You're 100% right- it just sucks after watching Tannehill develop for five years. We literally went from thinking "franchise QB" to "fully expendable" in the course of 48 hours. I hate it when it happens to any player, much less our QB1.
Yeah? Well I'm officially on the "look there is a light at the end of the tunnel! Let's run towards it! OH ISH IT'S A TRAIN!" train.
Yeah, Buffalo has some crazy draft capital to play around with next year. I'd be happy settling for Josh Allen as a consolation prize, if we even have a chance of moving up. A lot of things can and will happen between now and then. There's the possibility of quite a few really good QB prospects in next year's draft, depending whether or not they declare early, injuries, progression/regression. There will probably be a guy or two that blast onto the scene that flew under the national radar, as so often happens. Quite a few really good players on the underclassman list of prospects: Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Clayton Thorson, Jarrett Stidham, Tanner Lee, Drew Lock, Deondre Francois, Chase Litton, Jake Browning, and Trace McSorley just to name a few. I'm just hoping that we can land a top flight prospect, because QB depth has become a high priority with the Dolphins - both now, and for the future of the franchise. It's imperative, IMO.
Wow that Josh Allen highlight reel is fun to watch. That kid has a quick release and seems to have near-NFL level pocket awareness creating passing lanes when the pocket gets dirty. Seemed to be very quick twitched and prowess for throwing on the run.
There's something called the Poisson distribution that tells you what the expected probabilities of a randomly occurring event are if that event rarely occurs. For different average rates of occurrence the Poisson distribution looks different, as you can see here (the "average rate" is the parameter "lamda"): Point is, it's the right distribution to use to predict how many teams will have 0 injuries, 1 injury, 2 or 3, etc.. From Galant's post, there are 12 teams with 0 torn ACL's, 13 with 1 torn ACL, 4 with 2 torn ACL, and 3 with 3 torn ACL (note that the Patriots are one of those!). The average is 0.9375 torn ACL per team, so close to the red curve. If "lamda" = 0.9375, then for 32 teams the predicted number of injuries are: 12.53 for "0 torn ACL", 11.75 for "1 torn ACL", 5.51 for "2 torn ACL", and 1.72 for "3 torn ACL". The average difference between actual and predicted is -0.1231.. which is really small, meaning this is good evidence the rates at which different teams have injuries is truly random.
Looks like a really strong QB class. Despite Darnold, Josh Allen could be the best prospect coming out since Andrew Luck. He does some pretty special things with the football in his hand. Really like Tanner Lee too, who was under the radar at Tulane before transferring. Riley Ferguson from Memphis should be on that list as well. Ferguson isn't getting a lot of attention right now, but if he'd stayed at Tennessee, he'd probably be their starter and be getting more coverage. Broke his leg and left that program, but he's a big guy with a gun who can move.
Not really on the Josh Allen train regarding throwing mechanics. Naturally gifted throwing on the run, but I'm very skeptical about his mechanics from a pure passing standpoint. Kind of comes out low for a big guy. I do like his escapeability. That's super intriguing to me. Maybe he'd be available in the 2nd round?
Not a chance. None. (IMO) You have guys like Bortles, Gabbert, EJ Manuel, Manziel, Griffin, and even Tebow going as 1st round picks to desperate teams. Darnold and Allen are sure thing 1st round picks. Some team is going to look at Josh Allen and see the lovechild of Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck. And if you didn't notice, the Bills and jets most conspicuously made zero QB moves this year and both have draft picks to spare as well as very high picks in the making with the tank job they're both working on. You can expect Darnold and Allen to be wearing those jersey's with maybe Rosen being the Wildcard there. The only good news for us in this is that the Browns, Cards, 9ers, and Jags also need to draft a QB high. In all, almost half the league will want in on the D/A sweepstakes as they are the best talents to come out since 2012. I doubt we draft a QB before the 3rd and probably around the 4th. Have to look at guys like Riley Ferguson, Baker Mayfield, Luke Falk, Tanner Lee, and Clayton Thorson... YMMV.
I'm not as versed in NCAAF as the NFL. I totally get your point on the league being QB hungry, so he may be a high first-rounder. I've never heard of the kid, but the little of the video that's online, he definitely far from a finished product. Kid has moxie, for sure. I certainly do not see him being a plug and play guy. Maybe I need to see more stuff on him, but the small sample size shows he has some really great things, and not so great things. Pure pocket passer? Far from it. As a dual threat QB, he's so intriguing. Some of those throws on the run make me drool. But simple passes (passes every QB should have in his bag) just aren't there. Can that be coached? Will he get with the right team? Too many variables for me to see him being the next big thing. He certainly could be. I just don't see it yet.
I haven't got into his reps seriously yet, like I have with Darnold, {I Think he's flat out a special special player}, but with regards to Allen, I watched one full game so far, and theres a lot of talent to work with but I see him not changing speeds on his throws relative to certain situations..just something to keep an eye on.
If you're looking for more of a pocket passer, then Rosen is more your type. Nowadays, the game requires a QB to be at least a little mobile and to make plays outside the pocket. This is where Philbin damned near ruined Tannehill with his idiotic "stay in the pocket and take the hit" BS. Anyway, yeah, Allen is far from a finished product, but he has all the tools already, and the eye of a lot of QB scouts. You can read what George Whitfield, a noted QB "guru" who works with a lot of College QB prospects said about him here - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...aft-pick-and-the-franchise-qb-your-team-needs
Calling it "a lack" implies I didn't have to overcome it, which is hurtful because that takes away one of my two greatest achievements.
I talked about this before. It's something to keep an eye on. Notice how Ja'Wuan James specifically tied the no-huddle to the QUARTERBACK. He didn't say, it's something new that Adam Gase wants to try with us this year. He said, it's something JAY CUTLER brought with him. The more it looks like Jay Cutler allows Adam Gase to call games and structure offense the way he really wants to call games and structure offense, the less likely it is that Tannehill is the quarterback in 2018. But it should be noted that probably 90% of the deciding factor still lies ahead of us, will depend A) on how well Cutler executes this year, and B) whether Cutler would be willing to say honestly and privately to Adam Gase that he'd like to continue playing, all else being equal.
Between this and Laremy Tunsil's sort of backhanded comments about Cutler being a "real" quarterback and "real" professional, whatever the exact words were, it feels like we're almost to the point where media are gonna ask a player what Tannehill actually does better than Jay Cutler, and the answer will be down to, "make insulin".
Yikes... did Tunsil really say something along those lines? I thought this was pretty strange as well:
I've been a Tannehill supporter and I believe we can/will win big games with him. But my eyes and mind are wide open this year watching Cutler. I've already seen a few different things in him that Tannehill didn't have and it's nothing we haven't discussed adnaseum. The pocket movement and willingness to take a chance was evident even in the preseason. Extremely early but I'm open minded about a QB change. If we start running an ultra fast no huddle and it keeps churning up points/wins im firmly in the re-sign Cutler (Cutler willing) after this season for the next 3-5 years.
Agreed with most of this, but not sure I'd sign a 34 year old QB to a 5 year contract based off one good season. I'd say a 3 year contract is the limit, and that's only if he has a huge season.
I'm not saying sign him to one big 5 yr contract. Neither party would even consider that. I'm saying you can have him as your starter for another 5 years (if he's willing to play) while you patiently look for options. His age to me isn't a factor.
It just really sucks because I think we got only a glimpse of what Tanny can do. However, something is starting to bother me...and that is his teammates don't seem to respect him. By that I mean as their leader and not as a teammate. Maybe he's likeable but not the leader a QB should be?
I don't see Cutler as more than a two year solution at QB, given his age and health. If 2018 means trading Tanny and drafting a QB in the first round to sit and learn under Jay for a year, then that might work out pretty well. So much of what happens depends on how the season goes. If we get to the AFC Championship game, and lose a nail-biter, it is easy to see Cutler wanting to come back and try again in 2018. If we don't make the playoffs or are one-and-done? I think he retires again and wishes Tanny well in 2018. I'm still excited and thankful this isn't a lost season thanks to getting Cutler.
I'm just happy we finally get to see another decent starting QB with the same coach/surrounding cast for an extended period of time. All these debates about whether the blame lies more with the QB or with the surrounding cast are easier to resolve after seeing how two different starting QB's perform with the same coach + surrounding cast. That kind of info helps decide how to move forward after this year regardless of what happens.
I think you'd be right if Cutler had no experience with the system. Like Tanny didn't last season. However, I think comparing Cutler to Tanny at this point is apples to oranges.
We saw what Tanny could do once he got used to the system last year, and both QB's had to learn and operate in different systems throughout their careers, with not too dissimilar results (except for rookie year differences). Besides, what matters is actual performance, not potential, so whatever Cutler produces is what you go by. It's precisely the comparison you want even if there's no perfect way to tease apart who gets most credit/blame.
I agree that RT looked to be picking up the offense last year. And if you leave out the first few games where he was learning he had a passer rating over 100. I wonder what Cutlers rating would be if we removed the first 4-5 games from him year with Gase?
Leaving out the first 5 games in 2016 Tannehill had a combined passer rating of 100.13 (compared to 93.5 for the entire year). Leaving out the first 5 games in 2015 Cutler had a combined passer rating of 95.77 (compared to 92.3 for the entire year). Not that it's a direct comparison but at least in the given situations Cutler had an easier time adjusting. I'd also point out that when Gase was OC in Denver Peyton Manning had a historic year (an NFL record 55 TD's) his first year in 2013 but then fell off and just had a very good year his second year with Gase in 2014. So it's not necessarily the case one should expect better performance the 2nd year in the same system.
You're confusing that with 2015. In 2014 Manning was 4th ranked among QB's in the league going by passer rating: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2014/passing.htm
That has already been answered. As soon as Thill got a commitment to the run game, a better line thru subtraction of Thomas & Turner and allowed to audible....he was produced at a Top 10 level.
How do you know that surrounding cast wouldn't make many average QB's perform that way? It was a pretty good surrounding cast. I mean once the OL was decent you're looking at a pretty good RB in Ajayi and one of the best WR corps in the league. Cutler's been average (or slightly above) most of his career. Maybe we find out he can't produce at a barely top 10 level with this surrounding cast, or maybe we find out he can do a lot more. Not all questions here have been answered.