Scrimmage impressions
On Saturday the Miami Dolphins held their first scrimmage of training camp, and to everyone’s surprise the most impressive quarterback of the three was Ryan Tannehill. However, before football gambling fans wager on RT winning the starting spot, each qb’s statistics must be taken with a grain of salt.
RT’s byline consisted of him connecting on 10 of 13 passes for 114 yards and 1TD, and no interceptions. Just looking at the stats, one sees efficiency, however the critical aspect that must be noted is the fact that RT spent much of his time playing with the 3rd team offense, while competing against the 2nd and 3rd team defense. Obviously if RT is starting he will have a better supporting cast on offense, then third string players who potentially might not even make the team, but he will also have to play against a first team defense that will be above and beyond the talent level of 3rd and 2nd string players. So even though his stats are pretty to look at, it would be more advantageous to see how he would fair against stiffer competition. If anything, his scrimmage performance will at least demand more snaps with the first team.
When Matt Moore was at the controls, he went 10 for 20 for 65 yards and 1TD, however he was playing exclusively with the 2nd team offense and competing against the 1st team defense. Obviously having a 50% completion percentage is not what phins news fans are hoping for in their starting QB. But it must be noted that he was playing with 2nd string guys who are below the talent level of 1st stringers, and was forced to compete against a starting defense. It would be fair for football gambling fans to assume that if Moore was playing with the starters on offense, he would have had a more statistically successful scrimmage.
Lastly David Garrard, who appears to be in the lead for the starting position, went 9 for 17 for 57 yards and 1TD. He was playing with the first team offense, and was competing against the 2nd team defense. This is nothing to be immediately concerned about, especially since early in training camp the defense is always ahead of the offense, but it is a little discouraging that Garrard could not perform better against the 2nd team defense.
Again it is still very early, but it appears that football gambling fans will not get a clear indication of who the starting Dolphins QB will be until a couple of preseason games are played.
When we get a QB good enough to lead our second string offense to dominate our first string defense then we will know that the QB issue is solved. The great ones move their team-mates up a notch. Think of how great New England looked – and how worthless they were when Brady was out. Of how great the Colts looked with Bert Jones and how worthless they were when he was injured. The really interesting one on this is how much Tebow with his unconventional toolkit made Denver into a much better team – it will be interesting to see if the conventional and excellent QB Payton Manning can do as well.
Yes that will definitely be the litmus test, when we have a QB who can lead our second stringers to success over our first string defense. I think Manning can do well in Denver, would have been nice to see what he could have done in Miami