Reports of Culpeppers demise overated...

Although it is true that pass protection sucks in Miami (21 sacks allowed).
The truth is that statistically Culpepper's stats are favorable to Tom Bradys at this time...
(Excluding w/l ratio)

Comp % YDs Completions Yds/ATT
Brady 54.1 891 72 6.7
Culpepper 60.4 929 81 6.9

Frankly, I see us as making progress, however it is important not to look past these guys.
Expect us to line up 4-3 a lot and have a field day sacking Culpepper.

jct said:

Although it is true that pass protection sucks in Miami (21 sacks allowed).
The truth is that statistically Culpepper's stats are favorable to Tom Bradys at this time...
(Excluding w/l ratio)

Comp % YDs Completions Yds/ATT
Brady 54.1 891 72 6.7
Culpepper 60.4 929 81 6.9

Frankly, I see us as making progress, however it is important not to look past these guys.
Expect us to line up 4-3 a lot and have a field day sacking Culpepper.

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There's no way on earth the pats are looking past this team, or taking them for granted. it is a divisional game and they are always hard fought no matter how each team is doing. The pats are working hard to prepare and will come ready to play. I expect the pats to win the game and garner a three gaem lead on them in the division.

The kicker is that you exclude the only stat that matters.

Numbers don't tell the true story. The W/L column does.

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but it is hard to ensure that people take things on here in the right context.

You really have to watch Miami play to get a true appreciation of how bad Culpepper is truly playing. Lets also mention that two of his games were against Tennessee and Houston. Bottom line the guy sucks! His O-Line sucks, but that is only part of the problem, he is the majority of the problem. People want to blame his knee and the fact that he can't pull it down and run like he used to but I think that argument is BS too. He sucked last year prior to his injury and Brad Johnson replaced him and led the Vikings to a 9-7 season and as far as I can remember, that was the only drastic position change for that team.

They lost to Houston!

I don't think they will get in the end zone this week!

27-6 - this is the worst Dolphins team they have had in a few years. Bad O-line, bad QB, no running game and an old defense, their bright spots are all on special teams.

When you lose to Houston, your team clearly has some major problems. However, Houston has and probably will slowly continue to improve. Mario Williams started of slow and it looks like he's slowly picking up the momentum and Carr has really impressed me so far.

No, I think reports of his demise are pretty much dead-on. Since his knee injury, he can't take off an run when his first read is covered, and he's never been good at going through his progressions. Also, if you watch him this year, he's not getting anything behind his throws. He only brings the ball back to his ear or so, and he doesn't step into the throw anymore. He's a dead man walking until his knee gets healthy, and he can unlearn the bad habits he's picked up trying to compensate.

I think some of his more favorable stats are compiled late in games because teams start playing more prevent defenses against the Miami offense.

Unless I'm mistaken the Fins haven't had too many big leads in too many games this season.

As such, being behind, its not surprising to see Culpepper with so many yards. It's slightly surprising that his completion rate is that good considering how much he's had to put the ball up - even with a good RB at his disposal.

So while he's no Gus Ferrotte, everyone knows we shouldn't take him lightly - and I know we won't.

I noticed you left out the number of sacks on each qb, where Culpepper is worst in the league and Brady assumably amoung the best. Yes the offensive lines make a big difference in this area, but Culpepper is holding onto the ball too long, whereas Brady throws it away before he can get sacked. Culpepper kills far more drives than Brady does.

For an interesting perspective on Culpepper and Brady so far, here's the Football Outsiders stats for QB's so far. They can't separate Culpepper's problems from his O-line's problems, but they can take into account game situation and oponent strength. Full page and explanation here:http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/qb.php

One interesting thing is that Culpepper and Brady have the same number of throws (133) and are not hugely far off in yards so the teams' offenses are at least comparable in that respect.

Culpepper
------------
DPAR 0.4 (24th)
DVOA -12.8% (24th)

Brady
-------
DPAR 19.5 (8th)
DVOA 19.8% (8th)

So with the same number of throws, Culpepper has been almost as much below league average (-12.8%) in his effectiveness as Brady has been above it (19.8%). Culpepper has basically been playing at "replacement level" (DPAR of 0), comparable with Charlie Frye (DPAR 0.1). I think this is an accurate picture of how Culpepper has done so far. I don't know enough about the Dolphins to know how much is O-line and what, if anything, can be improved there. But I bet Culpepper improves noticably by the end of the season as he starts to figure out that he has to do something different in the face of pressure than he did before the injury.

He could never go through his progressions, and since the knee injury he's not half the athlete he used to be, which (along with that Moss guy) was the reason for his previous success. I just think its hilarious that people in Miami are calling for JOEY HARRINGTON to be the starter!

This is a case where the numbers don't show anywhere near the whole story. Culpepper has a decent comp % because he is often checking the play into a screen or dumping a pass off to his saftey valve. A lot of the yardage is "junk yards" that come when the game is out of reach or fail to lead to a first down.

If you have Comcast go to the NFL Network section of the On Demand and watch whatever games they have on Miami. You will see a QB that holds the ball far too long, locks in on one WR and has a poor feel for pressure.

I by no means am counting him out for the rest of the year, but Culpepper has been just as bad as everything you hear.

mgcolby said:

....
I don't think they will get in the end zone this week!

....

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I'm pretty confident that their OFFENSE won't.

btw, Owl ... thanks for the OnDemand hint. I recently got Comcast & have that.

Oswlek said:

If you have Comcast go to the NFL Network section of the On Demand and watch whatever games they have on Miami. You will see a QB that holds the ball far too long, locks in on one WR and has a poor feel for pressure.

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I believe you just described Drew Bledsoe!

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