2019 Team Records (Coach, Quarterback, Rushers, Receivers)

2019 Team Records (Coach, Quarterback, Rushers, Receivers) – Dolphins

by Chase Stuart on July 5, 2019

This offseason, I’m going to look at team histories in a different way than such data is usually presented. I’ll be looking at coach and quarterback records, along with rushing and receiving milestones. Let’s begin with coaches, and start with the Miami Dolphins.

Don Shula is one of the best coaches in history. He posted a 257-133-2 record in 392 regular season games, a 0.658 winning percentage. Now consider that over the course of its entire history, Miami has played 816 games, producing a 452-360-4 record, a 0.556 winning percentage.

In this series, I will look at how each coach has changed their franchise’s career winning percentages. Here’s what I mean, using Miami as an example. We know that the Dolphins have a 0.556 winning percentage. But in games not coached by Shula, Miami only has a 0.462 winning percentage. That’s a decline of 9.4%! Shula coached nearly half of all Miami games and has well over half of the franchise’s wins. If you perform this calculation for every coach for every team in NFL history — which I did — you will find that Shula has improved his franchise’s overall winning percentage by more than any other coach in history.

The table below shows this data for every coach in Miami history. The coach who has harmed the team’s winning percentage the most is George Wilson, the first coach of the team and Shula’s predecessor. He went 15-39-2 coaching the expansion franchise — hey, no judgment here — and without him, Miami would have a franchise winning percentage of 0.576, which is 2% higher than the team’s actual winning percentage.

For every post in this series, I will post the full results in a table like this, sorted by best to worst in terms of improving his franchise’s overall win percentage.

Ovr Rk	Coach	G	W	L	T	HC Win %	FrG	FrW	FL	FrT	Fr W%	Win% w/o HC	Diff
1	Don Shula	392	257	133	2	0.658	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.462	9.4%
139	Dave Wannstedt	73	42	31	0	0.575	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.555	0.2%
171	Jimmy Johnson	64	36	28	0	0.563	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.556	0.1%
176	Todd Bowles	3	2	1	0	0.667	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.556	0%
239	Jim Bates	7	3	4	0	0.429	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	-0.1%
281	Dan Campbell	12	5	7	0	0.417	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.2%
347	Nick Saban	32	15	17	0	0.469	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.56	-0.4%
376	Adam Gase	48	23	25	0	0.479	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.561	-0.5%
414	Joe Philbin	52	24	28	0	0.462	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.563	-0.6%
415	Tony Sparano	61	29	32	0	0.475	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.563	-0.7%
474	Cam Cameron	16	1	15	0	0.063	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.566	-1%
506	George Wilson	56	15	39	2	0.286	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.576	-2%

We can do the same thing for quarterbacks, and Miami is a good example of why I chose this methodology. How do you compare the winning percentages of Dan Marino to Bob Griese, and of those two to David Woodley, and Earl Morrall? Marino has the lowest winning percentage (with Miami) of that group, but started the most games. Morrall went 11-1, and Woodall went 27-12-1, but neither of them helped improve Miami’s overall franchise winning percentage as much as Marino or Griese. Overall, Miami won of course has won 55.6% of its games. Under Marino, it was 61.3%, but more importantly, without Marino, Miami has a winning percentage of only 0.533.

This means “games started by Marino” improved the franchise’s overall winning percentage in the regular season by 2.3%. For Griese, his starts improved the overall franchise’s success rate by 1.4%. Meanwhile, Ryan Tannehill — while certainly not the worst quarterback the team has ever had — comes in last by this methodology. In all games not started by Tannehill, the Dolphins have a 0.566 winning percentage, so he dropped the franchise’s all-time winning percentage by 1%.

The table below shows these results. The overall rank column shows how each quarterback ranks compared to all quarterbacks for all 32 NFL teams. So Miami’s winning percentage under Marino improved the franchise’s overall winning percentage by 2.3%, which ranks 22nd across all quarterback-team combinations.

Ovr Rk	QB	G	W	L	T	QB Win %	FrG	FrW	FL	FrT	Fr W%	Win% w/o QB	Diff
22	Dan Marino	240	147	93	0	0.613	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.533	2.3%
46	Bob Griese	151	92	56	3	0.619	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.542	1.4%
87	David Woodley	40	27	12	1	0.688	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.550	0.7%
99	Earl Morrall	12	11	1	0	0.917	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.551	0.5%
116	Jay Fiedler	59	36	23	0	0.610	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.552	0.4%
133	Don Strock	20	14	6	0	0.700	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.553	0.4%
187	Damon Huard	6	5	1	0	0.833	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.554	0.2%
246	Chad Pennington	20	12	8	0	0.600	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.555	0.1%
248	John Stofa	2	2	0	0	1.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.555	0.1%
281	Gus Frerotte	15	9	6	0	0.600	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.556	0.1%
319	George Mira	1	1	0	0	1.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.556	0.1%
393	Brian Griese	5	3	2	0	0.600	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.556	0%
485	Steve DeBerg	4	2	2	0	0.500	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	0%
669	Tyler Thigpen	1	0	1	0	0.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	-0.1%
689	Kyle Mackey	3	1	2	0	0.333	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	-0.1%
690	Craig Erickson	3	1	2	0	0.333	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	-0.1%
718	Brock Osweiler	5	2	3	0	0.400	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	-0.1%
769	Scott Mitchell	7	3	4	0	0.429	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.557	-0.1%
821	Bernie Kosar	2	0	2	0	0.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.1%
822	Sage Rosenfels	2	0	2	0	0.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.1%
826	Joey Harrington	11	5	6	0	0.455	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.1%
846	Daunte Culpepper	4	1	3	0	0.250	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.2%
882	Ray Lucas	6	2	4	0	0.333	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.2%
905	A.J. Feeley	8	3	5	0	0.375	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.2%
908	Matt Moore	17	8	9	0	0.471	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.558	-0.2%
961	Jay Cutler	14	6	8	0	0.429	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.559	-0.2%
970	George Wilson	7	2	5	0	0.286	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.559	-0.2%
1011	Dick Wood	4	0	4	0	0.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.559	-0.3%
1012	John Beck	4	0	4	0	0.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.559	-0.3%
1060	Trent Green	5	0	5	0	0.000	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.560	-0.3%
1099	Cleo Lemon	8	1	7	0	0.125	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.561	-0.4%
1134	Chad Henne	31	13	18	0	0.419	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.562	-0.5%
1152	Rick Norton	11	1	10	0	0.091	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.563	-0.6%
1196	Ryan Tannehill	88	42	46	0	0.477	816	452	360	4	0.556	0.566	-1%

What about rushing leaders? Miami has a long history of strong running backs, ranging from bruisers like Larry Csonka and Karim Abdul-Jabbar to speedsters like Lamar Miller and Mercury Morris, along with power/speed backs like Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams.

But which running back has led Miami in rushing yards in the most games? I looked at all regular season and postseason games for the Dolphins and noted who finished each game with the most rushing yards. The table below shows all players who did so for at least 10 games. In addition, I’ve included the number of games played (again, regular and postseason combined) for each player while with the Dolphins. The final column shows the percentage of his games with Miami where that player led the Dolphins in rushing yards. Lamar Smith, who led Miami in 26 of his 34 games with the team, is the leader at 76%.

Rusher	First Yr	Last Yr	Leading Rusher	Total Games	%
Larry Csonka	1968	1979	63	118	53%
Ricky Williams	2002	2010	55	94	59%
Ronnie Brown	2005	2010	54	77	70%
Karim Abdul-Jabbar	1996	1999	40	53	75%
Lamar Miller	2012	2015	35	61	57%
Tony Nathan	1979	1987	35	135	26%
Mark Higgs	1990	1994	34	63	54%
Mercury Morris	1969	1975	29	96	30%
Sammie Smith	1989	1991	28	43	65%
Lamar Smith	2000	2001	26	34	76%
Delvin Williams	1978	1980	25	47	53%
Bernie Parmalee	1992	1998	25	111	23%
Lorenzo Hampton	1985	1989	25	72	35%
Jay Ajayi	2015	2017	24	32	75%
Andra Franklin	1981	1984	24	48	50%
Reggie Bush	2011	2012	23	31	74%
Jim Kiick	1968	1974	23	108	21%
Benny Malone	1974	1978	18	58	31%
Troy Stradford	1987	1990	14	48	29%
Kenyan Drake	2016	2018	13	49	27%
Terry Kirby	1993	1995	13	37	35%
Ron Davenport	1985	1989	13	69	19%
Gary Davis	1976	1979	10	59	17%
Sammy Morris	2004	2006	10	41	24%
Daniel Thomas	2011	2014	10	52	19%

What about receiving? Paul Warfield was a Hall of Famer, but he was only in South Beach for 71 games. During the Marino years, the team had Mark Clayton and Mark Duper, while Nat Moore hung around forever. So which player has led the Miami Dolphins in receiving yards in the most games in team history, regular and postseason combined? Clayton won out, by one game.

Receiver	First Yr	Last Yr	Leading Receiver	Total Games	%
Mark Clayton	1983	1992	55	152	36%
Mark Duper	1982	1992	54	156	35%
Nat Moore	1974	1986	52	197	26%
Paul Warfield	1970	1974	42	71	59%
O.J. McDuffie	1993	2000	38	126	30%
Duriel Harris	1976	1985	35	119	29%
Chris Chambers	2001	2007	34	100	34%
Jarvis Landry	2014	2017	24	65	37%
Oronde Gadsden	1998	2003	23	81	28%
Brian Hartline	2009	2014	22	92	24%
Brandon Marshall	2010	2011	20	30	67%
Tony Martin	1990	2000	20	94	21%
Randy McMichael	2002	2006	19	80	24%
Davone Bess	2008	2012	17	78	22%
Tony Nathan	1979	1987	17	135	13%
Irving Fryar	1993	1995	16	51	31%
Mike Wallace	2013	2014	13	32	41%
Marty Booker	2004	2007	13	59	22%
Karl Noonan	1966	1971	13	88	15%
Howard Twilley	1966	1976	13	131	10%
DeVante Parker	2015	2018	12	55	22%
James McKnight	2001	2003	11	47	23%
Kenny Stills	2015	2018	11	64	17%
Jimmy Cefalo	1978	1984	11	100	11%

On the other side, Brandon Marshall and Warfield are the only two players who led Miami in receiving yards in over half of their games.

That’s it for the Miami version of this series. Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Tagged as: 2019 Profiles

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