Peter King with a quote that I 100 percent agree with.

No, you just haven't looked beyond Mike Wallace.

At Texas A&M Tannehill and Ryan Swope were dynamic: 1200yds and 11tds in Tannehill's senior season. Ryan Swope ran 4.3.

 

I'm not sure the speed alone justifies that comparison.

Swope was heavier in college than Wallace was in the pros, nevermind the obvious difference between NFL defenders and college DBs.

I'm not an expert, but don't the facts as well as the tape show that Swope was a bigger target for Tannehill relative to who was covering him?

 

Ryan Swope is not Mike Wallace fast I don't care what he timed. Plus it was a 4.34. But he didn't play 4.34 on the field.

This is one of the instances where you really need to watch film. Watch him run away (or not run away) from defenders. He looks slow on film.

 

What do you mean? He was super-productive to a fast receiver. Swope was 6'0 206 with legit 4.3 speed.

 

You're saying that you'd prefer to throw to Wallace with an NFL DB on him over Swope with a college DB on him?

All take Swope, with his size and speed, over a college DB all day long.

 

Size and speed? Mike Wallace is 6'0 200 as well.

You said Tannehill is "very uncomfortable throwing to really fast guys". Here I'm showing you a really fast guy who Tannehill was highly effective throwing to. He can't be that uncomfortable.

You can't identify an entire tendency/deficiency based on a sample that includes only one player (Wallace).

 

You're point would be valid if college DBs were the same as NFL DBs...but they aren't.

These throws are being contested so shouldn't you factor that in?

A 6' 200lb WR is pretty big for college football. That same guy isn't as big when he gets to the NFL and the DBs are much more skilled in their duties as well. You have to understand that all this production is relative to the competition.

It's not apples to apples you're comparing.

 

If you refuse to acknowledge that you might've missed a relevant data point, then whatever, have at it and continue to choose to believe that Tannehill can't hit fast-moving targets. Just know that it sounds ridiculous: "Tannehill was not productive with Mike Wallace, therefore he is really uncomfortable with all fast receivers...even though the guy with whom he had immense success with in college was a burner."

Me, I'd rather say, "There are two real burners he's played with in his QB career. He struggled with one and was dynamic/awesome with the other. Maybe the book isn't written yet."

 

Every QB in the NFL is going to see their accuracy decrease with their WRs speed increasing.

If you had a gun in your hand would you rather shoot at something moving 10 mph or 20 mph? It's common knowledge in this instance that accuracy will decrease as the target moves faster (assuming it's moving with respect to you). Are you disputing that?

If we assume both targets move at the same speed, we have to factor in whether or not we're getting a clear shot at the target, don't we?

What I'm saying applies to all QBs. It doesn't look like--at the NFL level--Tannehill handles elite speed very well. You're right to point out that Wallace is the only example.

Do you disagree with that?

 

And no the book isn't written after 3 years.

Nobody said that.

We know that in his only chance in the NFL, Tannehill struggled.

That's the info we have. Other information is relevant but it's not an apples to apples comparison.

 

I don't think there's nearly enough evidence to say that, going forward, Ryan Tannehill will struggle with elite speed. Again, you're trying to identify an established deficiency based on ONE PLAYER. It's just not a very smart approach (particularly when his history has tape of him hitting a fast-moving player at an elite level).

"Daniel Thomas never averaged over 4 yards per carry, therefore the Dolphins OLine can't block for any power backs." "Lamar Miller never gained over 300 yards receiving, therefore Tannehill sucks and will always suck at throwing to fast running backs."

And regardless...As a fan, when someone else points you directly to an example that contradicts your pessimism...why not say, "hey look, maybe I was wrong about how bad he was at this thing. There's hope, this is awesome!" I don't get the whole idea of staying so stuck in negativity when a reason for optimism is right there.

 

You say 1 receiver and I'll grant you that it sounds bad put like that...but you have to consider that it was 2 seasons with 2 off-seasons and a total of 32 games. We also know that the team acknowledged the problem and suggested that they were making attempts to fix it going into the 2nd year.

It's not that small a sample size when you view it like that.

I find it hard to believe after watching Tannehill's production over 32 games that the problem wasn't at least to some degree tied to him.

 

Sure he could.

 

Can you quantify how much effect the spectacularly bad ability of he oline to hold blocks had on Tannehill's ability to throw deep had? Poor route running and poor blocking are big hurdles to overcome when throwing to a guy with a tiny catch radius.

 

He was the top receiver in the league one season with Roethlisberger, and top ten 3 of his 4 seasons in Pittsburgh. Sorry, I don't care how good the QB is there is no way he's elevating average receivers to the top of the league.

And coincidentally Steve Smith was the top receiver in the league one season also long before Newton got there. Newton got him to rankings of 15th, 25th and 51st, nowhere near as good as he was earlier in his career. Though to be fair, Smith is getting long in the tooth at this point in his career.

 

Just a comment on this. There is definitely such a thing as speed-accuracy trade-off. It's called Fitt's law and has a general mathematical relation that tends to apply in a wide variety of circumstances. But I really think it's a stretch to apply it to a throw from a QB to a WR in a football game. Why? Because it applies only if the speed and trajectory of the WR remain constant throughout. This is almost never the case (WR's adjust to the ball).

And then there's a confounding factor with most throws to WR's that are moving fast: they tend to be farther away, giving more time for DB's to adjust as well. So I don't think the premise of accuracy decreasing because of WR speed has much merit, though there probably is a correlation there.

 

Some do.

 

I don't see how Fitts' Law applies to football games either. Maybe it does. I'm not an expert in that field. Either way, it's hard for me to fathom how the speed of a WR on a crossing route doesn't place an appreciable demand on the QB who's trying to hit him in stride. Fans have commented on how Tannehill struggles with ball placement before so I don't believe I"m making this up.

The faster that target is moving, the harder it will be to hit it with good placement. Why would that be considered a hypothesis at all? In what cases do QBs actually get better between their deep throws and their intermediate throws or in hitting fast WRs as opposed to average WRs? The short stuff I can understand and the RBs having bad hands I can understand or just the fact those are flip passes I get. Why would someone have a better ability to throw the all 35 yards than he does 20? That doesn't make sense. Why would someone be able to hit a fast target better than a slow target? That doesn't make sense.

I understand some QBs lack "touch" but between say 35 and 20 yards say, why would you expect better accuracy at 35? You wouldn't. Hitting a fast WR as opposed to an average WR is the same problem. One guy is getting further down-field.

Imagine yourself throwing a crossing pattern...you don't think the speed of the WR affects your ability to hit him? Of course it would. Maybe I'm wrong but there are plenty of examples of Tannehill throwing behind his WRs in those instances...most of those were to Wallace.

In addition, I think it's reasonable to expect a person to be less accurate in hitting a target at 20 yards than they were at 10, less accurate at 30 than they were at 20, etc.

It also seems reasonable to expect that a person might be less accurate as he has to put the ball further and further out in front of his WR.

I'd expect that he would be less accurate as his decision and throw was made in shorter amounts of time, sometimes having to guess at whether or not the WR would even be open.

I'd expect a person to complete less passes the smaller his WR is in relation to the DBs, the slower he is in relation to DBs, etc.



These all seem like very reasonable expectations.

 

Yeah, so I think it's perfectly fine to assume it's harder for a QB to throw a long ball accurately, either to a stationary target or to a moving target with constant speed and trajectory. That's basically going to follow from a generalized version of Fitt's law even if it may not have been precisely measured.

But look at what else changes. The WR has more time to change speed and trajectory to compensate for greater inaccuracies. How do those two things trade off with each other? If there were no DB involved, they probably trade off almost perfectly (evidence of this is that deep balls in practice where you only have the QB and WR without any DB are usually caught).

So I think the difference ultimately comes down to how well a DB can cover the WR. And with the ball in the air a longer amount of time for deep throws, I suspect that DB coverage on average is better than for shorter throws. That's where I think the increased inaccuracies come from.

 

I think Tannehill's issue is as he's letting the ball go he wants to throw at the player rather than where the player and the ball should converge, so the faster the player the more it exasperates the problem. And crossing routes make it even worse, has Tannehill ever even been close on a deep crossing route?

 

Yeah, I disagree with this, specifically the part that it has to do with the speed of the WR. Wallace often does a small stutter-step or juke move before speeding off, and Tannehill tends to throw just at or around that time. He just has difficulty predicting where Wallace is going to be because he doesn't see Wallace at full speed when he throws it.

 

Also, he needs to trust his WRs getting open so we see hesitation on his part before Wallace got open. Both of these should get better with experience.

 

And that's where, I would think, route precision, catch radius, and making adjustments on the ball would be more crucial. Which is why I don't believe RT is fault-free in their apparent lack of deep connections...they both had faults (but I place slightly more blame on MW), and neither could overcome the other's. RT is paid to, and expected to, put the ball on target in a catchable situation...MW is paid to, and expected to, use his body to set-up the catch if he needs to adjust. Both were off on those responsibilities just enough to flub it. SO curious to see how MW does in Minny...and how RT does with the current slate of weapons.

OK I'm done beating glue now...sorry.

 

They were both at fault, and I agree Wallace is a bit more at fault. I liked Bridgewater in the few clips I saw him last year, but Wallace may end up not putting up so great numbers with a 2nd year QB, we'll see.. Tannehill I fully expect to do a lot better this year. The weapons around him are so varied now, if Lazor is in any way competent, Tannehill should be visibly and statistically better than last year.