Where’s Tannehill’s Improvement?

Jimmy Bourbon

9 years ago

Ryan Tannehill is in his fourth season with the team, and over the off-season, he cashed in on a near $100 million dollar contract. Tannehill had his best mini-camp and preseason of his career this year, however, in the first four games of the season, he has looked and played exactly how he played last season. He has not played bad, but he has not played like a top tier Quarterback either.

In four games Tannehill has 1080 yards (7^th best in the NFL), 7 touchdowns (tied for 8^th best in the NFL), 5 interceptions (tied for 4^th worst in the NFL), a QB rating of 77.1 (31^st worst in the NFL), and 6.32 yards per attempt. (31^st worst in the NFL). The yards and touchdown numbers are very deceiving because the Dolphins have fallen behind in each of their 4 games, and they throw the ball over 60% of the time. The QB rating and yards per attempt explain more of the story, which is that he is not stepping up and taking control of this offense in order to make it more efficient and score more points.

Tannehill is throwing the medium-range passes better, but the long ball is still a throw that is out of reach. There should no longer be an excuse about the level of talent at receiver and tight end because those are the positions that the Dolphins actually have multiple talented playmakers at. Over the years Tannehill has done a good job of spreading the ball around the field, yet for some reason, he is not doing it well this year. Players such as Kenny Stills, Greg Jennings, and DeVante Parker have barely been involved in the offensive attack. Between those three players, they have 19 catches and 1 touchdown. Now compare that to Tannehill’s three favorite targets of Rishard Matthews, Jarvis Landry, and Jordan Cameron who have a total of 57 catches and 3 touchdowns. (all three of those touchdowns belong to Matthews.)

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Some of this is definitely on the play calling of Bill Lazor, who has failed to script plays that take advantage of the size and red zone ability of players such as Cameron, Parker, and Jennings. Each of these players was expected to make an impact inside the RedZone, however, between the three of them, they have 0 touchdowns. Lazor and Tannehill must find a way to get these players involved in the scoring. Clearly, Tannehill is more comfortable throwing to Landry and Matthews, two players he has played with before, but this is the NFL, and players are changing teams every year, and the best QB’s can play successfully with whoever is out there catching the ball (cough, cough Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning).

Tannehill also needs to become more of a leader on the field and in the locker room, and at the moment most of the best pay per head reviews would agree he is not doing that. One of the many problems with this team is that there is a lack of leadership on the team. Tannehill is being paid like a franchise QB, but now he needs to start playing and acting like a franchise QB. Don’t get me wrong, Tannehill has not been playing badly, he just has not been playing like a franchise $100 million dollar QB. He has not taken the team on his arm this season and won a game. Landry has done it in the Redskins game, but this is a QB driven league, and we need our QB to win us some football games. Does the rest of the Miami Dolphins news fans think Tannehill can take the next step in his development and become a winning QB, or is the organization spinning its wheels with a slightly above average QB?

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