Where does Tannehill rank among quarterbacks today?

I don't need to argue it....He has been in the league longer and has had better defenses over the course of his career than Tannehill has...Peyton vs Flacco ???? Really..point being Flacco's defense did help him in the Super Bowl...Flacco also had a great 1st half as Baltimore's Defense definitely stymied Kaepernick until the lights went out...by then Flacco and the Offense had scored just enough and the Defense played really good ball long enough for Baltimore to hold off San Francisco's rally...I do agree that Flacco was phenomenal during that playoff run...He also was the year before that, when Baltimore should have gone into overtime if the Kicker did not miss a chip shot..it was lucky for the Pats too because Baltimore was playing really good at that point of the game and the Pats were not..Also, I am not sure if I am mixing games in my memory..Lol..but I think that I remember that right before the FG attempt the Pats had gotten away with a blatant PI in the end zone. Flacco and Tanny I think are right even, back & forth so to say, except that the difference is very important that Flacco has the Playoff experience by far...hopefully Tannehill and Miami remedy that situation this year starting Ryan's playoff experience...but during the regular season, for the last two years, they are neck and neck.

 

Also imho...Flacco takes his game up several notches in the playoffs..there is no arguing his stats, because one can't..if he played that way during the season as well he would be right there with Aaron Rodgers..We have of course, no playoff numbers from Tanny in his first 3 years.

 

Who I Would Take Ahead of Ryan: Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck.

That's not to say he is the 4th best QB for this season... but he is far younger (and less rapey) than many of the other choices as my long-term starter.

 

You can't judge Tannehill in the playoff department, but when comparing two QB's you can't just suddenly leave out what they do when it counts most. In the playoffs, Tannehill = ?? vs. Flacco = often decent and sometimes absolutely superb.

So yeah, in the regular season they're different types of QB's that are similar production-wise in many ways, but add playoff accomplishments and Flacco > Tannehill by a good margin, if one ONLY goes based on past accomplishments. I think if the question is who would you rather have for the near future, it's a much tougher question and both are relatively equal in my mind.

 

Maybe when the playoffs start and the intensity gets ratcheted up, he takes his game to another level.Makes sense no?.. Sign of a great player maybe...maybe during the regular season he's being more of a game manager and allowing his teammates to get more involved but when the stakes go up he obviously takes more of a leadership role as far as how things are gonna get done.

 

Got it, you base everything on stats...

Well, I'll speak your language, because we have data that clearly states that flacco has played at an elite level in the playoffs, don't you think that should put him above Ryan at this point? Your elevating a player who is unknown over a player that is known?... It's no diss on Ryan...I really have no idea how you arrive to your conclusions.

 

Thing is, the last couple games when we're trying to get in = playoffs for us. It's sudden death. Like a pre-wild card round. He hasn't been lights out.

 

I've seen THill fold when the pressure is on a bit often to this point in time.

Fairness, some of that is/was on Sturgis, other times he just falls apart inexplicably, the Bills seem to have his number down the play off run stretches later in the season.

 

These points about Tannehill not playing well in regular season "sudden death" games, or not rising up to the occasion in many pressure situations, I think have merit.

However..

1) Flacco wasn't that great his first few years in the playoffs either. In some games he did well, but overall in the 2008/2009 playoffs he had a combined 50.8 passer rating (over 3 games), and 2009/2010 playoffs it was a combined 39.4 rating (over 2 games.. in fairness he had an injury here). It's only since 2010 that his combined rating has been 90+ (or 100+ for the last 2 trips). So give Tannehill some time here.

** stats from: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/F/FlacJo00.htm (and I know combining passer ratings isn't as good as taking averages, but it should show a similar trend)

2) Tannehill has had a good number of games where he has risen up to the occasion in pressure situations. My favorite game of his is that meeting vs. RW and the Seahawks where Tannehill led us from behind multiple times to win the game. There are a good number of other games where RT did his part but the defense lost it for us. So I think it's better to just say he doesn't yet rise up to the challenge under pressure situations as consistently as some other (better) QB's do.

Point is.. the book on RT's performance when it really counts (esp. playoffs) has mostly yet to be written. If we're still making these same observations a year or two from now, I think I'll also start to say he doesn't do well when it counts, but it's really a bit early in RT's career to say this IMO.

 

most def the book an ryan has not been written...so then the OP should be clear on how he's ranking the qbs, his is obviously on what qb would you take moving forward..wipe the slate clean type thing, based on potential..if he said that i can respect that.

 

It is true that statistically Tannehill and Flacco are on similar paths at the 3 year point in their careers, and Flacco has certainly benefited from a great GM/coach combo. But Flacco is an exception. People act like once you have a Flacco it ain't no thang to get yourself a great coach and BOOM-- Superbowls!! In reality there are fewer elite coaches than QBs in the league any given year. It would be easier to find an Andrew Luck than to hope Tannehill can be as good as Flacco throughout his career and in the playoffs and find an elite coach/GM to get him over the hump. The best case scenario for us right now is we have Giants type success - a few great seasons mixed in with a bunch of mediocre seasons over a decade. I mean, I would take that but there will be a lot of heartache and debates to go along with it. Its not going to be a nice easy ride like what Seahawk fans will experience with Wilson at QB.

 

What does anything Sturgis does have anything whatsoever to do with Tannehill? I'm confused. If the team is in position to kick a FG, then the QB has done his job. Whether the kick is made or not has noting to do with him.

 

Agree, neither has the Defense.

 

I think the kicker making kicks, or the defense making stops, has a ton to do with perception of Tannehill. Now, I'm going to say this, and I'm going to get blasted, but Brady was the king of driving his team into field goal range, allowing Vinatieri the chance to win games, especially playoff games, with his foot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Brady isn't great, nor am I trying to compare Tannehill to Brady...just pointing out that many of the Pats early runs were helped greatly by the kicker making kicks. Vinatieri won two Super Bowls for the Patriots, making a kick of 48 yards to beat the Rams and 41 yards to beat the Panthers. The kicker definitely has alot to do with perception. When a QB drives into field goal range, and the kicker wins the game with a kick, the QB gets credit for getting them there. When the kicker misses, the QB often gets criticism for not scoring a td, or not getting them closer.

 

Well said.

It seems to me that if one includes the postseason they are biasing themselves towards Flacco because he has had many opportunities where Tannehill has had none. If one were to exclude the postseason, it would be biased away from Flacco where his greatest achievements are found.

Unless one wants to predict some sort of postseason numbers for Tannehill, that individual really can't compare the two QBs fairly beyond just the regular season numbers which support both guys being what they are.

What I see in this business of comparing Tannehill to other QBs is that there are simply not sufficient numbers available yet to really judge Tannehill fairly. Maybe at the 5-6 year mark we can do that, but at this point, there is no post-season record and his only 3 seasons in the league are too colored by inexperience and other bad factors to hold too much against him.

 

Let's try this differently. Suppose you have two dice (faces numbered from 1-6), and your goal is to roll the highest number. One die you have no information on, while the other you know is loaded and will more likely roll a larger number than a smaller one. Which do you choose?

Point is, when you have no information, there is a default "prediction" made based on the available information (e.g. uniform probability distribution), if not for that specific die, then for the population of dice.

Back to Tannehill vs. Flacco: in the playoffs we know Flacco is that loaded die, while with Tannehill you have no info. What can be said about Tannehill in the playoffs then? You can either say he's equally likely to perform better or worse than he does during the regular season, or you could take the average performance of all QB's in the playoffs vs. how they perform in the regular season (this second approach conditions on the QB making the playoffs). Either approach is justifiable. And either approach leads to Flacco > Tannehill because of Flacco's playoff record.

 

Ya I'd take the Giants template as well...but would like more...which isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

That nice easy ride in Seattle's days are numbered IMO...RW's contract will prevent a continuance of what they have going right now...3rd round pick rookie contract does amazing things, particularly at that position.

 

I'm not sure why post season matters when discussing Tannehill vs. Flacco.

If post season performance mattered when defining a QB's level of greatness, then we'd be saying Flacco is better than Marino. He's not of course, because that's not how we judge a QB....unless its to **** on Tannehill.

 

^ 1000x

 

It matters only in the sense that you don't want to throw away information. How you weight post-season performance is another story, so you can easily argue Marino > Flacco (and I would) without throwing away post-season data in a comparison.

 

Again, we base it on relevant data. Flacco's post season data is irrelevant to this discussion because there's nothing to compare it to. Without that, you can't even weight it, let alone count it.

You are perfectly allowed to set the data aside until it becomes relevant, then if correct, even change your conclusion based on relevant data.

 

The discussion was never restricted to regular season performance only. So you don't want to throw away post-season information and you HAVE to weight it. How you could weight it I addressed in post #98.

 

Because Tannehill doesn't have any post season stats, that's why.

You can't weight its importance in the comparison between the two because one of them hasn't been there yet. I understand that you mentioned it already, but that doesn't mean you were correct.

It is perfectly acceptable to table the data until Tannehill has data to compare it against and change the conclusion if need be at that time. Doing it any other way is like comparing two places and only having been to one of them.

 

If you're including post season data, then you're automatically restricting Tannehill from the discussion, as he's never been. Frankly, as a regular season QB, Flacco has not been spectacular. It's really surprising, to me, that his playoff numbers have been so good.

 

OK, let's try a thought experiment. First of all, remember we're asking where Tannehill ranks overall among QB's in the NFL. Now, let's say there is a hypothetical QB "X" that has never played a regular season or post-season game in the NFL. X has only played pre-season games.

Where do you rank X as a NFL QB? According to your argument, we can only compare pre-season stats. But I bet that almost everyone will say Tannehill > X as a NFL QB because of what he's done in the regular season (suppose both have similar pre-season stats).

So I think it's untenable to say you can only compare people where they had same/similar opportunities; you gotta take into account everything they've done (in the context of the question, which in this case is what have you done as an NFL QB).

 

So what's your counter-argument to my post #98?

 

This thought experiment makes no sense. The pre season doesn't matter and is not indicative of anything.

I think the problem is that you fail to realize not all data is equal.

 

I don't think this is an accurate comparison. First of all, a loaded dice is going to roll towards the side it is loaded towards. Flacco isn't guaranteed to play better in the playoffs. Nonetheless, you have to get to the playoffs for Flacco to even have a chance to really shine. Regular season, he's not playing much better at all, than Tannehill. It's like the Brady vs Manning debates from a few years back, but in reverse. Peyton was always lights out regular season, and disappeared in the playoffs.

 

You can change the question to X having only 1 regular season game under his belt. Same problem. People naturally compare QB's (and others) based on overall achievements, even if the conditions aren't the same. Not doing so leads to absurd results.

Also, I already pointed out you can weight data differently so clearly I understand not all data is equal.

 

The "loaded dice" issue just refers to there being a higher probability of one outcome over another .. doesn't imply deterministic.

Either way, post #98 pointed out how we assign probabilities to events that haven't yet occurred. Accept that basic premise and you can compare, so I'm still waiting for a good critique of that post.

 

We are allowed to have a minimum amount of data and then only compare similar data and then change our conclusions as new data becomes comparable and valid. How can one weight the data if there's nothing to compare it to. You have to have comparisons to weight it.

 

Let's say, for hypothetical purposes, that you have a QB who averages 2000 yards in the regular season, a 75 rating, and 15 and 15 TD/Int. Now, this QB, buoyed by an outstanding run game, and a defense that allows on average 10 points a game, consistently makes the playoffs. In the playoffs, this QB plays lights out, and averages 450 yards a game, 110 rating, and 4 tds to 1 int per game. Would you rate this QB higher due to his postseason? I mean, you can't discount average, or in this case, below average, regular season play, just because a guy plays great in the post season.

 

But those probabilities are what in the context of this argument?

The question was, who is better Flacco or Tannehill, not who is better in the post season or who is clutch or who is prettier in a dress.

 

As pointed out in post #98, one way is you compare expected performance of Tannehill in the playoffs to actual performance by Flacco. The expected performance can either be based solely on Tannehill's regular season stats, or you weight those stats by the average change in regular season to post-season stats for all QB's that have been to the post-season sufficiently many times ("sufficiently many" has to be justified by whoever is doing the analysis).

 

Not disagreeing with what you point out, but IMO those lines of thinking are horribly wrong and backwards. I personally have never propped up or put down any QB for the play of his teammates. I'd like it if the media and everyone else stopped doing so as well.

 

I would take into account all the data, even when comparing to a QB that hasn't been to the post-season. As said before, since post-season is where it counts most, I'd weight the stats in the post-season more than in the regular season. By how much? That's harder. But this QB's overall grade would be higher than just looking at his regular season stats.

 

No. You can do that if you actually have post season data on Tannehill and you want to predict what he will do the next time he's in the post season.

And Flacco proves that. If you knew nothing of Flacco's postseason numbers, you'd predict them based on his regular season numbers. Which, as we've already seen are not all that different than Tannehill's. So, you'd have to predict Flacco like numbers in the post season for Tannehill since there regular seasons are similar. Which of course is not valid. This is why you compare them based on the regular season, then when Tannehill puts up post season performances you can then compare more and change your conclusion i f necessary.....the way science (and numbers) intended.

 

You're simply ignoring the reality of the modern day NFL. The days of teams being buoyed by RBs or defenses are long gone. This is a game that is centered around the QB.