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Ryan Tannehill

Discussion in 'Other NFL' started by bbqpitlover, Oct 16, 2019.

Ryan Tannehill is...

  1. A terrible QB

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. A below average QB

    4 vote(s)
    5.7%
  3. An average QB

    7 vote(s)
    10.0%
  4. An above average QB

    39 vote(s)
    55.7%
  5. An elite QB

    16 vote(s)
    22.9%
  6. The GOAT.

    4 vote(s)
    5.7%
  1. Cashvillesent

    Cashvillesent A female Tannehill fan

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  2. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    In the end you’re still dealing with with a sample of people making “regression to the mean” arguments ever since Tannehill started 6 games that have been repeatedly proven wrong.
     
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  3. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Again though, the number of games with which to determine whether there has been regression to the mean has to extend beyond 11, when 11 games at the level at which Tannehill played don't reliably distinguish Steve Young from Jim Harbaugh, historically.

    Jim Harbaugh regressed to his mean after the 11 consecutive games during which he played like Tannehill did in 2019. Certainly it would've been premature to exalt him as something other than average after those 11.
     
  4. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Still looking at results and not the actual performance of the individual player.
     
  5. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I’m open to any analysis of the individual performances of the career average quarterbacks who were statistically indistinguishable from Tannehill over 11 consecutive games (Jim Harbaugh, etc.). If you’re claiming Tannehill‘s individual performance was distinct from theirs, you’ll have to support that with that kind of analysis.
     
  6. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Me giving you evidence has zero bearing on the fact that you continue to conflate result with performance.

    Chris Simms this year said that when he actually went through Tannehill's performance through his years with the Dolphins, and didn't rate based on result, he came away believing that analysts and many fans were wrong on Tannehill. So, it's not just a few of us on here saying this.
     
  7. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Right, it's a few of you on here...and Chris Simms.

    On the other hand, 32 NFL GMs -- guys whose jobs are riding primarily on whether they can obtain a top QB -- behaved in a way completely inconsistent with your (and Simms') view of Tannehill when he was available to them. That should close the book on what was evident about Tannehill's individual performance with the Dolphins.
     
  8. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    And who's to say that they aren't basing their evaluations on results instead of performance? Just saying, you asked for proof, I have an analyst who actually did what you're asking me to do, and he changed his opinion of Tannehill.
     
  9. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Think about the argument you’re making there: that the appraisals of all 32 GMs in the NFL — guys whose livelihoods are riding on such appraisals — are more superficial and incomplete than those of people on a message board and Chris Simms, neither of whom has anywhere near a livelihood staked on them.
     
  10. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Well, think about what you're arguing. That team executives are watching hours and hours of film, breaking down his individual performance. And that they're doing that for all potential free agents. I mean, maybe they do. But, it seems far more likely that they aren't doing that on an aging QB coming off back to back knee injuries add list seasons. You can think what you want, I'm just saying, that an analyst who previously held the same position you hold, changed his position after actually going through and watching tape.

    How much tape of Tannehill Hager you watched? Would you even know what to look at if your were watching raise, to actually judge Tannehill's performance without referring to going off of only the results?
     
  11. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I don't think there is much room for debate about the degree to which the GMs around the league have their fingers tightly on the pulse of whatever is possible in the way of obtaining a QB who will make their team win and secure their jobs. Christ, these guys are finding players like Cameron Wake by scouring the Canadian league, but they're falling asleep at the wheel with regard to obtaining a QB who has six years of NFL game film?

    Again, look no further than the fact that the Dolphins just selected a QB in the top five of the draft and paid him handsomely, despite his having recently experienced a significant injury after which he hasn't played a down, much less an NFL down. A team is willing to do that, but it falls asleep at the wheel with regard to its own QB who's played six years of NFL football, who's in a similar situation with regard to injury? Obviously the chances of that being true are astronomically low.

    And it's entirely possible he was experiencing a kind of recency bias while doing that, whereby his experience of Tannehill in 2019 caused him to overidentify past performance consistent with 2019 while underidentifying performance inconsistent with it.

    What is a more probable explanation, that all 32 GMs in the league were asleep at the wheel when a QB became available whose game film so readily indicated he had untapped ability, or that Chris Simms, a single individual, was experiencing recency bias while watching Tannehill's past game film? Not a difficult question to answer.
     
  12. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I just think it's just as likely that they weren't devoting much time to a guy that they didn't think was going to be available, and more, is older coming off back to back knee injuries.
     
  13. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    But then he became available, and GMs could've spent entire days of the offseason watching his game film if they hadn't already. Also, if his untapped potential had been so evident on film, Tannehill should've already had that kind of reputation among the league's GMs, and it should've taken only a workout to rule out injury and have one of them jump at the chance for him.
     
  14. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Why does it matter. The GMs that could have used a QB and passed were proven wrong. The doubters that said Tannehill couldn't (add the list here) were proven wrong.
     
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  15. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Also, think about the kind of needle you're attempting to thread here -- you're saying it's not only the case that Tannehill's "results" were artificially deflated by his surroundings on the Dolphins, but that it was readily apparent on film that his individual performance was far better than the results would indicate.

    So at the same time that the team was functioning like a ball and chain on Tannehill and dragging down his performance, he was nonetheless able to shine through in a way that was readily apparent on film, all while the "results" weren't indicative of it. And not over a small sample size of games either, but for six years.

    That's an awfully small hole in that needle the thread is passing through. Obviously the far greater likelihood is that Tannehill was just simply not that great.
     
  16. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    We fundamentally disagree on the quality of those Dolphins teams for at least 5 out of Tannehill's 7 seasons.
     
  17. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I'm not saying it's impossible that the Dolphins teams of that time period were of inadequate quality. What I'm questioning is the ability of any QB to shine through such inadequacy such that his own performance on film would be indicative of something far better, when his measurable performance (the "results" you speak of) wasn't indicative of it -- and over six years.

    In other words, it's like you're saying "pay no attention to his six years of passer ratings -- those were diminished by what was happening around him -- instead, pay attention to what you're seeing from him on film, which was so obviously not diminished by what was happening around him."

    There's a fundamental inconsistency there. A lack of internal consistency in the argument. The argument essentially contradicts itself.
     
  18. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Again, I'll point out, that Tannehill came into the league extremely raw. Normal QBs are given like a 3 year window to judge them on. Add in the constant coaching turnover, both head coaches and OCs, combined with a roster on offense that was bad, and Tannehill starts to get a bad rap. You have Philbin throwing his young QB under the bus. You love pointing out the struggles of those years, but you seen to always lay the blame on the raw QB, while ignoring the garbage he had to work with, and coaches who were completely inept.

    Anyway, again, I'm not looking to restart this thread, rehashing the things we talked about hundreds of pages ago. I've repeated more already than I even wanted to. We are never going to agree.
     
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  19. Puka-head

    Puka-head My2nd Fav team:___vs Jets Club Member

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    Slightly left of center
    :deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse:

    [​IMG]
     
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  20. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    "I wish I could quit yoooouuuuuu!!"
     
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  21. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    This is yet another low probability position, that Tannehill is somehow going to display a career performance trajectory that almost no quarterback in the history of the game has displayed. Almost every point you’ve made about this topic has been a low probability proposition.

    For the narrative you’re weaving to be true, a relatively large number of low probability events has to have occurred. There is almost zero probability of that.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
  22. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Blah blah blah

    We've covered this already.

    Any new arguments?
     
  23. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Nope, no new ones. Just sticking with the high probability stuff.
     
  24. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    You mean the ones that people have been making ever since Tannehill lead the league in passing after 6 games as a starter?
    The same ones that got repeatedly proven wrong.

    I’m not saying that Tannehill will not regress or that he will continue to play at HoF level for the rest of his career. But what the people who make the prediction that he will fall have to contend with is that their previous predictions that we have data on have been proven false.
     
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  25. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Yes, those are high-probability predictions, as is the one that predicts he will regress from here.

    And they would be wise to continue to predict the same thing, given the historical data that 11 games of Tannehill's caliber in 2019 aren't distinctive.
     
  26. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    It's funny to me to use stats to try to show that Tannehill's numbers in 2019 weren't distinctive. I mean, he only lead the league in pretty much every important statistical category.

    YMMV.
     
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  27. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The problem is that it happened over only 11 games, and so it wasn't distinctive from what Jim Harbaugh et al. have done previously.

    This is why we don't determine QBs' ability on the basis of small sample sizes. The level at which variation in performance occurs over much larger samples of play determines ability.

    For example you could isolate the worst 11-game stretch of Dan Marino's career -- should we determine his level of ability based on those 11 games?

    This is why this thread is pretty much toast at this point. 11 games aren't sufficiently distinctive. More data are needed. The thread essentially crumbled when that finding was introduced.
     
  28. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    It didn’t just happen over 11 games. It also happened previously over 8 games in 2016 from week 6 to week 13.

    In both groups of games Tannehill was provided with decent to good OL play and a coaching commitment to the running game.

    The argument that Tannehill has been put in a different environment to the one he had for the majority of his time in Miami and therefore is providing different outcomes has not been disproved.
     
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  29. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    And what happens when average QBs are afforded the particular surroundings that elevate their performance? Such relatively short-lived stretches of elevated performance situated within otherwise average careers?

    If you can't answer that question with "no," then the stretches of games noted above are meaningless in distinguishing Tannehill from an average QB.

    We agree there. I haven't said that argument has been disproved.

    However, nor has it been proven. This is why I said more data are needed.
     
  30. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    The test of a theory is how well it predicts reality. To do that you need falsifiable predictions.
    For the 2 main groups “Tannehill is an average QB” group and “Tannehill is a good QB but needs better coaching and/or OL” group the falsifiable predictions that were made were

    1) Before the season started:
    He is no better than Mariota/he will not take the starting QB unless there is injury -v- He is better than Mariota/he will take the starting job from Mariota.
    2) After he lead the NFL in passer rating following his first 6 games as a starter
    He will regress -v- He will continue to perform highly in Tennessee’s offense where he has good coaching and solid support from his teammates.
    3) Entering the playoffs
    He will not be able to produce at a high level in the playoffs -v- He will be able to produce at a high level.

    If the theory you are using to make predictions is repeatedly getting things wrong and getting nothing right then perhaps it might be time to entertain a new theory.

    As for the coaching element we can assess Tannehill’s significant offensive coaches and how they performed in 2019
    Joe Philbin: Out of football
    Mike Sherman: Out of football
    Bill Lazor: Out of football
    Zac Taylor (QB coach under Philbin/OC after Lazor got fired mid-season) 2-14 and ranked 29th in the league with 4.9 yards per offensive play.
    Adam Gase: 7-9 with an offense with a league worst 4.6 yards per play.

    You’ve been saying how NFL GMs assessed Tannehill and didn’t come away impressed. The same is even more true about the coaches Tannehill had. 3 out of 5 were out of football, and the other 2 lead teams to very poor offensive performances.
     
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  31. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The theory that "Tannehill is a good QB but needs better surroundings" may very well be true, but it may also be the case that the particular surroundings he requires to elevate his performance above average are so impossible to assemble or sustain that it results in an average career for him. If so, then he's no different from any average QB who "needs better surroundings" but for whom those surroundings are just as impossible to assemble or sustain.

    That's what's still at issue here.

    Where people may be erring in their thinking here is in believing Tannehill is significantly better than any other average QB who likewise thrives above the average level during the relatively brief periods when his surroundings permit it. We don't yet know whether that's the case.
     
  32. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    If that is the case, what in particular about the Tennessee situation is something impossible to sustain?
    Dominant OL?
    Killer D?
    Exotic offensive scheme NFL defenses were unprepared for?
    HoF caliber coaching staff?
    Derek Henry? He has been discussed at length

    For Jim Harbaugh it was an NFL all time best D dominating field position and the turnover battle plus a HoF RB near the end of his most productive years.
    For Mark Rypien it was an all time great OL that remained uninjured all season plus multiple probowlers at WR/RB.
    Nick Foles had Chip Kelly’s offense.
     
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  33. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I would say the most likely candidate is Tannehill's low passing volume, in conjunction with opposing teams' focusing more on stopping Tennessee's passing game and less on stopping their run game. In 2019, Tennessee faced a large percentage of eight-man boxes by opposing defenses, while Tannehill's passing volume was more than two standard deviations below the league norm. That allowed Tannehill to function 1) as someone who was shouldering very little of the overall offensive volume, and 2) as someone who was facing defenses that were geared predominantly toward stopping another player and not him.

    The question is, what happens if and when the offense has to revolve more around Tannehill in terms of passing volume, and he has to face defenses that are focused more on stopping the pass and less on the run?

    In the playoffs last year Bill Belichick focused on stopping Tannehill and the passing game while allowing Derrick Henry to run rampant. That was an intelligent approach because EPA per running play is so much smaller than EPA per passing play, league-wide. The result was that Henry rushed for 182 yards on 34 carries, while Tannehill's passer rating was a horrendous 61. The Titans won the game 20-13 primarily because Tom Brady turned in a virtually equally horrendous passer rating of 59.4.

    Naturally that's a mere one game, but it provides a formula for teams to mimic. If teams use a similar formula against Tannehill in 2020, opposing quarterbacks are unlikely to play so poorly as a norm, and the Titans will have to place more of the offense on Tannehill's shoulders to be competitive. That's a fundamental difference in what he was asked to do within the Titans' offense in 2019.

    So in a nutshell, it may be very difficult to sustain the (very small) degree to which Tannehill shoulders the Titans' offense, in terms of the percentage of the overall offensive volume, and the degree to which he has to surmount a defensive focus on him versus Derrick Henry.
     
  34. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    It's been explained numerous times why your theory here is complete junk.

    And your theory completely disagrees with the guy you quoted who said that Tannehill drove the Titans offense.
     
  35. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Yeah well, obviously I didn't find that persuasive.
     
  36. Sceeto

    Sceeto Well-Known Member

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    Man, I thought I summed this whole debate up like up eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty pages or so ago. Damn. B---h was wrong.
     
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  37. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I heard that Tannehill knows about this thread, and he's trying to get the NFL shut down this year so that we have nothing else to talk about, and this thread will continue to grow.
     
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  38. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    A simpler and more concise way of conceptualizing the above is that the "degree of difficulty" of his job may increase considerably.

    And I'm not talking about the degree of difficulty of his throws, as has been discussed ad nauseam with regard to the CPOE statistic. What I'm talking about is the degree of difficulty of his overall functioning within the offense, whereby 1) the load placed upon him in terms of volume, and 2) the focus on him by the opposition he would need to overcome, both potentially increase considerably. Both of those variables were likely at unsustainable levels last season.
     
  39. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Right. Which was why I found it ironic that you recently posted a quote that attributed the Titans offensive success to Tannehill and not Henry.
     
  40. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The same article posited Tannehill as a "tier 3" QB in the NFL, which was defined as "volatile or conservative quarterbacks who will rely even more heavily on supporting cast and playcalling. Tier 3 quarterbacks can post top-10 production in any given year in the right situation."

    That fits precisely with my thrust throughout the thread, that Tannehill is likely an average QB whose performance can be elevated by his surroundings.

    The question now is, how sustainable are the particular surroundings he requires? If they aren't sustainable, he's likely to have no more than an average career from here forward.
     

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