Where does Tannehill rank among quarterbacks today?

I think he has dealt with the retiring of two first ballot hall of famers quite well..

 

Not exactly. Top 12 is not a bad defense, certainly playoff worthy. But then during their playoff run their defense was tied for #2 among the playoff teams. That defense was excellent during the playoffs.

 

Picking his three worst years made a point...that they made the playoffs, even when he played poorly, is a valid point, especially when discussing how good he is or isn't, and people are using playoff runs as the barometer.

Yeah...one year with the 12th ranked defense, they won a Superbowl, with the defense playing lights out in the playoffs. The other year with the 12th ranked defense, Flacco posted his worst year, throwing more picks than tds, and a sub-80 rating.

So what? He's still had a top 5 defense (basically, given that one year was ranked 6th) for 5 out of 7 seasons. I would hope a QB could get to the playoffs with a top 5 defense year after year.

 

There are 12 teams in the playoffs. Top 20 is playoff worthy if you score enough points. The defense gave up 35 pts to Denver, and 31 to San Fran in the Super Bowl. Out of two games, they gave up over 30 points. That's excellent?

How far we must go to tear down Joe Flacco

 

It's not tearing anyone down. It's looking at him realistically, not putting him on a pedestal. Look at his playoff stats...people are so enamored over 2012, that they forget he had 11 other playoff games, 9 of which were nowhere near as spectacular. Even with his out of this world 2012 postseason, his playoff stats still have him with an average 88 rating...right about 4 points higher than his regular season average.

 

lol...whatever on Flacco, Ill speak for myself, he's in my top ten so I hope that our qb reaches that level of qb'ing and thats no diss {and the argument that it is is bologna}, because then I know when I build the team around him he will play at a high level when it counts..Ryan could very well be that guy when he has the correct parts around him, and when he does then maybe he jumps ahead.

Folks are sleeping on Derek Carr, he's gonna be a good qb in this league for a long time.

 

DJ, how can you say you "hope that our qb reaches that level of qb-ing"? He already has. Look at their career stats. Tannehill 3.8% TD%...Flacco 4.0%. Tannehill 2.5% INT%...Flacco 2.5%. Tannehill 234 ypg...Flacco 228 ypg. Tannehill 61.9 comp%...Flacco 60.5. Tannehill 6.8 ypa...Flacco 7.0. Tannehill rating 84...Flacco 84.8. People are acting like there is some huge gulf between these two players, but Tannehill is basically playing to Flacco's averages after just 3 years in the league...and he came in way behind where Flacco came into the league.

 

because res I've seen Flacco make individual plays that change the outcome of games, individual playmaking ability that i haven't with ryan, so while their regular numbers may look the same, I'm left to hope that when ryan gets the same parts around him he will be able to do the same..so until then I'm not gonna be silly and put our guy in front of that guy.

 

That whole exchange was in response to jdang307 saying Flacco has a career record of 82-45 counting the playoffs. How much of that career record is due to Flacco can't be deduced by just looking at Flacco's 3 worst years. What about the other 4 years (or years where Flacco wasn't the QB, for comparison)? When making a statement about a 7 year period, you can't just cite the record of the 3 worst years (for the QB) and deduce how much the QB was responsible for the 7 year record.

 

Sure, cbrad...but that also why I looked his defense all those years, plus all the years before Flacco.

DJ, like Rafael, I believe, pointed out, much of those individual plays seen to be more on other people than Flacco. Regardless, I think it's a little disingenuous to put Flacco up as something to attain to, when Tannehill is really already there. Tannehill has made some spectacular plays, and some awesome throws...just those throws haven't always been caught, even when they should have been.

 

Right, I had no problem with that post of yours. Just pointed out the same stats on the offensive side supported the argument that Flacco deserves partial credit for the Ravens' success with him at QB. Point is, data (including from your link) suggests Flacco on average is helping the Ravens win, though by how much is unclear. I just took issue with saying the Ravens are winning in spite of him, nothing else.

 

what!!! I don't disagree with Rafs very much at all, but I vehemently disagree with both of you on this, I've seen him make plays that ryan has yet to make, let alone on the road, in playoff conditions, I believe the majority of the time, unless you have an all time great at something, it takes individual playmaking ability by the qb to sustain and win a championship at this level, Have I seen Ryan makes some very good throws, yes, have I seen him make critical 3rd down conversions late in games when pressure breaks down, not nearly enough, have I seen it with flacco, absolutely consistent at it..Deeks, jukes, pump fakes, sidestepping, anticipation of pressure, quick movements, last second arm angle changes, pure escapability...bottom line.. playmaking ability...I certainly don't look at it as a diss to our qb when i have Flacco as a very good qb and top 8 qb..

 

I get what you're saying, DJ, but I'm just pointing out, the stats don't lie. They are playing at pretty much the same level, regardless of what your eyes are telling you. We'll see what Tannehill looks like this year with a receving corp that actually fits Tannehill.

 

Flacco is not consistent at it. That's why despite making some big plays his overall numbers are lower. If he made just big plays all the time then his numbers would be higher. They're not b/c they're balanced out by the times he's much worse. That's kind of a mathematical requirement that people so enamored with the big plays are ignoring. You get caught up on escapability and play-making so much that you don't see how important the other 99% of the plays are. That's why you get all hot and bothered by a Johnny Manziel and don't notice that he's a bad QB.

 

Exactly! The stats show that Flacco after 7 years in the league is playing at the same level as Tannehill after only 3 years even though every body understood that Tannehill was coming in more raw than most. And that's with a far better supporting cast and a far better organization behind Flacco. And if you claim that Flacco is making so many more plays then he also has to be playing at a far lower level enough of the time to balance those numbers out. If you don't see that then you can't trust your eyes.

 

Going into last year, my goal/expectation for Tannehill was for him to play at a Flacco-like level, and he not only did that, but outplayed Flacco himself in the process. Now that he's achieved that, I think its very reasonable to think he can climb the ladder higher and into the next level, leaving Joe behind. Flacco is what he is, but RT17 is going up.

 

hes consistent when he wants to be, which come in timely fashion...rest of the time he's trying to figure out how to beat you..

 

I expect ryans numbers to improve as well.

 

LOL

DJ, that doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't a professional QB want to be consistent all the time?

 

my qb record has been pretty damn good..dual threat or pure pocket, me saying that I think manziel will succeed doesn't mean much at this point, evaluation is still in play..

I have Flacco above Ryan, I have Matt Ryan above Ryan...do another ranking order next year and it might be different.

 

IIRC, the Ravens switched OC right before the playoffs, right? Nobody had tape on what the Ravens were doing that post-season, did that have anything to do with it?

It just seems sensible they'd have a decent advantage in that aspect...Harbaugh sure looked like a genius when they did that.

 

sure, but sometimes qbs take chances even though they know their numbers will suffer.

 

I'm not saying you're poor at QB evaluation. I'm saying that you're either over-emphasizing Flacco's play-making prowess or you're under-emphasizing his inconsistency. The numbers bear that out. If Flacco is making so many more plays than Tannehill and being just as consistent his numbers would be higher. The fact is that they're not. I do see Flacco make some big plays. More than Tannehill. And even though I believe long passes are largely dependent on WR adjustments and many other factors outside of QB skill, his numbers get the benefit. So if his overall numbers are still about the same as Tannehills then logically he has to have other plays that bring his numbers down.

 

so your telling me that you have ryan tannehill above joe flacco in a qb ranking? your just gonna take his postseason away from him?..being proven means nothing to you?

 

How he plays in the postseason does not equal "proven". How he plays overall, is what makes a player proven.

Just from a logic standpoint you are making post season performance more important than everything. If its that important, then you cannot compare Flacco to Tannehill since Tannehill hasn't been in the post season yet. And you cannot hold that against Tannehill, else you'd have to hold Flacco's regular season numbers against him.

 

I for one would rather have Tannehill > Flacco > Ryan.

 

I like to see how many "good" games a QB has in a season. Those are games thats QBs team should, and usually does, win. You can use other stats such as Y/A or ANY/a but in this case I'm using a passer rating of 88+ as the cutoff for what constitutes a good game. So here is the ranking based solely off this analysis for 2014:

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD] [TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65, width: 149"]Aaron Rodgers[/TD]
[TD="width: 64, align: right"]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Tony Romo[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Ben Roethlisberger[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Joe Flacco[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Andrew Luck[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66, align: right"]11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Drew Brees[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66, align: right"]11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Tom Brady[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Alex Smith[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]10[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67"]Russell Wilson[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]10[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Phillip Rivers[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Matt Ryan[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Peyton Manning[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Colin Kaepernick[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Eli Manning[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Andy Dalton[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl68"]Kyle Orton[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Jay Cutler[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Ryan Tannehill[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66, align: right"]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Matthew Stafford[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Cam Newton[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]Geno smith[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[TD]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

1. Flacco's postseason averages are very close to his regular season averages. This idea that Flacco is completely different in the playoffs stems from one season: 2012.

2. Flacco career average for past rating is 84.8. So what if one season he had 11 games over 88? He also ended last season with a lower overall rating average than Tannehill...so what does that tell you?

3. Last year Flacco had several games with a rating in the 40s. Tannehill never went below a 70.

 

That's one of my favorite things about Tannehill. Aside from a few games during his rookie season (including his very first game, when JJ Watt used something he saw on hard knocks to embarass the OL), he's rarely had any "bust" games, where his play sinks the team's chances. He's up, or sometimes just ok, but never in the gutter.

 

how he has played in the postseason is part of his overall eval.. It's complete.i like knowing what I have when stakes and conditions are at their highest... If you wanna change the way you propose the ranking then I can see why folks would want their future to be with Ryan instead of flacco. But at this very time because of what we do know flacco comes first imo

 

I don't think that's telling the story right. Look at this link:
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/F/FlacJo00.htm

The passer ratings there are "combined" ratings, not averages of ratings across all games, so it's not the best stat, but the trend will be the similar.

This is what you see from 2008-2014 when comparing regular season to post-season "combined" passer ratings:

2008: reg = 80.3, post = 50.8
2009: reg = 88.9, post = 39.4
2010: reg = 93.6, post = 90
2011: reg = 80.9, post = 96.1
2012: reg = 87.7, post = 117.2
2013: reg = 73.1, missed post-season
2014: reg = 91, post = 100.7

So, the last three post-seasons, Flacco was way better in the playoffs than in the regular season. He just wasn't good in the post-season early in his career.

 

Right his combined average for the postseason, is right in line with his combined average for regular season...correct? Look, I'm not saying that Flacco is bad. One could argue that based on his last three postseasons, that the first couple were aberrations. However, then I would say, look at his regular season averages. I would also say, 2012 is a huge aberration, and really pumps up his postseason average.

 

I'm saying it's not just one year that is the reason people are saying he's better in the post-season.

 

what school of thought takes away one incredible post season run ( which constitutes 4 great postseason games) and chalks it up as an aberration... To me thats bogus, four great games in a row is not a 80 yard run boosting up a yards per carry average by a running back..

 

Anything can be considered an aberration if it occurred during a condition different than normal. So, if you saw one great post-season run vs. 10 bad ones, it could still be considered an aberration because it's possible that something was unique in that post-season (could be other players the QB played with, could be the mental state of the QB, etc..). So, it's not theoretically impossible to say an entire post-season run was an aberration.

But that's a moot point here because the composition of the team didn't drastically change and the QB performed well in years before and after that one great run. So in this case, it's really hard to argue it's an aberration.

 

I'm saying, that 2012 saw four games above a 100 rating for Flacco. That is not normal for him. He has had other postseason games above 100, but he's never done it for an entire postseason. His combined averages are still in line with his regular season combined averages. You want to tell me that his averages are wrong, but that his games above those averages are his normal.

Bear in mind, we're only discussing this to this length, in my case, because DJ is saying that he "hopes" Tannehill gets to Flacco's level, when they averages say he's already there. Flacco is being held up as a top 8 QB, whereas Tannehill is supposedly not there.

 

Flacco performed well the year before and after? Really? Are we talking regular season or postseason? Because the year after he posted his worst statistical year in the regular season. And the year before was below his average (for rating).

 

Interesting list. A few names stand out for me. In terms of QB rating, Jay Cutler had his second best season of all time (88.6) but was benched for the final game. IRCC, I think Jay Cutler was putting up some strong garbage time numbers in 2014. A lot like Robert Griffin III in 2013. Geno Smith vs. Stafford and Newton stand out as well. I know Geno had one game where he went like 8/10 for 100 yards in a 3-38 loss to Buffalo. Yet, according to the criteria of the list, that game counts in his favor. Hard to justify something like that. Based on the list, one might say Geno's on par with Newton and Stafford and that isn't remotely accurate. Detroit had Reggie Bush miss a huge portion of the year and Calvin Johnson was beat up and injured all season long. And Newton had an entirely new WR corps after they all left in FA, lost his LT to retirement, and after a pre-season car accident, was playing with multiple broken vertebra in his back. Alex Smith had very little depth to his passes in 2014, yet he ranks very high. And while this list is strictly related to passing, there are some running QB's who might be getting short changed. If you have a sub 88 QB rating, but added value in the ground game with yards, TD's, first downs, etc... It would still add value to the player.

In regards to Tannehill, there were a couple of games that wouldn't count on his "good game" tally that probably should. For example, Week 1 against NE, he finished with a 79 QB rating. That rating could of been reversed (97.1 QBr) if Mike Wallace doesn't step out of bounds on a deep bomb for a would be TD. That's just one example for one player. In fact, I remember PFF having some controversy after the first three games last season where they rated Tannehill has a top 3 QB in the NFL despite a QB rating in the 70's. Their argument was, he was making the right reads, right throws, and the team was letting him down. I know we had a ton of drops early in the year too (8th highest amount of drops in '14). I don't put 100% faith in PFF, but I understood what they were saying.

I think that list is probably a decent generalization, but I don't know if I trust it to be accurate as a definitive source of information. I love stats, do believe they have real value, but stats do require context for proper perspective/application. This list can't provide that and isn't painting the most accurate picture of talent. And I'm just curious, why do you choose 88 as the cutoff QB rating?

 

Does anyone know the average NFL QB rating for every pass attempt in 2014? Is there a way to even find that out?

 

This is really where statistics is useful. Let's suppose you have a fair coin and you flip it 3 times. The probability of getting three heads in a row is 1/8 (1/2*1/2*1/2). Getting 3 heads one out of 8 times is NOT an aberration.

Having 4 very good post-season games in a row for a QB that tends to have more above average post-season games than not (meaning you're more likely than not to get consecutive games with high passer ratings) is probably not that surprising. I say "probably" because I haven't worked out the actual probabilities, but intuitively this is unlikely to be so unlikely as to say it doesn't come from the same QB (or that the condition in that year was that different).

And I agree that Tannehill is already at Flacco's level in terms of some key measures of QB ability in the regular season, but you can't say he should be expected to perform like Flacco in the post-season as of yet.