Ryan Tannehill

"Fin-O wrote:

Tannehill is in the majority for sure in needing a strong supporting cast. But there certainly are a few guy's capable of making chicken salad out of chicken poop.

VERY few. I just wish everyone understood that the very few are the extreme minority and not the majority.

"The_Dark_Knight wrote:

VERY few. I just wish everyone understood that the very few are the extreme minority and not the majority.

There are typically six quarterbacks a year that function in that manner, so yes, the small minority.

The issue is the likelihood that you can get a QB the surroundings he needs to function at that level consistently after his salary cap hit becomes possibly prohibitive of assembling and sustaining those surroundings.

So we’re back to the “he needs great surroundings to be successful argument?

This has been debunked so many times. Like we never get anywhere because once we get through all the arguments, someone recycles an old argument. Frustration ensues, as we rehash the same things.

It’s pretty simple. In Miami, Tannehill did not have:

1. Dominant run game
2. Average blocking
3. Top 10 defense in points allowed

(things people AGAIN are claiming he needs)

So, knowing those things, HOW IS IT REASONABLE to conclude that Tannehill needs the leagues BEST in those categories for the team to be successful? It’s not a reasonable conclusion. A reasonable conclusion would be that he needs at least average help in those areas for the team to be successful. Of course, that is the case for every QB that is playing for a successful team. That, however, doesn’t fit the narrative of Tannehill being not good enough.

"resnor wrote:

So we’re back to the “he needs great surroundings to be successful argument?

This has been debunked so many times. Like we never get anywhere because once we get through all the arguments, someone recycles an old argument. Frustration ensues, as we rehash the same things.

It’s pretty simple. In Miami, Tannehill did not have:

1. Dominant run game
2. Average blocking
3. Top 10 defense in points allowed

(things people AGAIN are claiming he needs)

So, knowing those things, HOW IS IT REASONABLE to conclude that Tannehill needs the leagues BEST in those categories for the team to be successful? It’s not a reasonable conclusion. A reasonable conclusion would be that he needs at least average help in those areas for the team to be successful. Of course, that is the case for every QB that is playing for a successful team. That, however, doesn’t fit the narrative of Tannehill being not good enough.

People are emotionally invested in Tannehill not being good enough. When he plays well they can’t help but try to explain it away.

"The Guy wrote:

There are typically six quarterbacks a year that function in that manner, so yes, the small minority.

The issue is the likelihood that you can get a QB the surroundings he needs to function at that level consistently after his salary cap hit becomes possibly prohibitive of assembling and sustaining those surroundings.

You didn’t mention him, but I’m going to use Brady as an example. I’m sitting here watching the Buffalo vs New England game and the Patriots are RUNNING the ball. All of this running just set up a nice play action by Brady so...

Even the GREAT quarterbacks need a strong OL, a good running game and everything else you guys are saying that Tannehill needs...because he’s just not that good of a quarterback.

Hell, if Tannehill has surrounding him what Brady has, we’d be all up in his jock strap

[ATTACH:full]

"The_Dark_Knight wrote:

You didn’t mention him, but I’m going to use Brady as an example. I’m sitting here watching the Buffalo vs New England game and the Patriots are RUNNING the ball. All of this running just set up a nice play action by Brady so...

Even the GREAT quarterbacks need a strong OL, a good running game and everything else you guys are saying that Tannehill needs...because he’s just not that good of a quarterback.

Hell, if Tannehill has surrounding him what Brady has, we’d be all up in his jock strap

What you're saying (highlighted above) is easily testable. Tell me how you want to measure teams' running the ball, how you want to measure how great quarterbacks are, and I'll do the work of determining the relationship between those two variables throughout the league over whatever number of years you would like.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

People are emotionally invested in Tannehill not being good enough. When he plays well they can’t help but try to explain it away.

Definitive meaning regarding Tannehill's performance in terms of his ability can be made only with a good bit more data. Whether someone is biased for or against Tannehill is immaterial with regard to whether definitive meaning can be made of his performance with regard to his ability at the present time.

One could just as easily say that people who are emotionally invested in Tannehill's being good enough are in a rush to make definitive meaning of his ability from too small a sample of his play.

"The Guy wrote:

Definitive meaning regarding Tannehill's performance in terms of his ability can be made only with a good bit more data. Whether someone is biased for or against Tannehill is immaterial with regard to whether definitive meaning can be made of his performance with regard to his ability at the present time.

One could just as easily say that people who are emotionally invested in Tannehill's being good enough are in a rush to make definitive meaning of his ability from too small a sample of his play.

LOL. Nobody needs your definitive meaning. His play is confirming what the Tannehill supporters said about the situation in Miami holding him back. You have conveniently moved the goal posts from "can he play at a high level and elevate his teammates?" to "can he do it again? how about again? again? again? again?................"

"The_Dark_Knight wrote:

Well seeing how nearly 100% of our starting talent was traded away for the monstrous number of draft picks we're going to receive, one would have to assume this was done to draft the players and build the team that Flores wants. I give Flores an alibi this season. I'll even give him an alibi next season but come 2021, if the Dolphins aren't a POWERHOUSE in the NFL that everyone fears playing, then it's fair to say the onus all falls on Flores.

I completely disagree- it falls on Grier. Flores could have won 6-8 games this season with the talent we ended last season with so in my opinion, this season has nothing to do with him other than a couple of surprising wins. Next year Flores will be at Grier's mercy as well....what if we draft Tua and he rides the bench for the year? What if we don't bring in 4 starting-caliber linemen? Or any semblance of guys that can get after the passer? That's not on Flores at all.

You can make lemonade out of lemons....but so far Flores has a few rocks, a paperclip and a pile of dirt. You have to actually give him the lemons first....

But here's the ultra-frustrating part. Flores gets a pass this season, next season and maybe even the season after that. After all, it's why we gave him a 5-year guaranteed contract. So we might not know what we have in a coach until 2021 or even 2022 if Grier picks all the right talent every time. What happens if Tua doesn't develop though? Or what if we don't even draft Tua...who do we roll the dice with at quarterback? There are so many variables in play here and I don't think any of them come back to Flores and his staff for at least a couple more seasons.

And let's pretend for a moment we decide in 3 years Flores is definitely the guy. The only way that happens is if Grier also does great and we're not moving into our newest rebuild after cleaning house. That would be amazing....but I think we'd have to have a few playoff wins to make that statement in 2022.

The other problem comes in when we're not sure what we have....we're a pretty good 8-8 or 9-7 team that maybe plays a wildcard game or just misses the playoffs. Then what...how do we assign blame? Grier definitely gets fired and we'll still have no idea if Flores is the right guy or not. It's all a roll of the dice and it's going to be that way for quite some time UNLESS Grier has two unbelievable drafts and free agency hiring back to back. Because if there's still holes next season and we can't block, rush the QB, etc. then it's going to be just like evaluating Rosen this season....we'll have no idea where we stand.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

LOL. Nobody needs your definitive meaning. His play is confirming what the Tannehill supporters said about the situation in Miami holding him back. You have conveniently moved the goal posts from "can he play at a high level and elevate his teammates?" to "can he do it again? how about again? again? again? again?................"

If the question is "can he play at a high level and elevate his teammates," the answer to that question is yes for almost all starting quarterbacks in the league. Tannehill has played at a high level and elevated his teammates in the past, in fact.

The question for me about Tannehill is whether he has the ability of one of league's best QBs, and that requires more data to answer. I respect that that may not be the question for you, however.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

LOL. Nobody needs your definitive meaning. His play is confirming what the Tannehill supporters said about the situation in Miami holding him back. You have conveniently moved the goal posts from "can he play at a high level and elevate his teammates?" to "can he do it again? how about again? again? again? again?................"

Not to Butt in, and with all due respect....It's just simply so hard to trust him (Tannehill). I think that's why people keep moving the line further and further back. We've seen him bail countless times during this stretch of the season. 2016 being the injury, while the others were just him no elevating his play.
I've watched him extensively playing for the Titans this year. He's the same guy, but he's got an elite running back and a solid offensive line keeping him up. His play reminds me of his 2016 season before he was injured and that play was absolutely good enough for me at that time. Until this season, 2016 was by far his best season in terms of stats and those numbers correlating to wins. We were winning, and he was playing well. Same thing is happening in Nashville and there's no reason to think he can't continue to put up solid numbers along with winning games as long as the stability at those positions are in place. I am a huge fan of what he has done this year for that team and I couldn't be happier for him as a former player of Miami. Still rooting for them to somehow find their way into the playoffs.

"KeyFin wrote:

Flores gets a pass this season, next season and maybe even the season after that. After all, it's why we gave him a 5-year guaranteed contract.

5-year guaranteed contract just means he is guaranteed 5 years worth of salary, nothing else. Ross can fire him tomorrow if he wants.

In any case, it's worth noting some statistics for HoF coaches that coached ONLY in the SB era:
1) The average win% in year 1 is 34.43%
2) The average win% in year 2 is 55.75%
3) The average win% in year 3 is 65.51%
4) The average win% in year 4 is 69.23%

So that stat tells you that it's totally fine for Flores to have a losing record this year, but that we should already expect 8-9 wins next year and there's no excuse for not being a strong winning team by year 3 or year 4. For reference, 65% win% is 10 wins and 69% is 11 wins.

"cbrad wrote:

5-year guaranteed contract just means he is guaranteed 5 years worth of salary, nothing else. Ross can fire him tomorrow if he wants.

In any case, it's worth noting some statistics for HoF coaches that coached ONLY in the SB era:
1) The average win% in year 1 is 34.43%
2) The average win% in year 2 is 55.75%
3) The average win% in year 3 is 65.51%
4) The average win% in year 4 is 69.23%

So that stat tells you that it's totally fine for Flores to have a losing record this year, but that we should already expect 8-9 wins next year and there's no excuse for not being a strong winning team by year 3 or year 4. For reference, 65% win% is 10 wins and 69% is 11 wins.

I agree with you but at the same time, how many of those HOF coaches had their roster completely stripped down to nothing for year 1? This has never happened before in the NFL, to this degree anyway, so we're sort of in uncharted territories on how to analyze success. For instance, I'm not expecting 9 wins next season just because we have so many needs up and down the roster. Our three wins this season were on heart alone...guys playing above their pay-grade to get a 2nd audition next year. I don't know if Flores gets that level of effort from veteran free agents and drafted rookies if the team talent level is still the worst in the league.

I hope I'm wrong...that would be awesome...but I have a feeling that we'll really be testing that "5 year guarantee" a few seasons from now. And I know that the guarantee is financial only, but from that initial press conference I had the feeling that Ross was saying that he'd give Flores 5 years to prove himself since we would definitely stink this season. Nobody would take the job otherwise since it would be career suicide.

"KeyFin wrote:

I agree with you but at the same time, how many of those HOF coaches had their roster completely stripped down to nothing for year 1? This has never happened before in the NFL, to this degree anyway, so we're sort of in uncharted territories on how to analyze success.

How "stripped down" a roster is is subjective. It's better to just look at win% for the first year and compare to Flores' first year. I mean.. these are some of the best coaches in NFL history so you should expect they'll get the most out of the roster they have.

Out of the 8 HoF coaches that coached ONLY in the SB era, half of them did really poorly their first year:
- Chuck Noll went 1-13 his first year
- Bill Walsh went 2-14 his first year
- Marv Levy went 4-12 his first year
- Bill Parcells went 3-11-1 his first year

I think that's fairly indicative of how "stripped down" a roster is. Parcells was a winner by year 2, Walsh by year 3, Levy went 8-8 in year 3 and then 9-7 in year 4, and Noll took till year 4 to post a 11-3 record. So while you might not expect 8-9 wins in year 2 for coaches with such a "stripped down" roster, you still do expect a winning season by year 3-4.

And I doubt all those coaches had the wealth of draft picks we have for years 2-3.

"cbrad wrote:

How "stripped down" a roster is is subjective. It's better to just look at win% for the first year and compare to Flores' first year. I mean.. these are some of the best coaches in NFL history so you should expect they'll get the most out of the roster they have.

Out of the 8 HoF coaches that coached ONLY in the SB era, half of them did really poorly their first year:
- Chuck Noll went 1-13 his first year
- Bill Walsh went 2-14 his first year
- Marv Levy went 4-12 his first year
- Bill Parcells went 3-11-1 his first year

I think that's fairly indicative of how "stripped down" a roster is. Parcells was a winner by year 2, Walsh by year 3, Levy went 8-8 in year 3 and then 9-7 in year 4, and Noll took till year 4 to post a 11-3 record. So while you might not expect 8-9 wins in year 2 for coaches with such a "stripped down" roster, you still do expect a winning season by year 3-4.

And I doubt all those coaches had the wealth of draft picks we have for years 2-3.

This team's first two games shattered the all-time record for score differential. The 2019 Dolphins, by many accounts, are unprecedented. Not only did they ship off a majority of the "talent" on the roster, but other talent was injured/unavailable, and almost a quarter of the roster joined the team the week before the season started. Yes it's subjective, but those records for those four coaches scream "coach installing his system" more-so than just talent level.

Vegas had Miami at 4 wins'ish before the season, and that was before injuries to key players (some of the few remaining talent), and the shipping off of some major talent. The point spreads they started applying to Miami games after the first few weeks were college-like.

I think that comparison is green apples to red apples.

"PhinFan1968 wrote:

This team's first two games shattered the all-time record for score differential. The 2019 Dolphins, by many accounts, are unprecedented. Not only did they ship off a majority of the "talent" on the roster, but other talent was injured/unavailable, and almost a quarter of the roster joined the team the week before the season started. Yes it's subjective, but those records for those four coaches scream "coach installing his system" more-so than just talent level.

Vegas had Miami at 4 wins'ish before the season, and that was before injuries to key players (some of the few remaining talent), and the shipping off of some major talent. The point spreads they started applying to Miami games after the first few weeks were college-like.

I think that comparison is green apples to red apples.

People are forgetting a lot of NFL history when suggesting that the 2019 Dolphins are in a situation so bad it's "unprecedented".

You want my vote for weakest roster in NFL history? Try the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Expansion team and the expansion draft was full of washed up vets. Did that team have ANY talent worth mentioning? Dolphins have at least SOME talent. They were the first team to go 0-14 and had a whopping -287 point differential across 14 games, which translates to on average losing by 20.5 points per game! For comparison, despite a terrible start the 2019 Dolphins are at -194 point differential after 14 games.

And what about Cleveland? In 2016 they go 1-15 and then follow that up with an 0-16 season. There is no better barometer of how good or bad a team is than their record over larger sample size, and 1-31 across 2 seasons trumps anything we're going through.

In any case, Vegas put us at 4.5 wins right before the season started, so after the key trades. They also had us at +300 (25% probability) to go winless after the first 2 games. In other words they thought it was extremely unlikely we'd go winless.. something I kept pointing out after those first 2 games to posters saying there's no way we'll win a game this season.

No.. we're nowhere near the "worst" in NFL history, not talent-wise (which is subjective but try arguing against the 1976 Bucs) nor record-wise nor point differential-wise (those are objective). So from that point of view I agree: it's green apples to red apples.

"The Guy wrote:

What Tannehill needs in my opinion -- and largely agreeing with you -- is 1) a strong running game that can be the focus of the offense and the opposing team's defensive focus, 2) a strong defense that can keep games close so that situations in which the opposing team knows Tannehill has to pass are kept to a minimum, and 3) a very strong offensive line. Those three things together compensate for the flaw of his that in itself has the potential to make a team no better than mediocre, which is his inability to divide his attention between going through his progressions downfield and sensing and evading the pass rush.

Unfortunately what that means, however, is that he needs virtually an entire rest of a team (running game, defense, offensive line) to function a certain way so that he can perform at the level of one of the best QBs in the game. And as I've said before in this thread, those kinds of surroundings aren't likely to be sustainable or replicable. Hell, as soon as you pay him the going rate for even just an average quarterback, assembling and sustaining those kinds of surroundings becomes very difficult under the salary cap.

The Titans OL has widely been considered trash for at least 2 years. The only people I see claiming the Titans OL is strong are the people wanting to fit what has happened into the pre-written “Tanny needs a strong OL” narrative.

As for (2) the Titans D is currently ranked 8th in points allowed and 19th in yards allowed. If you dig into their defensive rankings on things like yards allowed per pass, turnovers, yards per drive they are middle of the pack, ranking between 10 and 20 for most indicators. They certainly aren’t a strong D, more like quietly competent.

"cbrad wrote:

People are forgetting a lot of NFL history when suggesting that the 2019 Dolphins are in a situation so bad it's "unprecedented".

You want my vote for weakest roster in NFL history? Try the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Expansion team and the expansion draft was full of washed up vets. Did that team have ANY talent worth mentioning? Dolphins have at least SOME talent. They were the first team to go 0-14 and had a whopping -287 point differential across 14 games, which translates to on average losing by 20.5 points per game! For comparison, despite a terrible start the 2019 Dolphins are at -194 point differential after 14 games.

And what about Cleveland? In 2016 they go 1-15 and then follow that up with an 0-16 season. There is no better barometer of how good or bad a team is than their record over larger sample size, and 1-31 across 2 seasons trumps anything we're going through.

In any case, Vegas put us at 4.5 wins right before the season started, so after the key trades. They also had us at +300 (25% probability) to go winless after the first 2 games. In other words they thought it was extremely unlikely we'd go winless.. something I kept pointing out after those first 2 games to posters saying there's no way we'll win a game this season.

No.. we're nowhere near the "worst" in NFL history, not talent-wise (which is subjective but try arguing against the 1976 Bucs) nor record-wise nor point differential-wise (those are objective). So from that point of view I agree: it's green apples to red apples.

Oh I can definitely get behind "not the worst ever," but those four coaches/teams you listed most certainly had more talent. Not a chance they had a better draft future, but they had talent. The "unprecedented" I'm talking about is the amount of ditching talent they did...I don't recall ever hearing of a team doing that, to that extent.

"PhinFan1968 wrote:

Oh I can definitely get behind "not the worst ever," but those four coaches/teams you listed most certainly had more talent. Not a chance they had a better draft future, but they had talent. The "unprecedented" I'm talking about is the amount of ditching talent they did...I don't recall ever hearing of a team doing that, to that extent.

I see.. that kind of history I'm not as familiar with (roster purge), but one recent one I am: Jets in 2017.

Jets in the 2017 offseason got rid of the following players:

Darrelle Revis
Nick Mangold
Brandon Marshall
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Eric Decker
David Harris
..
and some others in what was actually called "The Purge" in NY. Not sure it's clear our purge is worse.

"Pauly wrote:

The Titans OL has widely been considered trash for at least 2 years. The only people I see claiming the Titans OL is strong are the people wanting to fit what has happened into the pre-written “Tanny needs a strong OL” narrative.

As for (2) the Titans D is currently ranked 8th in points allowed and 19th in yards allowed. If you dig into their defensive rankings on things like yards allowed per pass, turnovers, yards per drive they are middle of the pack, ranking between 10 and 20 for most indicators. They certainly aren’t a strong D, more like quietly competent.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting he was getting any of that at present. The post you quoted was only theoretical, in terms of what would be needed to compensate for his primary weakness. What's happening now I think is attributable to entirely different, situational factors that aren't replicable, and so it makes little sense to say that Tannehill "needs" those things to perform at this level.

"The Guy wrote:

What you're saying (highlighted above) is easily testable. Tell me how you want to measure teams' running the ball, how you want to measure how great quarterbacks are, and I'll do the work of determining the relationship between those two variables throughout the league over whatever number of years you would like.

It’s not a matter of statistically measuring how much a team runs the ball. It’s a matter of whether or not you do that’s the factor. I’ve repeated myself so many times that I’m beginning to feel like a broken record.

Defensively, if I don’t know if you’re running the ball or passing the ball, as a coordinator I have to be prepared for either one. If I send in a cover 2 thinking you’re going to pass and you run, I’m going to get burned on the run. If I send in a stacked heavy 7 or 8 in the box thinking you’re going to run, I’m going to get burned on a pass. So as the opposing offensive coordinator, what am I going to do? Exactly what Daniels did on that very first drive. I’m going to run run run the ball. Because I have the great Tom Brady in the backfield you’re afraid I’m going to throw and you’re going to run cover 2 and outside blitzes and I’m going to keep pounds the ball up the middle...and once I have you sucked in, I’m going to run that play action for 30 yards and throw you off balance yet again.

Balanced offensive attacks are ***CRUCIAL*** for successful offenses. If you aren’t balanced, you’ve painted yourself into a corner in which there’s only one way out

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28350845/source-titans-star-rb-derrick-henry-not-expected-play-vs-saints

"The_Dark_Knight wrote:

It’s not a matter of statistically measuring how much a team runs the ball. It’s a matter of whether or not you do that’s the factor. I’ve repeated myself so many times that I’m beginning to feel like a broken record.

Defensively, if I don’t know if you’re running the ball or passing the ball, as a coordinator I have to be prepared for either one. If I send in a cover 2 thinking you’re going to pass and you run, I’m going to get burned on the run. If I send in a stacked heavy 7 or 8 in the box thinking you’re going to run, I’m going to get burned on a pass. So as the opposing offensive coordinator, what am I going to do? Exactly what Daniels did on that very first drive. I’m going to run run run the ball. Because I have the great Tom Brady in the backfield you’re afraid I’m going to throw and you’re going to run cover 2 and outside blitzes and I’m going to keep pounds the ball up the middle...and once I have you sucked in, I’m going to run that play action for 30 yards and throw you off balance yet again.

Balanced offensive attacks are ***CRUCIAL*** for successful offenses. If you aren’t balanced, you’ve painted yourself into a corner in which there’s only one way out

Everything you’re saying can be proven or disproven statistically.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

People are emotionally invested in Tannehill not being good enough. When he plays well they can’t help but try to explain it away.

That works both ways unfortunately for the mods here in this forum.