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Post by dubber on Sept 21, 2009 21:55:41 GMT -6
Watching the Colts and Dolphins.
First, Gruden is right and Jaws is wrong......wildcat is here to stay.
More importantly, it is an excellent case study for just how important controlling the clock (supposedly) is in football.
Watching SC guys on the post-game, and he's talking about the Dolphins having the ball for 3/4's of the game, and rushing for over 200 yards, and HOW CAN YOU LOSE THAT GAME?
I normally keep stats, but I am going to bet the bottom line in this game was explosive plays.
The Colts made the most of their opportunities (of their "shots").
The Dolphins didn't execute on many of their's (and as awesome a game as the Dolphin's OC Dan Henning called, perhaps they need to take a couple more shots)
The talking heads keep talking about "this is as good as the Dolphins can play", but I really feel there is a difference between controlling clock and controlling tempo.
The Dolphins limited themselves to former, when they perhaps should have erred toward the latter.
Or at least executed (Ted Ginn Jr.) those big play chances they had.
Trent Dilfer just said "I don't know how they didn't win"....perhaps he should ask his former boss (Billick).
I know re-thinking T.O.P. really change my approach to the game.
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Post by coachinghopeful on Sept 21, 2009 23:23:44 GMT -6
It's ridiculous how so many sportswriters are already declaring the Wildcat dead and a cheap gimmick with no place in "real" football. I hope it is here to stay just because it's something different than the usual NFL blandness, but I bet NFL Films is already trying to aquire the rights to the Benny Hill theme when they do their segment on the "Wacky Wildcat" in the 2009 NFL Yearbook series. Somehow the talking heads will spin every loss the Dolphins suffer this season as a knock against the Wildcat, even if they always get over 100 yards out of it.
Time of Possession is often the most meaningless stat in football, but that doesn't make it unimportant. If the Dolphins hadn't ran the T.O.P. like they did, the Colts may have beaten them by 30+. This loss is more on the Dolphins' defense, not their offense or the Wildcat. The Dolphins offense did a great job of shortening the game. More aggressive playcalling might have helped, but the offensive gameplan did just what they wanted it to do.
Your big play theory is correct. 2 of the Colts TDs came on pass plays totalling 128 yards. The other was a 15 yard run. The Dolphins 2 TDs came off runs totalling 17 yards. I think both were out of the Wildcat, but my memory is a little fuzzy of the actual plays right now.
If the Dolphins D and special teams hadn't let the Colts score on 14% of their offensive snaps(WTF!?!?), the Dolphins would've won this. With the pace they were on, the Colts would've scored 45 if the offensive snaps had been divided evenly at 61 apiece. The Dolphins would've only gotten 16.
The T.O.P. did make a huge difference in keeping the Dolphins in the game, but just not enough to overcome a defense that gave up too many big plays on a very few opportunities.
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Post by dubber on Sept 22, 2009 8:37:20 GMT -6
But was the "trying to keep it close" strategy really better?
Really, the Colts play calling was only slightly more aggressive than the Dolphins, they just connected on their shots.
I think the Dolphins (and a lot of other underdogs) would benefit from take a couple more shots.
It seems to me the play action opportunities were left on the field, and that type of conservatism is counter-productive to the ultimate team goal of winning.
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Post by hokie10 on Sept 22, 2009 8:40:41 GMT -6
Time of possession is the most overrated stat in football. If you have an opponent with a highly potent offense, you will want to control the ball and keep them off the field. However, if you are not scoring and they are averaging 5 play drives at two and a half minutes, then you are in trouble no matter how long you have the ball. Time of possession only matters if you are scoring and chewing up the seven/eight minutes off the clock you need. Other than that, it is pointless. The two most important stats in football, in my mind, are turnovers and points off turnovers.
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Post by robinhood on Sept 22, 2009 9:52:31 GMT -6
4 or 5 years ago we won a D3 NCAA game 69 to 62. The team we were playing dominated the TOP 43 minutes to 17 minutes. What you do with your time matters, not how much time you have.
That score is the national record for D3 scoring in one game by both teams.
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 22, 2009 10:51:36 GMT -6
I agree that time of possession is overrated. As a thing to strive for, it works only in trying to squeeze out a win with the lead in a close game. As far as keeping the ball from the opponents, that works only to hold down the score so you don't lose as badly, or possibly for getting at most 1 more useful possession per half of the game.
If, however, you were really good at recovering your own kickoffs and combined that with ball control, then you'd have something. But that combination is hardly ever seen above youth level. And even then, a good offense that scored quickly would be as good or better in combination with the onside recoveries.
If you're good at moving the chain, you're probably going to get scores or at least good field position. Eating up time is a mere byproduct.
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Post by dubber on Sept 22, 2009 11:29:12 GMT -6
We won a game this season in which we ran two plays total in the second quarter. One was a fade for a TD, and the other was an end of the half hook-and-ladder debacle.
Anyway, the other team dominated T.O.P., but refused to take shots. Their only pass play was Iso Waggle and they ran it only once on first down.
Listen, I am a BIG fan of the majority of the Dolphin's gameplan. They threw on first down (mostly curls and comebacks), and that allowed them to run at will on the Colts.
THAT IS EXCELLENT BALANCE.
However, had they gone PAP some more (or, again, CAUGHT the PAP's they did run), then I believe they win this game.
As a side note, we have lost our last two games by a combined score of 117-12. Had we been more ball control, we may have only lost by 2-3 TDs each game.
As a program, however, we are committed to understanding the difference between keeping it close and actually having a chance to win the game.
So the turnover bug bite us (actually, it crawled into our skull, dropped thousand of eggs, and now uses our brain as fodder for the larvae), but as long as your players understand what you are trying to do, is there really a difference between losing small and losing big?
I'll take the shot at victory everytime.
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Post by cowboy50 on Sept 22, 2009 14:02:08 GMT -6
i think mike leach said that the time of possession stat was invented somewhere around the same time as fire.
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Post by spreadattack on Sept 22, 2009 14:36:53 GMT -6
I think Miami did the right thing for having the ball a long time but only because it shortened the game -- they were the outmanned team. I think if they play another quarter the Colts take the game by more, no? Their offense couldn't be stopped. So your best bet as an undermanned team is to shorten the game and get out of dodge.
That doesn't have anything to do with playing keep away, etc, though. I think the game is about possessions, i.e. turnovers. If the other team dominates b/c of time of possession it is very different if that is because you keep turning it over or score too quickly.
And the other thing, especially with how much clock rules have been tinkered with, is it doesn't even matter much, other than shortening or lengthening the game in terms of number of plays. You run for 10 yards it's a first down, clock runs. You throw a pass and the guy steps out of bounds, clock stops. You run up the middle for no gain, clock runs. You throw an incompletion, clock runs. Not a lot of rationality there.
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Post by airman on Sept 22, 2009 17:45:20 GMT -6
I never worry about time of possession. I worry about % of time we score the times we have the ball.
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Post by dubber on Sept 23, 2009 10:36:13 GMT -6
I think Miami did the right thing for having the ball a long time but only because it shortened the game -- they were the outmanned team. I think if they play another quarter the Colts take the game by more, no? Their offense couldn't be stopped. So your best bet as an undermanned team is to shorten the game and get out of dodge. That doesn't have anything to do with playing keep away, etc, though. I think the game is about possessions, i.e. turnovers. If the other team dominates b/c of time of possession it is very different if that is because you keep turning it over or score too quickly. And the other thing, especially with how much clock rules have been tinkered with, is it doesn't even matter much, other than shortening or lengthening the game in terms of number of plays. You run for 10 yards it's a first down, clock runs. You throw a pass and the guy steps out of bounds, clock stops. You run up the middle for no gain, clock runs. You throw an incompletion, clock runs. Not a lot of rationality there. I agree with Miami's gameplan, I just think they should have taken another shot or two. Maybe this was more a function of the Colt's defense (which the media has thrashed) REFUSING to give up the big play. Instead of panicking and loading the box, the Colts continued to play their defense and not give up PA opportunities (which, let's face it, is the ONLY way the Dolphins can throw deep). I mean, I know the Dolphins were ripping off chunks of yardage, but how many of those were of the 12+ variety? Most of them were of the 7 and 8 variety, which is fantastic, but ultimately unsustainable without garnering explosive plays another way.
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