up, teams will run the ball purely for play action. But if they establish the run there's really no reason to abandon it unless the scoreboard dictates that you have to.

"KeyFin wrote:

I don't think that's what it means at all- the league is simply more geared towards passing so teams pass more. There haven't been any major rule changes that limits the run and as someone recently said above, NE is one of the more active running teams despite perception. Philly is as well and they won a Super Bowl.

As long as the run makes linebackers crowd the LOS and forces the safeties to cheat up, teams will run the ball purely for play action. But if they establish the run there's really no reason to abandon it unless the scoreboard dictates that you have to.

There haven't been any rule changes that limit the run, but there have been a whole series of rule changes that make it easier to gain X yards (for any X>0) by passing the ball. So suppose you have two options: running vs. passing, and now the cost of passing has gone down. What would you do? Yup.. you pass the ball more. Simple cost/benefit analysis.

Now.. it's true that you do need to run the ball at least a certain amount or you become too predictable so there's some lower asymptote to rushing percentage (it can't go below some level without affecting predictability too much), but rule changes that make passing the ball easier and thus more effective will keep lowering rushing percentage until it hits that asymptote, and that's what you see in that graph.