Good start to the season

[flamingrey]

At this point - despite all the SportsHoopla about the offense - the offense is 30th in converting 3rd downs at a 28% clip. And 3 of the 4 games have been against easy defenses.

 

[Restore the Roar]

At this point - despite all the SportsHoopla about the offense - the offense is 30th in converting 3rd downs at a 28% clip. And 3 of the 4 games have been against easy defenses.

Yet they have still scored the 8th most points/game (would be 6th if BJGE doesn't fumble at the 1) at 28/game. While the % is a concern no doubt, what more can you reasonable expect from this O? How good can they be if they start completing at say 40%?

 

[jwil007]

We need a freekin home crowd and we need the boys to NOT take this game lightly! Tannehill runs well too so we need to be able to contain and stay home...I will be at the game so they had better not LOSE IT! LOL

 

[DanBengalfan]

yea, in the rich seats, your not allowed to yell on third down. so I mean, even if there is a home crowd....

 

[flamingrey]

Yet they have still scored the 8th most points/game (would be 6th if BJGE doesn't fumble at the 1) at 28/game. While the % is a concern no doubt, what more can you reasonable expect from this O? How good can they be if they start completing at say 40%?

You missed the bigger point I was making from my post right before that.

The reason we have such high scoring despite a low 3rd down conversion rate is we're converting huge plays, so we're seeing fewer 3rd downs as we're getting down the field faster, and because of the longer overall plays, we're probably also seeing fewer 3rd downs (i.e. moving the chains after 1st or 2nd down).

I mentioned the stat as it's an early indicator of potential struggles against the better teams (better defenses). How many big plays are we going to be able to convert against those teams? Are we going to be able to avoid as many 3rd downs as we have to this point?

The answer to those questions is probably no. And if that happens, and we continue to struggle on 3rd downs, we're right back to where we were last year (just as we saw in Game 1).

Fool's gold.

 

[Restore the Roar]

Yeah I some how missed your other post...

I see what your saying but I guess until it bites the team in the ass THIS season, I'm going to bank on the O getting the job done. The only D's on the schedule that really look like bad match ups to me are the Giants, Eagles and Ravens. The steelers D hasn't looked like years past and the Chargers look like shit.

 

[cincygrad]

You missed the bigger point I was making from my post right before that.

The reason we have such high scoring despite a low 3rd down conversion rate is we're converting huge plays, so we're seeing fewer 3rd downs as we're getting down the field faster, and because of the longer overall plays, we're probably also seeing fewer 3rd downs (i.e. moving the chains after 1st or 2nd down).

I mentioned the stat as it's an early indicator of potential struggles against the better teams (better defenses). How many big plays are we going to be able to convert against those teams? Are we going to be able to avoid as many 3rd downs as we have to this point?

The answer to those questions is probably no. And if that happens, and we continue to struggle on 3rd downs, we're right back to where we were last year (just as we saw in Game 1).

Fool's gold.

Hard to evaluate. How many big plays did we make against bad defenses last year? My instinct (as well as looking at Dalton's game-by-game YPA) is not that many. While we have faced substandard defenses, this team has shown more explosion than they did last year. I think a lot of it has to do with Gruden and a full year of practice and a lot of it has to do with two very good talents in AJ and Baby Hawk. Will the big plays show up against good competition? It's obviously less likely - The good defensive teams are normally good because they don't give up long plays and don't miss tackles. So you're right - We need to improve on third down. But as you said, we have a relatively small sample of third downs so far and we can't determine what it will mean until the sample grows or we face better D.

I think we'll probably struggle against some of the good defenses on our schedule, including this week. But, as mentioned before, I don't think there are too many great defensive teams on this schedule.

 

[bengaldoug]

I think this week could provide some answers, looking at Miami's defensive numbers. They are hard to run on and yield a low completion percentage.