Interesting comments by Greg Jennings on Tannehill.

The bold actually explains the "why Thill didn't come across like a Rodgers in the huddle" aspect of this.

i know, I know, that's just an excuse that his coaches forced him to be X.....sigh....

 

I will take it with a grain of salt because while he was actually with the Packers he had sister doing tons of complaining about Rodgers by proxy, on Twitter...and then after leaving the Packers he had a bunch of stuff to say about Rodgers' "poor leadership."

 

Favre and Rodgers are two of the cockiest sumbeaches in the game. Of course Tanny can't compare to that. Tanny is a pretty humble guy. There are many ways to be that killer in the huddle and on the field. Peyton never seemed that cocky but he carries an intensity about him. I don't think Tanny has either yet. He needs to, to lead the team. Maybe this year or next.

 

Ah...the famous "IT factor."

That's where "clutch" comes from, also. It's great, you make up something that can't be seen, then state that Tannehill is missing it. Really solid analysis.

 

I hear Doughty doesn't have the "Squiggle Murphies". Which is why he went so late in the draft. All great QBs have the "Squiggle Murphies". You can't argue that.

 

I think what Jennings is saying is significant, though most fans will immediately dismiss or rationalize it, but you have a good point that those two are unusually cocky/arrogant. Then again as I think about it, so are guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees. So that puts me back to maybe what he's saying has some significance to it. Tannehill clearly hasn't grown into that role yet. He's trying to but it does come off forced sometimes.

 

You can't be cocky if you don't know how to win.

But anyways...

I know the following facts.

We now have the best offensive line unit since Sparano's first year, which was a really good one. We have talented running backs and receivers. So the offense as a whole is fixed, there are no glaring holes except maybe at RG. There are no excuses now, Tannehill will lead us to 12 wins and possibly division title, right? Because I've seen other quarterbacks do it with much less.

 

I think there's something to be said that its hard to be that cocky fighter pilot type of QB, when your forced to fly with a governor on the throttle.

 

And when your captain is trying to have you grounded because he's getting **** from the admiral, because his missions have been cluster****s.

 

You're overselling our skill players. Lots of potential, sure, but no sure things anywhere.

Devante and Landry are both capable of greatness, butno ones afraid of them right now. Ajayi and Foster, if the two of them can even handle a 16 game season, are complete unknowns.

I'm certainly hoping this Oline is great, but being a dolphins fan has taught me never to assume our moves work out.

 

Tannehill doesn't have that kind of personality, but I think he will develop more confidence as he gains more experience and becomes more successful. I think confidence and attitude is something that can start small and can snowball that way. Above all, Tannehill really needed the support of his HC and rest of coaching staff... now that he has it, I think we'll see more confidence and leadership.

 

I am of the mind that he clearly is the best we've had at the position since Dan and 1 year of Pennington. All the guys that want to replace him always sound like there are great QB's falling off trees out there.
I still believe that his biggest problem has been coaching and the insecurity Joe "Queasy" Philbin clearly has in himself. Now he has a coach that has his back, believes in him and has given him the freedom to play the
game without shackles I am confident that he will show it on the field.

For himself, he has to, because if he doesn't the team will move on next year.

 

Johnny Unitas. Drafted in the 9th round by the Steelers, not given any reps in practice and cut because he "wasn't smart enough to be an NFL quarterback". Goes to the Colts and Weeb Ewbank (Don Shula's mentor) and goes on to have pretty reasonable career.

 

What does that have to do with leadership?

 

Ben Roethlisberger doesn't come off as an arrogant, cocky guy to me. Neither does Eli Manning or the awesome Andrew Luck that so many Dolphins fans love. Yeah, these guys may not be great by your definition but, then again, we dont need Tannehill to be great to win a Super Bowl.

 

I absolutely think what he says is significant. But Jennings mostly played with two HOF'ers, then Teddy, a rookie, finally Ryan. I think a QB needs to be the undisputed leader of their team.

But Favre/Rodgers isn't the only way. Both are very cocky and arrogant, in different ways. Favre is cocky/arrogant but in a good hearted way. He thinks he can do anything and will try to, and is a bit selfish. Rodgers is petty, with thin skin. He has a chip on his shoulder, and he's still out there trying to prove everyone wrong. Rodgers is extremely petty.

I see Brady/Peyton/Brees as uberconfident, but not cocky to the point it would rub their teammates the wrong way like Favre/Rodgers.

 

You don't see that by Big Ben? I have a vastly different opinion.

And mouth breather is excellent at times in the playoffs, but he's not great by any stretch of the imagination. You don't need Tanny to be great to win a Super Bowl, but how many did Marino win. How many has Tony Romo made it to. NFL history is littered with good QBs who didn't make the super bowl let alone win it all.

As Peyton Manning can attest to, winning two superbowls off the back of his defense, even with a great QB it is hard to win the Super Bowl. With a good QB it's that much harder. It's okay if we all want our QB to be one of the admired ones.

 

The bad news is that all those guys your talking about after Marino and Pennington sucked ***.

 

Fiedler didn't suck ***.

 

All of the great ones know they are good. My perception is that Tannehill merely thinks he is good.

There's a huge difference.

I don't think it's for the lack of effort on Tannehill's part. It seems like more of an 'upstairs' thing. This year will be telling. I'm not a fan of how many coordinators he's gone through, but there is something to be said if every coordinator up to this point has "handcuffed" him. Why? These guys are pretty bright, too, regardless of Tannehill's production.

I get the feeling that his classroom work is excellent. I also get the feeling that he's not quite processing things quite as quickly as we'd like when he goes into action. It's probably more just Tannehill getting in the way of himself. Again, not because of lack of effort, but by simply overthinking things. I have noticed on some occasion that he's getting better in some areas; such as finding an open man when the play sort of breaks down. Since he's been here, he has gotten better in several areas of subtlety in being an NFL QB. We've been waiting for the breakout season. I doubt that this year is it. What I do gather is that he will be markedly better in some very important areas. Statistically, I think he'll have a solid year, but what I want to see this year is a couple of fourth quarter comebacks where he sort of wills himself a win. If this happens, we may have something.

 

It just shows what a difference the faith a coach has in an individual can do

 

Agree... and the NFL and SB's have been littered with similar stories throughout it's history. Steelers almost dumped Bradshaw early on. Plunkett was dumped by NE and led Oakland to a SB. Favre was run out of Atlanta and shined with Holmgren in GB.

It's all about a coach connecting with a QB and having the faith in him to support him and make it work. Especially a guy like Tannehill, who has had the cards stacked against him since he's been here. I'm sure it's refreshing for him to have Gase backing him and working with both Gase and Christensen.

 

My understanding is that Sherman didn't handcuff. I actually felt that Sherman didn't protect him as much as his experience level should have dictated. So I don't think it's accurate to say every coordinator handcuffed him.

 

Eli? Andrew? Lmao..Aaron,Ben? Nope. Peyton, Brady before them ? Not exactly vocal leaders. The quality you look for in successful QBs is calm collectiveness. That's the "IT factor".

 

Gus Ferrotte was sufficient, better than Feidler perhaps.

 

You are straining at gnats... This offensive line, backfield, and receiver set has not even played a down in a practice game ​with Tannehill under center. Why don't you sit and sharpen your axe (instead of just grinding it) until sometime during the season when any reasonable evaluation can be made.

 

A saying from WWII when one could actually see the person in the other airplane in aerial combat: There are old pilots. There are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.

 

Handcuff may be a tad hyperbolic, but early, he certainly kept Tannehill in the pocket (which was a good thing) when many fans were calling to move Tannehill around to use his athleticism more often. I actually sort remember discussing that this was good for Tannehill's long-term development. I do not recall if Tannehill had many (if any) opportunities to audible under Sherman. He may have, but being under Philbin, I don't recall that Tannehill had that freedom.

I am actually not mad at Philbin in how he went on to develop Tannehill. Many here might be, but I think Philbin tried to develop him the right way. It just didn't come together quite as quickly as we'd like, and maybe Philbin sort of stunted him a little later on because the lack of confidence in Tannehill. Early on, I think they did the right thing for Tannehill's long-term development as a QB (too bad they couldn't keep the kid upright most of the time) and surrounded him with really solid talent, save for the O-line. Some of this is on Tannehill, too. Can't just blame the coaches.

 

Philbin was a OL and TE coach. He never developed a QB at any level of his career. Favre and Rodgers were coached by Clements and Bevell. IMO, once he was forced to fire Sherman, he handicapped Tannehill more than anything. Philbin always spoke about "scheme fit" and the QB executing the plays as designed. This while getting the shat kicked out of him by the worst starting guards and RT's (pre James) in the game.

Tannehill plays pretty well when his starting LT, OC, and RT start and finish games, but that has been pretty rare the past 2 seasons.

The OL matters a lot... Look at Big Ben from 2013... his season was very much Tannehill like when he was sacked 42 times.

 

I'm fairly certain that Philbin made a lot of decisions in how Tannehill was developed. You even said it yourself, he wanted the QB to execute the plays as designed. As for the nuances of being an NFL QB? You're probably right, that's not in Philbin's metaphorical "wheelhouse". But to suggest that Philbin did not try to develop Tannehill into a particular type of QB is probably inaccurate. I would say, at the very least, he directed the offensive staff as to what he wanted out of Tannehill. Philbin went on as far to say:

Doesn't sound like a guy who is hands off in his QB's development. Hell, I wouldn't be either considering he was Philbin's first player and it was his first stint as HC. It only makes sense that he had a hand in Ryan's development.

You point out Roethlisberger, but he has always extended plays that sometimes results in unnecessary hits/sacks. I think he's become better at being smarter when doing this, but he still does it. He had a span of four straight years with 40+ sacks (with one being 50). He's only had two years of less than 30 sacks, and both of those years, he only played in 12 games (one season being last year).

I get what you are saying, but I simply disagree with you. Philbin was the HC, and while there may be some gray area as to who directly 'developed' Tannehill, there is zero doubt that Philbin had a big hand in the process. Even Stephen Ross sort of threw Philbin under the bus regarding Tannehill's development. Why wouldn't he? But that's another discussion altogether.

 

I took "handcuff" in this context to mean that limited audible ability with the implication being that all the coaches saw some limitation in Tannehill's ability to handle that responsibility. I don't agree that this was the case.

 

I think this was the case at that point in time in Tannehill's career; they didn't trust him. They had their reasons.

Do you not agree that these coaches saw Tannehill's limitations at that point in his career? Or do you disagree that not all of the coaches saw limitations? I suspect it was ultimately Philbin who saw Tannehill's "decision-making" as underwhelming and made that decision to limit his audibles (if he had any freedom to do so at all). It doesn't really matter what the other coaches thought because Philbin made the decisions. My thing is, early in Tannehill's career (first couple of years), I did not disagree with that decision.

I guess the real question is: was Tannehill handcuffed or did he just not have the ability to make sound decisions in the heat of battle?

 

No, IMO they should have seen more limitations early on in his career. Tannehill was given full field reads almost immediately and they would put him in third and long situations and throw him to the wolves. I see that as a mistake. As I said at the time, I liked what Seattle was doing with Wilson in that they gave him half field reads and a ton of TE heavy plays as those are easier passes. They protected him by calling run heavy games. Even in third and long they would call runs and just punt. They would limit his passing to situations with better win percentages. Early on they gave him one or two reads and then run instructions. Wilson came in with tons more experience and was far more NFL ready and his coaches still brought him along slowly. The Seattle coaches recognized the limitations present in every rookie QB while the Dolphin coaches failed to recognize those limitations.

The issue with Philbin was that the offense had incredibly poor route combinations. Far too often there were no good options on the play or the windows were incredibly small. They failed to give Tannehill options to get out of those plays. That was how they handcuffed him. And that was in the Lazor offense from the beginning so it wasn't a situation where they tried it and Tannehill couldn't handle it so they took it away. Too often it wasn't that Tannehill lacked the ability to make sound decisions. It was that there were simply no good options. Fans see the offense sputter and blame it on the QB and the coaches shifted the blame that way as well. Lazor was a notorious control freak who wanted to control the play calling. Unfortunately, he would often end up very unbalanced and predictable. He took no responsibility for his failures and just said it was all the QB's fault.

I don't see that as the real question (was Tannehill handcuffed or did he just not have the ability to make sound decisions in the heat of battle?) The issue is that we've had incredibly poor coaching that has put Tannehill in horrid situations throughout his entire time here. IMO the combination of poor protection, bad coaching and bad play calling, etc. has been one of if not the worst in the league these past four years. Despite that Tannehill has put up top half numbers and and shown top 10 or better skills. Those that look at just stats call him an average QB. Those that evaluate the QB's skills and consider the situation see a QB that has performed far better than his stats. So I see the real question as, "What will Tannehill produce given an even average situation?" Since he's already produced about top half numbers in horrid situations, I think it's likely that he's capable of being far better with an improved situation.

 

So you're right that the stats say he's average (in the last 2 years), and of course you can add your own observations on top of that, though I'm not so sure about your claim that "those that evaluate the QB's skills and consider the situation" will all agree with you (lots of "experts" see Tannehill as average too you know..)

But the "top half numbers" claim is a stat-based question and unless you cherry pick, he's average in terms of ranking (arguably overall a bit below average). Just so you know.. in 2015 among QB's that started at least 8 games, Tannehill is ranked #21 in passer rating, #21 in completion percentage, tied for #16-23 in Y/A, #9 in yards, #15 in TD's, tied for #21-23 in TD%, and tied for #10-17 for INT%:
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2015/passing.htm

If you had to summarize, Tannehill was (a bit) below average in efficiency, but above average in attempts.

 

You're just picking out one season of Ben's. 2006-2009 Ben was harassed more than anyone and they won a SB