I don't know if this is new. Probably not. Maybe I'm way late on this. If so, lock it up and point me to the right thread if a discussion on this topic already exists. But for those of you who haven't seen this, Pro football focus has a breakdown of all the QB's in various situations, circumstances, and scenarios. I was thinking of doing a breakdown of them each and using PFF screenshots but... I don't know how kosher it would be. And really, PFF does a good enough job of explaining the meaning.

The link:
https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/06/03/qbs-in-focus/

***PFF's QB evaluation by the numbers is best understood by reading and examining all of the categories. It's like a puzzle. This way you can connect the dots between them. JMO. If you have an hour to kill, it's pretty interesting***


My quick initial thoughts:

- In the "Pass Depth" category, Tannehill graded positive throughout. "Pass Depth" according to PFF guidelines grade yards for which the ball traveled in the air, excluding YAC. Tannehill's positive grades surprised me. My eyes told me that he struggled quite a bit in this area, but the numbers are solid for the most part. When I re-sign up for NFL Rewind, I'm going to pay more attention and try to make sense of it. Really, the INT's hurt him more than anything. Outside of those, his numbers are strong. And if he cuts out the picks, he's grading out like a boss...

- Speaking of the above, Ryan Tannehill had a positive grade for 9 routes in the "Routes thrown" category. Ranked 8th overall. Shocking... At least to me. I've hammered Ryan on this all year, but the numbers tell a different tale. Curious if anyone has a well thought up explanation? Certainly, the 6 drops he experienced probably drastically changed his final overall numbers (at least according to PFF). I wonder if under throw drops count? Maybe that's the disconnect I'm having? A dropped under throw or dropped over throw still gives Ryan partial responsibility, IMO. PFF might not see it that way by the numbers, but I do... Obviously, being a metric's site, PFF doesn't care if a pass was just plain completed or if it was completed in stride and gave the receiver an opportunity to make a big play. Which is why the accuracy numbers give me pause. Curious if anyone else has thoughts on this.

- The best QB's in the league were helped by heaps of playaction. Statistically they were strong and they ran it a lot. Miami ran very little action. This is probably for numerous reasons relating to sucking at run blocking (in addition to all other blocking) and the ease in which Miami gave up pressure, thus hindering Tannehill's ability to read and react in the nano seconds he would have otherwise. Tannehill had a 121 QB rating when running play action in 2013. Will be interesting to see how well Tanny is with a run game, if we get one sooner rather than later.

- In addition to the above, in 2nd/medium, 2nd/short, 3rd/medium, 3rd/short, Ryan graded out extremely high. With the exception of 3rd and medium (still a positive grade), Ryan was top 3 in the NFL. Basically, in non obvious passing situations, Tannehill was awesome. Defenses couldn't key on the pass with 7 men in coverage and 4 rushers... This is supported by the pressure stats, which I'll talk about next...

- Defenses ate Tannehill's lunch in the "pressure, no blitz" category. Basically 4 down lineman and 7 men in coverage skewed his stats towards the negative in a massive way. For example, 60% or thereabouts of his 17 INT's came from this type of defensive scheme. We've talked on this board about Tannehill's chunk turnovers. Maybe it's less psychological than I've been suggesting. In fact, looking at the "time to throw" category is interesting. When Tannehill had 2.0 seconds or less to throw... Not so good. When he had 2.1-2.5 seconds to throw, 2nd best in the NFL after Tom Brady. After 2.1-2.5 seconds, Tannehill actually falls down the list steadily in the next few "Time to throw" tables. Looking at the drop back depth numbers, Ryan was strongest with 3-5 step drops. I think there's obviously a connection between Ryan throwing in rhythm of the play design and having success. I think it also supports the idea that Tannehill was either getting gang raped at the start of the play by the opponents front 4. Or the oline did it's job and the front 4 was neutralized, but the 7 men in coverage made passing efficiently very difficult. He was kind of damned either way and made for mixed results (as it would for any QB).

- Blitzing Tannehill was not a great decision by defensive coaches overall. He graded positive in every "blitz" category. Perhaps this is why some coordinator is bashing Tannehill. They didn't need to work real hard to create a scheme against him. Our oline sucked so bad, you would be an idiot not to run a vanilla defense. Rush 4 and drop 7 into coverage. You likely will get immediate pressure. If you don't get pressure right away, you've still got 7 men in coverage to buy your Dline time to get to him or create difficult passing situations throwing into 7 man coverages. While Tannehill has some responsibility for his mixed play in these situations, I don't see elite QB's in this league being able to fare significantly better under the same circumstances.

- Tannehill was strong from under center. Obviously because of the pressure, Shotgun probably suited him best (we ran it 80% of the time). But again, I think his under center numbers support the idea that Tannehill was very dangerous when defenses had to play it safe and not commit to the pass. With Lazor, I'm very interested in whether or not all the motion will stop the defenses into keying in on the pass. And certainly, it might help identify some pre-snap reads for Tannehill. Two things that might help up his game even more.

- Ryan Tannehill doesn't throw to his left very well. I wonder how much of that is pressure related and him not getting opportunities to physically adjust to a left sided throw? I do know that on some sacks last year he outright missed open outlets to his left. I can think of 3 of the top of my head. Youtube Tannehill's sacks, and you'll see a bunch. Truthfully, I'm hoping someone smarter than I can expand their thoughts on this issue of Tannehill's. The middle of the field and to the right were his bread and butter in terms of overall numbers. Kind of makes me wonder why Hartline wasn't lined up on the right instead of Wallace, given he's Tannehill's favorite and most reliable target. I this speaks to the idea of Sherman trying to fit a square peg (Wallace) into a round hole. This is one of the things that excites me about Lazor.

- According to PFF, Tannehill had zero 1 step drops. Is that true? I can think of a few WR screens (like the one in Indy to Wallace for a TD)... Either way, the numbers for the QB's who did are all high. An average of 70%+ completion, huge TD/INT ratio. Given our deficiencies in blocking, really unexcusable. Same for the lack of screens, which racked up stats for for the "elite" type QB's. The lack of a quick passing game/easy completions make what Tannehill did all the more impressive, IMO. One thing I noticed is Tannehill tends to have a lower than average TD% than guys he's ranked highly with. Maybe that's a part of the reason why.




I certainly think of myself as a Tannehill fan and supporter. Even so, just reading all those numbers, I'm pretty surprised. Ryan Tannehill is kind of a bad ***... He's consistently in the top 10 performing QB by PFF's metric standards. Occasionally right on the cusp of top 10. And very rarely does he ever grade negatively otherwise. By the numbers, Ryan Tannehill is very impressive. Obviously, numbers aren't everything. There are circumstances for which the numbers don't account for. Which is why comparing them with what I saw is important. Even as a supporter of Tannehill, I'm still pretty critical of him. But I have to say, I'm more impressed with him than I was yesterday. Limited college experience at QB. Two years in the NFL, with talent deficiencies all over... Still playing solid, obviously great at times. I knew all of that before, but to see it numerically has given me a fresh perspective.

While PFF is hardly the end all be all, I enjoyed what I read. Especially when looking at the young QB's who constantly outshine him in the media despite Tannehill being statistically/metrically better. I'm looking at you Cam Newton, Ckap, RGIII, and somewhat Andrew Luck...


Anyway, that's it for now. Check out the link if you haven't read it before. Interesting read no matter what you come away with.

 

88.6 QB rating this year in those same scenarios. He and Brady mirrored each other in that they were both at the top of the list for 2.1-2.5 seconds. And both were next to each other towards the bottom for 2.6-3.0 seconds. Can't speak on why TB had issues as I don't watch enough Pats games to understand it. Obviously with Tannehill, I think it was a combination of having to live on the extremes of getting pressured and facing 7 men in coverage. Like GM pointed out, keeping extra guys in to block hurt too I'm sure.


To expand on what I wrote earlier, I noticed I missed a category on PFF's site. Vs. Base, Nickle, and Dime packages. While this information doesn't tell a new story, I think it further cements the idea of how bad the oline was.

* Vs. Base D (4 DB's)
-Tannehill graded out at +.04 w/a 93.6 QB rating.
-21st overall (a few guys ahead of him didn't start 16 games either, so I don't know how fair it is to say he was legit 21st. More like 15th if you exclude them)
- Given that we played from the shotgun 80% of the time, this would be non obvious passing situations (2nd/3rd and short and goaline, I would think).

* Vs. Nickle (5 DB's)
-Tannehill graded out +18.1 w/a 82.8 QB rating.
-2nd overall, behind Peyton Manning.
-9 TD's to 7 Int vs. Nickle, kill RT's QB rating. TD% is lower than average, while INT% is above average. Most guys have 15-20 TD's compared to Ryan's 9.
- Speaks to his success in "non obvious passing situations" ability, I would think. Nickle is more the base D in the NFL now.

* Dime (6 or more DB's)
- Tannehill graded out near the bottom w/a 66.7 QB rating and -2.8.
- PFF noted that "Surprising to see Tannehill face the most snaps against six or more defensive backs with 172. That represented 26% of his drop-backs.". We know Ryan beat the blitz well and had strong #'s, so I think this further speaks to the concept of Ryan facing pressure w/No Blitz aka rush 4, drop 7, where his stats took a nose dive. GM explained that one even better than I did.
-Tom Brady graded dead last in this area w/a 65.5 rating. Tom Brady and Ryan Tannehill have very similar rankings and placements...That might be something worth looking into.


Here's where it gets interesting...


* Vs. 5+ DB's (all sub packages, basically nickle and dime combined)
- Tannehill actually graded high overall (15.3)
-6th in the NFL. Right behind some big names, Pey Pey, Brees, Wilson, Rivers, and Cutler.
- 77.7 QB rating (19/16 TD/INT). Vs. Dime (6+ DB's) defense killed his QB rating. He's surrounded by 90-100 QB ratings. Says a lot about his potential if he gets help.
- 60% completion
- Lower than average Yards per attempt, YPC, and accuracy (factors drops).


In summation, this line better ****ing block...

 

Besides, "X player has all the tools to be successful," I think that line about O-line needing time to gel is one of the most overused and overrated in sports. If you go through an entire training camp and still aren't in sync, players are not likely to improve a significant amount throughout the season. At some point, geling isn't the issue. At some point, having all the tools isn't the issue. You're either good enough or you're not. Training camp will speak volumes about this offensive line, one way or the other.