Since this line of questioning became a thread with Joe Philbin, I think you'll find Mike Sherman's answer actually said volumes about what he thinks of the talent surrounding Ryan Tannehill.

 

Very telling, but certainly not unexpected.

And in some ways, Ryan has made a guy like Hartline better. But there isn't much he or anybody can do for Legedu Nannee, Anthony Armstrong or Marlon Moore.

 

I don't have a problem with Wake and Odrick being rotated out on that drive. I have problems with the offense playing like they have no idea what this "footsball" game is the past month.

 

I think you are reading into it what you want to read into it. All he seems to be saying is that Tannehill is not makign the talent around him play at a higher level. Assuming Sherman thinks Tom Brady is one of those "really great quarterbacks" who does elevate the play of those around him and Tannehill is not there yet, the 7 pt difference in that game is hardly an indictment of the talent around Tannehill relative to the Pats. Had Tannehill hit a wide open Hartline on two plays he would have made Hartline look a lot better and the Dolphins probably would have won the game.

 

Kevin Coyle a little overly defensive on the issue of that last drive but the bottom line is I agree with him that it's not as big a deal as people make it. The Patriots were running the ball on that drive. Of the 8 plays in question I think probably 6 or 7 of them had to be run plays. Not exactly Cam Wake's strength. Olivier Vernon and Derrick Shelby are probably both better against the run. The better question was why not Jared Odrick...but that's not a big deal to me because Jared Odrick (predictably) is not playing very good football as a defensive end.

 

At that stage of the game, the defensive needs to make a play. Cam Wake is multiple times more likely to make a game changing play than anyone else on the defense. To me, it was a poor decision to have him on the sideline at that time. And its not like Wake is really a liability against the run.

 

I think Sherman saying all basically is him saying tannehills surrounding cast sucks.

How about the big miss on hartline that would have been a td early on. Thill misses by let's say 2 ft. Now thats on thill. He missed and it hurt.

But let's talk about the elephant in the room here. Brian hartline runs a 4.5 forty. What happens on this play if the wr runs a 4.4 forty...

 

I can't put this on Hartline. He was open. Once you're open, you've done your job. Had the pass been on target, we'd have something to bash him about because most likely he'd have lost his balance and fell down before the endzone as he is wont to do.

 

I'm not blaming him. I'm probably blaming the gm here I guess. We're forced to depend on hartline as our deep threat and he simply isn't one. It's frustrating.

If he was mike Wallace that pass might be underthrown

 

Yep, Tannehill is just streaky right now, on the upside back to back weeks he led late 4th qtr drives for points, downside is his accuracy comes and goes.

Doesn't matter if you have an all star lineup at the skill positions if Tannehill does not get them ball, it doesn't matter.

 

Elephant in the room is Tannehill can be scattershot, put it this way, if that were a Te down the seam, who ran a 4.5, he still misses a wide open target, this happens more than people care to admit.

I can recall some fans complaining about Bess jumping to make catches..uhm..folks..he is jumping because the ball is that poorly thrown.

 

It's not about blame. It's just a simple fact that a receiver with more athleticism is able to accelerate through and run under passes that a receiver with less athleticism can't. I don't even see that as a debate, it's a matter of physics. I remember hearing a story one time about how Ben Roethlisberger overthrew Mike Wallace during practice and Mike Tomlin stopped practice and gathered everyone together and notified everyone that Ben had finally done what he thought impossible, he overthrew Mike Wallace. Joking aside, it is "harder" to overthrow a guy who can run faster.

If you really want to get caught up in subjective judgment calls about who did a better job and showed more talent on the play than the other, I thought Tannehill was closer to being optimal on the play than Brian Hartline. If you really watch that play, Hartline did not make any special moves to get himself open on the play. His fake was rushed and unconvincing, he just streaked as fast as he could. I thought it was the quarterback's action on the play that resulted in Hartline becoming open, far more than it was Hartline running some route that Clyde Gates couldn't run. Hartline's "job" as a receiver on that play is to track the ball in the air, run under it, and catch it. He couldn't do that. If he had a 5th gear, it's a catch. It's not about blame, it's about conditionals. If Ryan Tannehill threw that extremely long ball with 24 inches of better accuracy, yes indeed that is a catch. But if Brian Hartline, as the Z receiver on a play-action fake whose quarterback action (not the receiver route) fooled the defensive back, actually had a 5th gear, that's also a catch.

Which is more realistically fixable?

This is why when it happened I said that I would personally rather get Ryan Tannehill a faster Z receiver running the streak on that play-action fake play, than teach Ryan Tannehill to loft and/or underthrow that football. The receiver is NOT often going to be that wide open on a play like that and in the long run Ryan Tannehill is better off trying to push the envelope and hit his guy in stride than he is lofting the ball to make it easier for the player to run under (and thereby also making it easier for the defensive back to recover).

 

Depends, if one is Macniavellian, then playing those Rooks in that situation makes a sort of sense, could be the last thing they want is someone making a play, and they have to see what they have in those two young players.

If they make a play, great, good young player, if they don't and the pats score, and we lose, better draft position.

 

I still think that a swirling, difficult wind was affecting both Tannehill's and Brady's accuracy, especially on long throws. That easily could have accounted for the two feet.

 

I agree with this. People underestimate the wind in that stadium. You could definitely see that it affected the second deep ball more than the first.

 

I see you elephant in the room and raise you one pair of hands courtesy of Ted Ginn Jr.

 

I appreciate you expanding on this as you did. It's not a knock on hartline at all, that's just not his game. We need a burner in fa/draft

 

If I recall he was alright at catching the deep ones. It was everything else that was the problem.

 

Really? Hartline having a 253 yard game? What do you call that?

This statement makes no sense, especially considering a Gronkowski-less Brady had his worst passing game of the year vs us.

That's like saying Hartline stinks w/o great QB play. lol

Don't you mean, "he would've helped mask Hartline's inability to catch downfield passes that are a hair under or overthrown."? It's like you're treating Hartline as if he's not paid millions to catch a goddam football. You're in for a rude awakening if you believe WRs don't have to make plays for their QBs, no matter how great the QBs are. Ditto if you believe receivers aren't responsible for making their QB better in return. It's a symbiotic relationship. You can't give a QB a pair of mediocre starting receivers and then blame him for not turning them into consistent producers.

 

Maybe we should have kept Marshall. I seriously doubt were going to get an all-pro player with those 3rd round picks.

 

Of all the HOF QBs, there's only 1 or 2 who didn't have an outstanding receiving cast, and the majority of them had at least 1 HOFer to throw to at either WR or TE. A QB can only become as good as the surrounding talent allows. This isn't tennis or golf for cryin' out loud.

 

and then what WADR?.... feed him some happy pills that make Brandon want to be here and not a headache or distraction to the team, to Philbin's new offense that frowns upon 100 catch receivers, and to Tannehill's leadership development?

 

Warron Moon, Fran Tarkington, John Elway. There are three.

 

Rod smith?! One of the most under appreciated wrs ever I think. 2 time all pro, 68tds and 11000+ yds

 

For two seasons

 

lol not a chance in hell of that happening with our front office.

 

There's about as much chance of that happening with any front office. I don't think you'll find that Jeff Ireland and company have been uniquely bad at landing high-value picks in the third round.

 

Can we all please remember that Tannehill is a rookie. Furthermore, a rookie with very few college starts. If you came into this year expecting him to be perfect, then you weren't paying attention. He's young, he's going to make mistakes. Part of the reason he looks so bad (in others' eyes, not mine) is because he is in the same draft class as two of the best rookie qb's to come out in a long time (Luck and RG3) and Russell Wilson (a 4 year starter) who has a much better supporting cast. Our team is not good, which is why were able to draft Tannehill so high. So asking an inexperienced rookie quarterback to make a bad team good is unrealistic. What is good to see is that he is poised and he learns from his mistakes. In all of the close games, he's put his team in a position to win. That's all you can really ask of him at this point. People thought we were going to be the worst team in football this year. We've beaten playoff teams and hung tough with many others. Pretty good start considering the circumstances.

Moon, Tarkenton, and Elway all had WAY better supporting casts. Please don't compare hall of fame quarterbacks' 10+ year careers to Tannehill's 3/4 of a rookie season. That's just not even fair.

Realistically this is what THill has to work with:

1. An out of position Hartline (not a deep threat, would be a solid #2 though working underneath and intermediate routes)
2. Bess (slow, makes some nice 3rd down plays, but runs a lot of routes short of the distance we need, not that dynamic compared to elite slot receivers. I like Bess a lot but he shouldn't be relied on this much)
3. Fasano (solid TE but not going to make anything exciting happen)
4. An o-line that is mixing personnel from two different offensive philosophies along with a rookie right tackle
5. a playmaking RB that can kill drives with negative runs and a big back that fumbles, doesn't make solid cuts, and misses some blocking assignments (look at Mayo's drive killing sack last game). Our best, by far, playmaker is Bush. Think about that when you think about our offense. I personally like Reggie and think he could bring a lot more if he was used in the passing game more, but when he is your best player by far, a role player in the Saints offense, that is troubling.

I'm sorry if this wasn't as relevant to the thread as it should be, but I've been getting frustrated by everybody hating on THill when he's done pretty well so far and shows potential for a great future.

 

No, that's just 1 actually. When did Shannon Sharpe's HOF honors get revoked? :p
It was during Sharpe's time that Elway really elevated his game to the next level. Let's not forget the All-Pro Rod Smith, the most underrated white receiver of all time, McCaffrey (also a 1x All Pro), and a running back who would be in the HOF had injury not shortened his career. It doesn't get any better than that.


Warren Moon's group of Jeffires, Givens, Hill, and Duncan/Jones would rival the best receiving corps of today. Those guys made the run & shoot nearly impossible to defend and greatly complimented Moon's skill set. Moon wouldn't have been Moon w/o them.
Here's a quote from Wade Phillips:

Good pick up on Tarkenton. I've gone through every HOF QB and he's the only one who performed at an elite level w/o the aid of a great surrounding cast.

 

Also, Elway had 3 years with 5x Pro Bowler Anthony Miller.... with Shannon Sharpe all 3 years.... and McCaffrey for 2 of them...
.... and 1 year of Sharpe, Miller, McCaffrey, and Smith with Terrell Davis rushing for 1750 yards and 15 TDs!!

Then after the 3 years of Anthony Miller, it was a year of Sharpe, Smith, and McCaffrey..... with Davis rushing for 2k and 21 TDs.



It's no surprise that Elway's stats took off as his surrounding cast was significantly improved.

From '93 till retirement [with a blossomed Sharpe and the aforementioned cast intermixed], Elway averaged an 88.9 QBR, 24 TD, 12 INT, 3543 yards per season over his final 6 years.
From '83-'92 however, Elway averaged a 73.8 QBR, 16 TD, 16 INT, 3022 yards.


So in a sense Dupree was right; there was a time Elway didn't have as much surrounding talent, but during that time he wasn't performing quite like the Elway enshrined in Canton either. It's arguable that had he maintained his first 10 year's pace he would've never made the HOF.

 

I agree. It wasn't Hartline's fault. That said, every QB misses deep. Tom Brady missed deep in that game to open WR... It happens. Problem with our WR core, is those wide open oppertunties are not very common. Tanny missing becomes magnified because it's an opportunity we never have...

Tanny misses that pass once a game, we have an issue. Until we acquire deep threats that run those routes, get open, 2-3 times a game, and he still misses? Then we have a problem. Until then, eh. It happens.

 

Thanks, you are right and that's what I saw.