Tannehill had four forth qtr comebacks second to Brady's five last year and would've had a couple more his rookie season had our kicker been clutch. Tannehill in a two minute drill is not a concern.

 

2 minute drill and total scoring output are two separate things. The unfair or false perception is that Tannehill is not clutch however given the ball with a field goal or touchdown to win or keep us in the game, he has more often than not delivered. Has he failed, yes but even the greats don't have a 100% success rate. Bottom line is he's more clutch than given credit for.

 

I'll give my four...

1. Anticipation
2. Consistency in Decision Making
3. Deep Ball to Wallace (better trajectory is something I've argued )
4. Playmaking with his feet

I like RT, always have...but like most QBs entering year 3 he has some wrinkles to iron out.

 

I agree with OPs 1 & 2. Disagree with 3 and think it should be replaced with him running the ball more and more rollouts.

 

You nailed it with being specific with #3. I think it's a huge misconception that Tanne can't hit the deep ball. That's not true. It's only Wallace he can't connect with.

 

I've always felt he needed to do a better job at getting more air under his throws to Mike, all too often he tried to throw a frozen rope and Wallace is just too fast for that. Not to mention when you misread his depth the ball is likely to be under thrown which is not what we want.

 

If I were the coaching staff I'd put together a video of every deep pass Ryan has hit from college to now. Make him watch it. It may be a short video who knows, I think he needs to see that he can hit the pass with consistency.

I think his problem with Wallace is he thinks before je throws.

 

I agree with 1 and 2 though the video's showed contradict the statements.
1. Wallace was not hit in stride, he had to get off the ground and that's not the definition of "hit in stride," where the receiver continues to run and the ball hits him in the cradle and he doesn't lose stride. I do agree that Tannehill often puts the ball in places that leaves receivers susceptible to injury (Keller, Hartline).

2. Tannehill did do a juke move but Dallas Thomas lost containment after 1.2 seconds and you could see McCoy's right hand rise high over his head and come down hard to swat the ball. So he did not lose the ball "in the process of" the Juke move. However, I agree that he could have recognized the missed block and thrown it over the head to the sideline or fetal positioned and went to his knees. On a side note, Kudos to Sattele for trying to help and had the ball bounced his way he could have recovered the fumble.

 

There is one big one for me:

1. Better game management, or more specifically better risk management. Throwing that deep ball to Hartline in the Jets OT game when we were already in game winning field goal range was a huge no-no. Just inexcusably poor risk management. Sliding feet first a yard short of the line to gain with the playoffs on the line (again against the Jets) is another example. You never see good QBs make mistakes like these. Tannehill has poor throttle control if you will, he's pretty good when we're a score down and he absolutely needs to go 100%, but if we're slightly in the lead or even tied he doesn't push hard enough. The team is not immune to this either. Who are you going to play harder for, the guy that picks the ball up off the turf and dives over the pile into the end zone, or the guy that slides just short of the first down?

Sadly, I don't believe risk management is something you can learn to be good at either.

 

In the same category as decision making for me, some of his choices have puzzled us.

 

IMO the areas that Tannehill needs to improve most are as follows:

Knowing when to run with the ball: IMO this is number 1 and it opens everything else up. I see it as the biggest difference between him and guys like Wilson and Luck. I don't want him to run a lot, but the threat has to be real. And when the D drops everybody back or is undisciplined in their rush lanes I want RT to make them pay by picking up plus yardage.

Making the right reads: I didn't see this as a big issue under Sherman. He knew the O well enough that I felt his reads were pretty good. But he's in a new system now. It's a QB friendly system so it shouldn't be insurmountable. There were definitely some issues this preseason with his pre-snap reads. Kelly's offense was basically an easy math problem. Where you pick run or pass depending on where you have the favorable numbers. He seemed to make some poor choices this preseason where he picked run into a stacked D or passed when the D was sitting back in the lanes.

Hitting Wallace deep: Sometimes you have to let it rip and let him run to it and sometimes he's so wide you can underthrow it safely. It seemed to me that the issue has gotten into his head so much that he tries to just throw it as far as possible without even looking at the WR. You have to do that on some plays with more backfield action, but not always. I don't think we need a ton of success, but we need some. IMO if they hit 4 +40 or so yard TDs this year that would be enough. Obviously more would be better, but assuming they try an average of one per game and hit one every four games or so that 25% rate would be acceptable to me. Add in another +4 TDs on some shorter passes or the crossing routes that the OP mentioned and you'd get an 8 - 10 TD year probably 1200 yards from Wallace.

 

i want to see better finish. Touchdowns instead of field goals. Field goals instead of drives flaming out 5 yards away from field goal range. It always seems we are 5 yards away from scoring. I think Lazor will help in this regard with better spacing and better playcalling.

One thing I don't care about? The ****ing deep ball. I'm so ****ing tired of hearing about the ****ing deep ball. He is an average deep ball thrower, let's all move the **** on. Build on the kids strengths instead of constantly trying to fix/talking about a weakness.

 

Tannehill protected the ball pretty damn well under the circumstances. Inadvertently, that god-awful o-line has turned him into a better scrambler and made him an absolute gun on the rollouts. These are curses converted to blessings.

The main criticisms I have with Ryan, and these are perhaps play-calling criticisms that he cannot answer for, but alas they are that 1) he doesn't make more use out of those amazing legs (not talking about Lauren), and 2) He may be a short-passer, and that's fine but he still needs to be able to go for the deep ball and connect more consistently. If he is on the money and Wallace drops or doesn't fight or whatever, then that'll be on Mike and not him but as it stands they are equal parts to blame for the deep threat not being realized.

 

One thing I'm wondering about is if this throwing to a spot business is for everybody. I would guess some QBs would be better off throwing to a spot and others would be horrible at it but is it reasonable to assume it doesn't matter that much for Tannehill?

 

I firmly believe Tannehill isn't that bad at throwing to a spot...I more believe Wallace runs shi*ty routes, which blows the spot out of the equation. But that's JMHO...

 

When you sign a player with an exceptional skill set and your QB isn't taking advantage of that then we are going to strive to improve it. We have the best race car on the track, just need the driver to improve and we will win races.

 

Best race car that can't even make left turns correctly.

 

Hard to argue when you see Wallace consistently behind defenses, that's why he was brought here and he's doing what he always has...put himself in position to make big plays.

 

He's no Chris Carter at running routes, but neither was Randy Moss...and he made much more of an impact on games.

 

Step 1: Get behind the defense.
Step 2: Catch the ball.
Step 3: Profit.

He's got 1 & 3 covered.

 

Andrew Abramson ‏@AbramsonPBP · 8m
Lazor on why haven't shown more fast-paced O: We have decisions we have to make, strategy how we approach each game, will keep to ourselves

 

Proof of fact?

 

Why can't you imptove tisk management? Its really as simple as calming yourself down and being in the right state of mind before a play.

 

The key with Tannehill is that he has to recognize which reads are going to be options for throwing the ball based on a smaller amount of visual information available to him very early after the snap.

Part of the issue last year was that he was taking too long to determine whether his primary read was an option, which let the pass rush get to him. He needs to be able to determine whether his primary read is an option very quickly after the snap, and then either make the pass to that read or move on through his progression immediately.

You can't take as long as he took to determine whether the primary read is an option and expect not to pay for that with sacks, as quick as defenses and defensive linemen are in today's game. All that stuff has to happen very quickly.

 

By far the #1 area Ryan Tannehill has to improve is his play from the pocket. He posted a top QB Rating on passes attempted outside the tackles but he posted a bottom ten rating on passes attempted within the pocket. Some of that was undoubtedly because of last years shoddy OL but Ryan should be much better then that. It will be worrisome if it continues mainly because the tools are there and the OL is at least average now imo. If it does continue I think it would speak to something else, namely accuracy and footwork which are, in almost any case, tied together for a QB. For instance, when he was throwing deep last year, you could see his feet were spread wider causing him to open his hips too wide. Thats one of the things that cause the inaccuracy on his deep passes.

IMO the pocket play is the #1 thing. The NFL passing game has always been played from the pocket primarily and always will be played from the pocket imo. In order for Ryan to take that next step, its got to start there.

 

One subset to those ratings though:

• Among the league’s best when throwing from a clean pocket (+20.5).

 

I've said for a while that he is a top 5 intermediate passer, I haven't dug up any stats to back this up but I have seen every throw he has ever made in this league.

Evolving other parts of his game is what Lazor needs to shoot for.

 

I just dont see him make very good adjustments when he runs that route....I see other recievers adjusting their speed accordingly....Wallace wants the ball dropped in his bread basket when he is in full speed....

 

he had a clean pocket during the preseason....so..Im pretty psyched about what he might do this season

 

I don't think he has a problem adjusting his speed with the ball in the air, go back and watch some games as a Steeler. One of the reasons I absolutely HATE when RT underthrows him...throw it out there (some air under it) and let him run under it. Wallace certainly has his shortcomings, but I don't see that as one of them.

 

True but the pocket isnt going to be clean all that often, especially with Pouncey out for at least the first few weeks.

 

It can be if you have enough rush attempts overall and some from your QB. If the pass rushers hesitate just 1 second that's a huge incremental increase in the amount of time RT has to pass the ball. I don't recall the exact numbers but I believe that if RT had either 2.5 or 3 seconds or more his success rate shot up. Most of his sacks seem to come from that immediate pressure where the OL just whiffed. Just having more rush attempts and the threat of a QB rush would make the pass rusher have to hesitate more often. That alone would eliminate some of those quick pressures. And in my experience DL who get bludgeon by run blocking all game lose that quick first step as the game goes on.

 

The end zone isn't to the left though ;-)

 

I think Phins need him to execute the new quirks the offense has added, which is basically timely accurate throws.

But as far as his improvement, that is an entirely different story and it maybe at odds with the system requirements.
He needs to become excellent at reading defenses pre snap especially front 7, to know at all times where the pressure is coming from, and who the hot read is.
And he needs to become a gamer. He must see favorable match ups and take advantage, he must be able to hit a guy for a long gain even that is not a hot read. I saw Matt Moore this preseason abandon what the defense was giving him, he had a guy in the flat or on the sit, but went deep to one on one coverage even with the safety over and delivered. I think that is what Tannehill admires about Moore, when they watch film, he sees a guy who has balls of steel.
And to do that he needs to develop a touch, to throw the ball with just enough air under it, whether it's over the LB in the middle or over the corner at the boundary.

This is a lot of improvement to expect in one year. I don't expect it, but I expect strides.

 

Randy Moss ran great routes.

 

More like jogged them.