The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Unfortunately, I think we lose this game.  I just think it's really hard to go in there and win and I don't think we're that good offensively.

I don't know how COVID plays into all this but it feels like the public is overvaluing the loss of the Saints QB.

It should be a close one of evenly matched teams and we're on the road.


20-17 Saints

As bad as we are offensively, the Saints are even worse and are now down to their 4th string QB.   He's gonna shit his pants tonight.   Dolphins front seven needs to get to him early and often.   The offense will score enough to win.

Dolphins 13
Saints 10

You're crazy Dave.  You've been hurt too many times by the Dolphins.  There is no way Miami should lose this game. 

28-6 Miami

We will win this game because we haven't suffered enough yet. Remember last year in Week 16 when we needed that facemask hail mary by Fitzpatrick to beat the Raiders and stay alive only to get killed by Buffalo? It's too early for our playoff hopes to die yet. We need to hope more before we lose by 90.

Miami 27 (17 points from defense)
Saints 6

Since this is a big, must win game for the Dolphins, they're going to find a way to choke and hand the game over to the 'Aints. We're going to see the Jags game Dolphins make an appearance. They're going to make sure to be competitive while keeping victory just barely out of reach.
Aints - 21
Dolphins - 18
"Prove me wrong kids...prove me wrong"  -  Seymour Skinner.

Great quote. I think the choking happens next week. Not that it would be a choke to lose to the Titans, but we could let Henry break the single game rushing record against us and lose by 39.

Just about every single one of you remind me of Randy Quaid from Major League.

^LOL. I've seen enough Dolphins football in my life to know how this is going to play out tonight.

Two decades of suffering will do that to you

Back up the truck! Back it up!!

Ha Ha Ha two decades? How old are you?

Dolphins fan since around '78. Seen my share of Dolphins SuperBowls but still waiting for a win...

I've never seen them in the superbowl. First Superbowl I watched was XX. I was cheering for the Bears.

I'll be at this game and I anticipate the Dolphins' cruising against a rookie fourth-round QB.

I don't think you can overestimate the effect of playing in today's NFL with a rookie fourth-round QB making his NFL debut.  Absolutely crippling for a team.

My spidey sense is tingling. Feels like it could be a trap. Too may reasons for the Dolphins to steamroll these guys easily for something not to go wrong.

What do you know Miami won easily. 

Just like I said they would. Why don't you pay attention?

I am glad to be wrong about this, but I'm still concerned about our prospects.  I'm really worried that our offense isn't producing points.  I feel like a doomsdayer, but we scored.  That's just not enough against most teams on most weeks.

The offense is definitely not good enough to beat Tennessee or New England playing the way it is now.  They're 30th in the league at 4.8 yards per play, with a mere 4.4 against New Orleans and 4.7 over the last three games.  The only way they win those games is if they capture some of 2020's magic (or luck) and have high defensive takeaway numbers in those games.  They need to give the offense more possessions and deprive the other team of them.  The defense essentially needs to win those games like they did some of the games last year.

Just have to take it a day at a time. Maybe Waddle breaks a tackle and goes 78 yards. Maybe we force 3 turnovers in their own zone. With only 2 games left, we are in "Any Given Sunday" territory.

Yeah, you're right -- and I deserve to eat crow, so I'm here to do so.

I just feel like this is all fool's gold.

I wouldn't worry about offense in a game where we win by 17 unless you gave up some stupid points in a bet prior to the game. The only way we see our best offensive effort is if we stay down 7 the whole game. Flores plays not to lose. No way he cares about winning by 4 TDs.

NO held Tom Brady to 0 points just last week.  They held Aaron Rodgers to 3 points in Week 1.  And while it's true that Demario Davis and Malcolm Jenkins were out, it's not like TEN is at full strength, either.

Every win in the current streak has been by at least a TD, and most have been by double digits.  MIA has been earning their wins.

I'm worried about offense, because we haven't been able to score all year and had a 7 game losing streak when the defense couldn't bail you out every single time.  I just don't think you can win long-term without some kind of offensive balance and production.

During this streak, the defense has held opponents to an average of 11 points.
That average would have MIA beating every team they lost to except BUF.

We know we have issues .. IE no offensive line and running game. I'm just saying Monday wasn't our best offensive effort that we can pull with the crappy opine. Tua has been great in the 4th quarter and directly after he makes a boneheaded play. We can move the ball. It's just a matter of how bad we want to and against NO we didn't really need to.

They have a shot against Tennessee because Tennessee has achieved its record largely with smoke and mirrors, not with the strongest systematic predictors of winning.  Note that Vegas has Tennessee just a 3.5-point favorite, with three of those points representing home-field advantage.  That's pretty much a pick 'em, despite that Tennessee's record is two wins better and the Dolphins aren't winning either with the strongest systematic predictors of winning.  Vegas knows when teams do it with smoke and mirrors.  The home-field advantage is big, however, and will be a lot for this Dolphins' team to overcome when it isn't playing against an Ian Book.

They also have a shot against New England because Mac Jones is but a rookie and is prone to the downward variation we've seen him display over the past two games.  He can lay an egg in any game.  The Patriots will also be coming off what's likely a home win by a big margin against Jacksonville, which puts them at a situational disadvantage on the road the following week.  Home-field advantage will be big for the Dolphins in that one of they can beat Tennessee, because you can bet there will be a packed house for that one.

If they win these two games it'll be when they get to the playoffs and come up against the likes of the Chiefs or Buffalo, or even Cincinnati or the Chargers, that they get exposed.  They can't keep pace with those teams.  The passing game simply isn't there.

Oh, it is. I'm rooting for the playoffs just to get ove rthe hump, but I have no delusions about this team and our bad offense and coaching. I'm just keeping a positive front right now but that will go to shit the next game we lose and Flores isn't fired.

Right, but our season includes the losses, too.  You can just take the games you play well as an indication of how good you are.  This same defense got some points laid on us a few times, too.

Points by week:  (counting points scored by the defense)
17
0
28
17
17
20
28
11
17
22
24
33
20
31
20


There is definitely some offensive improvement, and the games where Tua was out didn't help.  I just think that you gotta be able to score 35 once in a while and we don't seem capable.

But that's the point: if the defense had played as well in the first half of the season as they are now, the Dolphins would only have two losses.  The offense hasn't had that same kind of wild swing.  It's not like they went from 10 points a game in the first half of the season to putting up 30 points a game now.  The offense has been mostly mediocre, but coupled with a top defense that can be enough to get the job done.

Ultimately, we're not going to see anything "of value" until a playoff win... maybe two.

Win @ TEN?  The Titans are really banged up and missing their best player.
Win vs. NE?  Rookie QB hit the wall at the end of the season (even more so if they lose to JAX).
Win against TEN in the Wild Card?  Derrick Henry is rusty.  BAL?  Decimated by injury.
etc.

Nothing MIA can do will change the narrative until/unless they beat KC, BUF, or LAC in the playoffs.

You have to consider the pass offenses the Dolphins have faced during the win streak.  In terms of season EPA per pass dropback league ranks they are as follows:

Houston 31st
Baltimore 17th
Jets 27th
Panthers 32nd (last)
Giants 30th
Jets 27th
Saints 25th (plus Ian Book)

That makes a defense's job awfully easy.  On top of that, the defense last year feasted on poor passing teams and was exploited by good ones, and made their living largely off of takeaways, which are about 50% random and can't be counted on.

This team is in for it when it plays against a good passing team.  Unless they can get lucky with turnovers, they won't defend them well, and they won't keep pace offensively.

Why would you just consider the pass offense rank, instead of the total offense?  That doesn't make sense, especially at the end of the season when the weather gets worse, high-powered passing offenses traditionally fall off, and power running teams start producing more results.

Run defense isn't a significant predictor of season win percentage in the NFL when included in a regression model with pass offense, run offense, and pass defense.  Teams can have relatively poor run defenses and still have very good season records, or conversely they can have great run defenses and have relatively poor season records.

Pass offense and pass defense, in that order, are by far the strongest predictors of season win percentage in the NFL.  Run offense comes in a distant third of the four major facets of the game, and run defense isn't even significant, statistically speaking.

So when you're determining what meaning to make of the seven-game win streak in terms of this team's quality, look first at how it passed the ball and how it defended the pass during that period.  The Dolphins' pass defense's job has been very easy during the win streak, as noted in my post above.  Likewise its pass offense has been nothing special, at 12th in the league with 0.091 EPA per pass dropback during that period.  Green Bay by contrast has had 0.275 EPA per pass dropback during that period, a whopping difference.

The Dolphins have been doing it with smoke and mirrors against weak opponents.  They're destined to be tripped up against high-quality passing teams they can't defend adequately and with which they can't keep pace offensively.

As for bad weather games, all bets are off on those, since predictors of winning become less reliable the smaller the sample gets (i.e., single bad weather games), and weather can change how teams play.  But if you have a team whose limited salary cap has been devoted to running the ball well and stopping the run in bad weather -- at the expense of passing the ball well and defending the pass well -- you're destined to win a game here or there in the month of December and likely to do poorly the rest of the season.  It's not a way to build a team.

Given that you were recently arguing against an entire season as a measurement for "team quality," I'm not sure why you're now citing midseason statistical rankings as a meaningful indicator.

They're certainly a less reliable indicator after a mere 15 games than they would be for a major league baseball team after 150, for example.

That's why the Dolphins can play like they have during the win streak with regard to the strongest predictors of winning in the game and still be 7-0.  If that pattern of performance continued over 150 games they'd likely end up somewhere around 70-80.

Point being: you're happy to cite passing offense rank after 15 games when it supports the conclusion you like, but when the statistics DON'T support the conclusion you like, suddenly there are significant discrepancies between actual team quality and win percentage over a mere 17 games.

If we can discount literal wins and losses when it comes to evaluating teams, then we damned sure can discount passing offense rank.

The fact that the Dolphins are 7-0 during the win streak while performing like a team that would typically be 3-4 (or 70-80 over 150 games) certainly supports the point that win percentage over relatively small samples of games isn't as reliable a measure of team quality as win percentage over larger samples.

The smaller the sample size, the more every measure of team quality should be discounted, including win percentage.

I haven't compared schedules, but haven't we played mostly the same teams as all the other AFC East teams? But yet we are within one game of Buffalo and NE. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is wins and losses. All this speculation is just nonsense, they play the games for a reason.

Certainly teams' records are what matters in the end because they primarily determine playoff seeds, but what we're talking about here is how to predict how the Dolphins will play in the future on the basis of how they've performed in the past.  There are measures that are better than win percentage at predicting how they will play in the future.

Here's a great article about how wins and losses -- and even point differentials -- aren't the best ways of predicting the future performance of teams:

https://www.nfeloapp.com/analysis/whats-the-best-nfl-game-grade

Think about it very simply -- if team A beats the worst team in the league 3-0 it's credited with a single win.  If team B beats the best team in the league 50-0, it's also credited with a single win.  Certainly there is more information to be gleaned about those two teams from those games than simply that they both experienced "wins."

I believe they call that confirmation bias.

No, just a misunderstanding of what I'm saying.  I clarified that adequately in my responses in my opinion, and if you're still incapable of understanding I can't help you.  My ability to have another person understand something is limited by what's going on within them, over which I have no control.

Ah, smartest guy in the room argument.   :D

You mean that's you, or are you possibly incapable of understanding something correctly?

I understand perfectly well that you cherry pick to support your bias.

Sounds like you're the one engaging in confirmation bias, then.  No matter what I post, to you it'll reflect "cherry-picking."

I have to agree with Spider here. New Orleans defense is no joke especially considering the Dolphins offensive line issues AND you combine that with the fact that Miami scored a defensive TD on the first series against a rookie QB with a depleted offensive line and I think it was pretty obvious that Miami had an EXTREMELY conservative offensive approach to that game....and it worked! We really shouldn't be criticizing the offense for only winning by more than 2 scores. This game was over much before the game ended. Miami has indeed been earning the wins they have, they haven't fluked into any wins this year. You play the schedule you are given and yes the schedule has been soft in the 7 game win streak, but it was very hard in the 7 game losing stretch so does it really matter? Don't teams typically do better against under .500 teams and not so well against over .500 teams? Are any of the other teams in the playoff hunt much different in that regard? Miami does ALREADY have 2 wins against over .500 teams, the Patriots and Ravens.

What people fail to realize is that beating ANYONE in the NFL is hard. Beating JAX is hard, it's not easy. Is it as hard as beating Green Bay or KC? No, but's not like they are beating some college team out there either, those are professional teams with professional players and professional coaches. Anyone can beat anyone in the NFL on any given day, we are constantly reminded of that and yet we seem to forget it constantly.

Having said all that, I think it's absolutely true that the offense needs to find it's groove for the next 2 games to give them a shot at winning. I don't think you can expect the defense to hold those teams to under 10, maybe under 20 so the offense is going to have to score unless the defense can come up with another defensive TD, but you can't rely on that. Miami is certainly capable of scoring enough points to win, whether they do or not remains to be seen. How about we let the next 2 games unfold before we claim they are not a playoff team. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. The next 2 games will decide that and if Miami can win both they will have EARNED it.

One last thing. If Miami does win it's final 2 games, NO ONE will be wanting to play Miami in the playoffs.