Dolphins Coaches

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Oline is relatively young; rookies and guys with only a couple years in the league might relate to a college coach better than a 10 year vet would. 

Players will respect any coach who can teach them to be a better player, don’t respond well to coaches that can only criticize.   

[Fau Teixeira]

and it's not like this guy has 0 NFL experience.. he coached with McDaniel in washington

[EDGECRUSHER]

and it's not like this guy has 0 NFL experience.. he coached with McDaniel in washington

Experience with our new HC and coached one of the best O-Lines in college. Honestly, couldn't realistically ask for a better hire.

[pondwater]

In other news, it looks like we're hiring Chargers run game coordinator/offensive line coach Frank Smith as OC.

[EDGECRUSHER]

^^

McDaniel is not messing around when it comes to fixing the O-Line. Very happy to see that.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

^^

McDaniel is not messing around when it comes to fixing the O-Line. Very happy to see that.

Does the o-line need better coaching or better players?

[EDGECRUSHER]

Does the o-line need better coaching or better players?

It can definitely benefit from removing Jesse Davis but we spent some good draft picks on the line and I think there is some talent there. Like I said elsewhere a bunch, Solomon and Jackson forgot how to play football in one offseason? Eichenberg is a disaster? Seems unlikely. I can understand them not being Pro Bowlers but they were historically bad and I don't believe that is their talent level but I will if they are also historically bad this season.

[Dolfanalyst]

Does the o-line need better coaching or better players?

The Dolphins' pass block win rate -- arguably the best measure we have of pass protection at the present time -- was 47% in 2021.  The Bengals' pass block win rate in 2021 was 49%, second-worst in the league, and their pass block win rate in last night's game was an extremely low 14%, yet they lost by only three points to presumably the best team in the league in the most important game of the season, with a fine passing performance by their QB against a very good defense.

All of the above gives us an idea of how strongly pass protection is related to winning in the present-day game.  Poor offensive line play can be overcome by other facets of the game.

The perception that the Dolphins' 2021 offensive line was "historically" bad is exaggerated, and you'll never see any opinion that it was "historically" bad alongside any objective comparison of other offensive lines historically.  I'd be shocked if anyone can come up with a single tweet or other piece of information that compares the Dolphins' 2021 offensive line to other offensive lines historically using objectively measured data and concludes that it was indeed "historically bad."

When you're watching the Dolphins' offensive line play as poorly as it did in 2021, realize three things:  1) the best offensive line in the league isn't playing better than that to anywhere near the degree you may think, as variation in offensive line play throughout the league is far smaller than variation in some other areas of the game (like QB play for example), 2) offensive line play is weakly correlated with winning in the NFL, and 3) there are QBs who can perform very well with a comparable level of offensive line play -- e.g., Joe Burrow in 2021 and in the Super Bowl.

[Downunder Dolphan]

The Dolphins' pass block win rate -- arguably the best measure we have of pass protection at the present time -- was 47% in 2021. The Bengals' pass block win rate in 2021 was 49%, second-worst in the league... 

The same measure for the Dolphins the season before was 51% and ranked 27th according to ESPN.

https://www.espn.com.au/nfl/story/_/id/29939464/2020-nfl-pass-rushing-run-stopping-blocking-leaderboard-win-rate-rankings

So this measure indicates our OL has gone backwards this season, right?

As for "historically bad", I think you can take Edge's comment as quite literal in the specific cases of Jackson and Kindley (who were far better rookies).

[Spider-Dan]

The Bengals' pass block win rate in 2021 was 49%, second-worst in the league, and their pass block win rate in last night's game was an extremely low 14%, yet they lost by only three points to presumably the best team in the league in the most important game of the season, with a fine passing performance by their QB against a very good defense.

To continue the usage of the Super Bowl as a data point: last year saw arguably the best QB in the league get swarmed in the Super Bowl due to poor play from an OL depleted by injuries.

I don't think OL performance vs. QB play in the Super Bowl are quite the determining factors you suggest.

[Dolfanalyst]

To continue the usage of the Super Bowl as a data point: last year saw arguably the best QB in the league get swarmed in the Super Bowl due to poor play from an OL depleted by injuries.

I don't think OL performance vs. QB play in the Super Bowl are quite the determining factors you suggest.

Illustrates the point very well:  you have two Super Bowls there with poor pass protection, one of them featuring poor QB play and a lopsided loss (31-9), and the other featuring good QB play and a loss by only three points, with the ability to win the game on the final drive.

When pass protection is poor across a sufficient sample games and they nonetheless unfold in dramatically different fashion, pass protection can't possibly be a strong predictor of winning in the NFL.  The strong predictors of winning in the NFL are the other variables that make those games unfold in dramatically different fashion, despite the similarity in poor pass protection across them.

These two games aren't anywhere near a sufficient sample to determine the finding, but when we gather a sufficient sample we find the same thing -- pass protection isn't associated with anywhere near enough of the variation in winning across the league to be a strong predictor of it.

[pondwater]

Illustrates the point very well:  you have two Super Bowls there with poor pass protection, one of them featuring poor QB play and a lopsided loss (31-9), and the other featuring good QB play and a loss by only three points, with the ability to win the game on the final drive.

When pass protection is poor across a sufficient sample games and they nonetheless unfold in dramatically different fashion, pass protection can't possibly be a strong predictor of winning in the NFL.  The strong predictors of winning in the NFL are the other variables that make those games unfold in dramatically different fashion, despite the similarity in poor pass protection across them.

These two games aren't anywhere near a sufficient sample to determine the finding, but when we gather a sufficient sample we find the same thing -- pass protection isn't associated with anywhere near enough of the variation in winning across the league to be a strong predictor of it.

Is better OL play and QB protection a good or bad thing? I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue. From all accounts McDaniel is trying to fix the OL, to me that's a good thing for a unit that's been bad for as long as I can remember. What's your point?

[Dolfanalyst]

Is better OL play and QB protection a good or bad thing? I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue. From all accounts McDaniel is trying to fix the OL, to me that's a good thing for a unit that's been bad for as long as I can remember. What's your point?

Every team has limited resources (draft picks and salary cap money) with which to improve itself.  If you go thinking you need an exceptional offensive line to win a Super Bowl and you pour resources into attaining such an offensive line at the expense of allocating resources toward areas of the team that actually are strongly related to winning, you're less likely to win a Super Bowl than if you allocated your resources as a function of what predicts winning.

The Jacksonville Jaguars just paid their offensive linemen more than any other team in the league in 2021 ($51M+) and finished 3-14 on the season, with the third-worst passer rating in the league.  Clearly their exorbitant expenditure of resources on offensive linemen didn't get them anywhere near the promised land, nor did it extract anything special from Trevor Lawrence.  The Cincinnati Bengals on the other hand spent about half that much on their offensive line ($25.6M) and came within roughly 50 yards of a Super Bowl win with arguably the best QB in the league in 2021.

If you want the Dolphins to win a Super Bowl, you'd better hope Chris Grier and company are thinking along these lines, as opposed to making stupid mistakes with their limited resources.

[Spider-Dan]

Illustrates the point very well:  you have two Super Bowls there with poor pass protection, one of them featuring poor QB play and a lopsided loss (31-9), and the other featuring good QB play and a loss by only three points, with the ability to win the game on the final drive.

To be clear:
Burrow's QBR in Super Bowl LVI was 39.7.
Mahomes' QBR in Super Bowl LV was 42.2.

Seems like QB play wasn't the difference.

[Dolfanalyst]

To be clear:
Burrow's QBR in Super Bowl LVI was 39.7.
Mahomes' QBR in Super Bowl LV was 42.2.

Seems like QB play wasn't the difference.

Even if we agree just for the sake of argument that Mahomes played better than Burrow in those games, we'd still be functioning within the realm of single games (two of them), where virtually anything can explain an outcome while possibly remaining a weak predictor of winning overall in the NFL.

I'm sure we can find a game where punting or kick returning won the game for example; obviously that doesn't mean teams should be spending first-round draft picks on punters and kick returners and making them among their highest-paid players.  What should determine that allocation of resources is what makes teams most likely to win games (i.e., the strongest predictors of winning in the game), and certainly QB play resides above offensive line play in that equation.