Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Reader Question: 2011 RB situation

I got a good reader question yesterday asking about Miami's potential 2011 running back situation.

With the return of Ronnie and Ricky questionable for the 2011 season, are Patrick Cobbs and Lex Hilliard capable replacements? How do you rate each player's ability?

That's a really interesting question for a lot of reasons.

First off, I should state right off the bat that I put very little stock in running backs in general. It is proven time and again how fungible they are and how easily a replacement can be found later on in the draft (this is why I am absolutely against drafting C.J. Spiller with the 12th pick). The important part is the offensive line and Miami already has that pretty well covered.

The areas where running backs can truly differentiate themselves from one another are in how well they run routes and catch the ball as well as how well they pass protect. Other important attributes that set guys apart are the ability to break tackles as well their health and durability.

So let's for a minute assume that neither Ronnie Brown nor Ricky Williams are with the Dolphins in 2011 (let's also assume that there is a season in 2011). There are four remaining RBs on Miami's current roster: Patrick Cobbs, Lex Hilliard, Kory Sheets, and Tristan Davis.

Cobbs is the most experienced of the bunch, but he's coming off a torn knee ligament, so it remains to be seen how that affects him when he gets back on the field. He never was the fastest guy so losing another step due to the injury could hurt. Even if he is back at 100% in 2011 though, Cobbs doesn't strike me as an every-down back. He's more of a third-down, jack-of-all trades type player - and he's been excellent in that role.

Lex Hilliard, on the other hand, has the build of an every-down back. He was expectedly average in his limited rushing opportunities this past year, but he impressed me with his receiving skills, which I wasn't sure he possessed. With another season of development under his belt, it's entirely possible that Hilliard could be in the mix for a much larger role in 2011. Granted, he would most likely be part of a committee, but that's a good thing.

Kory Sheets and Tristan Davis are both long shots to make the team this year, never mind in 2011, but with the positional uncertainty arising from Ronnie's contract situation and Ricky's pending retirement, anything is possible. Kory Sheets profiles as a third-down back, but I suppose it's possible he could be in line for a promotion if he manages to stick around. The same could be said for Davis. Both are finesse runners who excel at catching the football.

Of course, the most likely scenario in the event of losing both Brown and Williams would be to draft a running back (not in the first few rounds!) after next season and pair him with whoever is still on the roster.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Reviewing Preseason Projections: Running backs

In my annual preseason roster breakdown, I included all of Football Outsiders' KUBIAK individual player projections.

It's always interesting to see how the system fares.

Today, I'll be looking at how they did with the running backs. With Ronnie Brown going down with an injury once again, the numbers will have to be scaled to reflect that.

But first, here are the original KUBIAK projections:


Runs
Yds
Yd/R
TD
FUM
DVOA
Rec
Pass
Yds
Yd/C
TD
DVOA
R. Brown
238
1131
4.8
7
4
1.6%
38
46
260
6.8
1
12.4%
Williams
125
524
4.2
2
3
2.1%
15
23
151
10.1
0
22.1%
Cobbs
32
151
4.7
1
2
18.0%
11
20
109
9.9
0
12.3%

Patrick Cobbs only played in 5 games so his numbers can be thrown out.

Ronnie only played in 9 games, so let's scale his projected numbers to fit a 9 game season:


Runs
Yds
Yd/R
TD
FUM
DVOA
Rec
Pass
Yds
Yd/C
TD
DVOA
R. Brown
134
636
4.8
4
2
1.6%
21
26
146
6.8
1
12.4%

And here are his actual numbers (along with Ricky's):


Runs
Yds
Yd/R
TD
FUM
DVOA
Rec
Pass
Yds
Yd/C
TD
DVOA
R. Brown
147
648
4.4
8
1
14.4%
14
20
98
7.0
0
-2.1%
Williams
241
1121
4.7
11
5
9.0%
35
53
264
7.5
2
-10.3%

For Ronnie, whose role was known heading into the season, KUBIAK predicted his usage in the running game almost perfectly. However, it expected a better yards per carry average and fewer TDs. It also expected a much lower DVOA, which means Ronnie outplayed his prediction when it comes to rushing.

On the receiving end, however, Ronnie underperformed. He was thrown to less than expected, and he had a negative DVOA, when the system thought he would be pretty good in the receiving game. It did get his yards per catch right though.

So for a guy who missed almost half the season, I'd say KUBIAK did a pretty good job of predicting how Ronnie would be used in this offense.

Ricky, on the other hand, really couldn't be accurately predicted since he started (and received a majority of the carries) for all seven of the games that Ronnie missed. The KUBIAK projections were done with the assumption that both backs would play a full season together.

So his counting stats were way off. He more than doubled his projected yardage, almost doubled his projected carries, and scored five times as many projected TDs. But he also had much better rate stats (4.7 Y/C compared to 4.2 and 9.0% DVOA compared to 2.1%). He also caught the ball much more than expected, although he performed much worse catching the ball than predicted, finishing with a -10.3%.

Essentially, Ricky greatly outperformed his rushing projection but underperformed his receiving projection.

Dolphins strangely re-sign SirVincent Rogers

You'd think that Parcells and Ireland would want no part of a player who quit the team during last year's training camp.

But apparently you'd be wrong.

In a strange move, the team re-signed T SirVincent Rogers.

Who knows what his reasons were for leaving or for coming back, but since he is back in the fold, let's hope he's serious about the commitment this time. And let's see how far he makes it in training camp.

Will Allen arrested for DUI

Miami Dolphins players are having trouble with the law this offseason.

First, Tony McDaniel was arrested for misdemeanor battery, after his girlfriend accused him of pushing her to the pavement where she injured her head.

Now, CB Will Allen has been arrested on a DUI charge. Reports say that Allen was driving at 3:35 AM yesterday morning when he approached a police roadblock and detour. Instead of taking the detour, Allen drove right toward the roadblock and then stopped and revved his engine.

When the police made him roll down his window to talk to him, they smelled alcohol. Subsequent blood alcohol tests revealed that he had a BAC of .152 and .167, which is twice the legal limit.

If Allen is found guilty, he could face punishment under the league's substance abuse program.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Reader Question: QB situation

Time for another reader question:

What are your thoughts on the Dolphins' QB situation? I read on your site that the Bills might have an interest in acquiring Tyler Thigpen. Do you think that is a possibility? It looks like the Dolphins want Henne to be the starter for the 2010 season. What QB that is currently on the Dolphins would be the best backup for Henne? Why did the Dolphins draft Pat White last year?

I really hope that the Bills do have an interest in trading for Thigpen because that would solve a lot of problems for Miami.

I was never really on board with the trade for Thigpen to begin with. I still cannot wrap my head around the logic of trading away a valuable fifth round pick in a very deep draft for a guy who is coming in to be the third QB for half a season. The front office had to know that Chad Pennington would be ready to play by the time 2010 rolled around and that he could probably be persuaded into re-signing as the backup.

But now there's a logjam at the QB position and the team has to decide if it can squeeze Pennington back onto the roster or let him go in favor of the clearly inferior Thigpen and Pat White.

So, yes, it would be a great help if the Bills made a run for Thigpen. I think it's certainly a possibility since their QB situation is such a mess. Miami could also facilitate things by essentially giving him away for a seventh-round pick. Also, I don't really think Thigpen is all that good, so if the Bills were to choose to place their future hopes in his hands, well that's all the better for Miami, right?

The best backup on the team for Henne right now is unquestionably Pennington. And I stress "right now" because Pennington might not be on the team in a month, so we can't count on having him as that option. I'd say the next best option is a toss-up. White and Thigpen can both run the change-up spread option packages that have been installed. If it comes down to those two though, I'd like to see White as the backup simply because he has a higher upside and the team needs to keep him active on game days to try to get him involved in other ways. He really needs to learn some receiver routes so that he can stay in games for entire drives and switch to QB from the field rather than coming in from the sideline.

I didn't like the choice of Pat White in last year's draft and it still looks pretty bad. The way the team is going about his development isn't helping things. Henne is the current and presumably future starter at QB so they shouldn't try to force White into becoming the same kind of player. That's not what he is. He is a backup who has the versatility to be involved in a lot of aspects of the offense. Use him in spread packages. Use him as a receiver. Use him in conventional packages. But don't continue with this pattern of shoehorning him into games just to hand the ball off. At least let him throw the ball.

Overall, Miami's QB situation at this moment is solely defined by Chad Henne. I was pleased with his production this year, but there are clear areas of his game that must get better if he is to become the kind of QB that this team will need if they are serious about making a legitimate run for a championship. He must improve his accuracy on all passes, he must improve his situational passing (aka not gunning it at a running back who is three yards away), he must improve his ability to read a defense, and the team must open up the playbook more and let him throw downfield.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Dolphins embarass themselves trying to get rid of Porter

OK, so everyone was pretty much in agreement that Joey Porter had to go this offseason after the ridiculous team-bashing remarks that he made before the Super Bowl. Not to mention the fact that he is delusional about how good of a player he truly is. Newsflash Joey: You are pathetic against the run. Absolutely pathetic. And you're hurt almost half the season so you use that as your excuse for why you aren't getting double-digit sack numbers.

Maybe the real reason is because you're losing a step or two.

In fact, ProFootballFocus ranked Joey 22nd out of the 28 3-4 OLBs who played at least 25% of their team's snaps. He was statistically the worst OLB on the Dolphins, finishing behind luminaries like Charlie Anderson and Quentin Moses.

Well, the Dolphins clearly had had enough, so they decided to release Porter.

Good idea...except that they don't have the cap space right now to absorb his cap acceleration, so the NFL had to step in and reverse the move, calling it an invalid termination. So now Porter is back on the team, until March 5 at least, which is the beginning of the new league year.

This is embarrassing. How the hell did this front office not realize the cap ramifications of cutting Porter right now? That seems like something basic - if you are going to conduct a transaction, you should know the consequences. Now it looks like the guys running the team are clueless or ignorant.

And maybe they are, since cutting Matt Roth midway through this past season has never looked like a more buffoonish decision. I was strongly against the move at the time, and now even more so.

Even in his limited time with Cleveland, Roth played 371 snaps and finished 7th on that list of 3-4 OLBs, one in front of Jason Taylor. Porter played 755 snaps, almost exactly twice as many as Roth, yet Porter only recorded a combined 16 QB hits and pressures. Roth had 17...in half as many plays. Oh, and as usual Roth was an absolute beast stopping the run.

Even Cameron Wake wiped the floor with Porter (and every other pass rusher on the Dolphins). Wake played a mere 167 snaps, but tallied an incredible 26 QB hits and pressures. 26! In one fourth the snaps! And it's not like Porter was getting the Jason Taylor treatment and being taken off the field in passing situations or asked to cover backs and tight ends. Just like Wake, he was pretty much just rushing the passer, play after play.

So good riddance Joey. You're not a complete player, you never were, and the one part of the game you are good at is slipping more and more all the time.

Now, if only we still had Roth. Oh well, hopefully Porter's eventual release means that Jason Taylor is more likely to stick around for another year.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Reviewing Preseason Projections: Quarterbacks

In my annual preseason roster breakdown, I included all of Football Outsiders' KUBIAK individual player projections.

It's always interesting to see how the system fares.

For the QBs, it's tough, because the system projects them (Pennington and Henne) as if they each played all 16 games. Of course, neither did, so we will have to approach them accordingly.

Here are the preseason KUBIAK projections:


Att
Comp
C%
Yds
TD
INT
FUM
NY/P
DVOA
Runs
Yds
TD
Pennington
492
321
65.2%
3576
22
14
7
6.6
15.3%
29
105
1
Henne
455
280
61.5%
3360
17
13
8
6.2
5.5%
15
61
0
White
25
17
69.5%
212
1
1
2
7.5
4.9%
40
208
3

Pennington's numbers can pretty much be thrown out since he played less than three games. And let's scale Henne's numbers to fit a 14 game season since that's about what he ended up playing (he got significant action against the Chargers after Pennington went down).

Using that scale, Henne's projection would have looked like this:


Att
Comp
C%
Yds
TD
INT
FUM
NY/P
DVOA
Runs
Yds
TD
Henne
398
245
61.5%
2940
15
11
7
6.2
5.5%
13
53
0

And here are his actual numbers:


Att
Comp
C%
Yds
TD
INT
FUM
NY/P
DVOA
Runs
Yds
TD
Henne
451
274
60.8%
2878
12
14
4
5.7
7.8%
16
32
1

The KUBIAK system has the most trouble projecting young players who have yet to really play yet, but it did a pretty good job with Henne.

While the system thought that Henne would throw the ball a lot less than he did, it actually projected him to accrue more yardage. That's mainly because it projected him to have a slightly higher completion percentage to go along with a much higher net yards per pass number. And that NY/P number is key. He has to get that up from a disappointing 5.7.

KUBIAK also thought that Henne would have a positive TD/INT ratio which he did not. But the system was still only three off his actual number of TDs and INTs. Perhaps most impressively, the system pretty much nailed his DVOA.

I'd chalk this one up as another success for the KUBIAK system and statistical projections in general.

Of course, Pat White is a whole other story. It's clear KUBIAK (like the rest of us) had no idea what role White was going to have. It saw him attempting 25 passes and instead he threw a mere 5, completing none. It also saw him getting 40 rushing attempts when he really only got 21. Interestingly, the projection system also had White seeing time at receiver, with 17 catches, but he obviously was not used in that manner.

Monday, February 8, 2010

2009 Pass Defense Review Final

So I just realized that I forgot to post these numbers after the season.

Below, I've created a table of every player who recorded a sack, quarterback hit, interception, or pass defense this season. Take a look:


Scks
QH
INT
PD
Jason Allen



2
Will Allen

2
2
6
Charlie Anderson
2



Akin Ayodele

2


Ryan Baker
0.5
1


Yeremiah Bell
1.5
1
3
9
Channing Crowder
1
2
1
2
Tyrone Culver


1
4
Vontae Davis


4
11
Jason Ferguson



1
Nathan Jones
1
1
2
10
Kendall Langford
2.5
5

2
Tony McDaniel
1.5
2

1
Phillip Merling
2.5
4

3
Quentin Moses
1
1


Joey Porter
9
13

1
Sean Smith



12
Paul Soliai

1

1
Randy Starks
7
16


Jason Taylor
7
6
1
5
Reggie Torbor
1
4
1
5
Cameron Wake
5.5
9

1
Gibril Wilson
1
3

8
TOTAL
44
73
13
80


First off, while Miami's defense certainly didn't play well this year, they were in no way awful, and truth be told they were hardly different from last year. People have to remember that the strength of schedule was vastly different between this year and last year, so staying put on defense just looked a whole lot worse this year. The performance was still pretty similar though.

To wit, Miami finished 2009 with an overall defensive DVOA of 3.1% and a pass defense DVOA of 1.5%, good for 11th in the league. In 2008, they finished with an overall defensive DVOA of 3.0% and a pass defense DVOA of 5.3%. So Miami was actually marginally better in pass defense in 2009 than 2008! Remember, it's adjusted for the opposition, which makes a huge difference when you go from facing Matt Cassell, Joe Flacco, Seneca Wallace, JaMarcus Russell, Marc Bulger, Shaun Hill, and Tyler Thigpen in 2008 to facing Tom Brady (twice), Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Matt Schaub, and Ben Roethlisberger in 2009.

Seriously, those two lists could not be more different. It's amazing how lucky Miami got in 2008 with such a cupcake schedule (and Tom Brady's injury). That's the biggest reason why I was hesitant to see Paul Pasqualoni get fired. His defense played the same, just against a schedule infinitely tougher. Obviously, it's a black mark against him that he wasn't able to get them to improve, but there's no guarantee Mike Nolan will be able to do that either and there is something to be said for continuity.

As far as the individual pass defense numbers go, Miami did very well in the sack department, but I think they could have gotten more quarterback pressures. They were finishing the job when they got there, but not getting there quite enough.

And the defense definitely needs to create more turnovers. Vontae Davis did a nice job forcing the issue all year, although he needs to work on improving his lockdown coverage skills. Sean Smith, supposedly a ballhawk, didn't get a single INT, and he started the whole year.