Offensive Film Grades From Miami Dolphins' 30-17 Week 13 Loss To Green Bay Packers

Offensive progress was thrown on ice in Green Bay. Literally.

Well that was fun. Not!

The Dolphins struggled to get things started against the Green Bay Packers, leaving us unthankful for a holiday showcase. Miami eventually got the ball moving — it was too little, too late. Who was most to blame for the shortcomings on Thanksgiving?

I’ve graded the All-22 coaches’ film for each player and play. Here’s what I’ve found.

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Methodology

I am implementing a portion of the grading process used by Pro Football Focus this year to quantify player performance.

“The PFF grading system evaluates every player on every play during a football game…did the quarterback make a great throw, but it was dropped? The quarterback contributed to positive production and will receive a positive grade for that effort, even though the receiver let him down, earning a negative grade.

Each player is given a grade of -2 to +2 in 0.5 increments on a given play, with 0 generally being the average or “expected” grade. There are a few exceptions, as each position group has different rules, but those are the basics. The zero grade is essential as most plays feature many players doing their job at a reasonable, or expected, level, so not every player on every play needs to earn a positive or a negative.”

— Pro Football Focus on their grading methodology

This is where my implementation of the PFF approach ends, however. Pro Football Focus converts this scoring into a number on a 0-100 scale while factoring in the weighted value of certain types of reps for certain positions. That isn’t what I intend to produce. I’m much less interested in an “adjusted” consumable score for a player than a true reflection of their net excellent and bad contributions relative to the reps they are assigned throughout a game.

I intend to grade each game for the Dolphins this season with this approach. This will allow us to see the full scope of spectacular and game-changing plays from players, ascertain who are models of consistency, and help further amplify poor player performances by the cumulative sum and per-play average in 2024.

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Offensive Grades Vs. Green Bay

Only five offensive performers logged a higher score than the week prior against the New England Patriots — Alec Ingold, Julian Hill, Raheem Mostert, Jaylen Wright and Patrick Paul. Only two of them, Mostert and Hill, played more than 18 snaps in this contest. It was a down performance across the board, although a number of Miami’s cornerstone players did play well enough to win.

Jaylen Waddle, Terron Armstead and Tua Tagovailoa played well enough above expectation throughout the 60 minute contest — although even Tagovailoa played “below expectation” in the first half before his play stabilized in the third and fourth quarters. The perception that Tua rolled up garbage time yards is not reflective of how Green Bay played until the final two possessions (including the 1:30 in the 4th possession) and there’s plenty of good to be found in how Tagovailoa operated despite some poor pocket management early and a few missed throws. More on that below.

The biggest setback performances were 3/5th of the offensive line and De’Von Achane performing below expectation in this contest. Achane, in particular, was a surprise after how well he’d played the past month.

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All-22 Coaches Film Analysis