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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. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Prior to the "suck for Luck" season, the team was 10-6, lost in the wildcard round, and was better than league average only in the area of passing offense, courtesy mainly of Peyton Manning. That team was 10-6, which is exactly what you'd expect from a team with a great QB and with all else average.

    Yeah the team wasn't "that bad," but they obviously weren't a QB away from Super Bowl contention, or they would've been there with Manning instead of finishing 10-6 and losing in the wildcard round.

    Regardless, the larger point is whether this "final piece QB" strategy has any merit. Are you saying it's your position that bad teams should assemble surrounding pieces with draft picks at the top of the first round, instead of targeting QBs? The Dolphins for example should've bypassed a QB this year and gotten only surrounding pieces instead?
     
  2. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Based on posting history, that is the position many take, including TDK (can't remember with resnor), as we heard before the draft w.r.t. taking Tua vs. building up the rest of the team first.

    I'm really glad the Dolphins brass agrees with the strategy of finding that franchise QB as early as possible. The trade for Rosen was an attempt in that direction (note how much they gave up.. that shows how much they cared), and picking Tua with the first pick was also confirmation of that (no fancy overthinking like Wannstedt passing on Brees).

    In this passer friendly era, I think it's so much less likely you can build a consistent winner if you try a "final piece QB" strategy. Yeah SF is doing it and Titans also, but most teams that succeed nowadays got that QB fairly early in the game or around the same time other pieces were coming into place. Few built the rest of the team first then tried to find the QB.

    Now if only Tua can succeed we'll be out of QB purgatory (totally high on the guy but I am cognizant of the statistics showing it's more likely he will NOT end up being consistently above average).
     
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  3. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    That's the darn story of our franchise in the 20th century.....almost good enough to be the worst and for whatever reason, we somehow end up winning at the end.

    That made me have a thought though; let's say we didn't close 2019 with 5 wins down the stretch and we picked #1 overall. Who do we take- Burrow or Tua? I have a sneaking suspicion that we'd end up with the same player.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2020
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  4. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    I know.. but we may have "lucked out" in not getting Luck. He vastly underperformed the high expectations people set, as Pauly pointed out — statistically around average, unless you take out the injury season in which case he's a tad above.

    Where we REALLY messed up is not drafting a QB after Tannehill's injury. Any team that prioritized the QB situation would have given up what we needed to for a QB in 2017, and by luck that would've been Mahomes or Watson. About as bad a mistake as not signing Brees when you look back at it.

    Me too. I like Tua more anyway because he has the larger body of work. Burrow looked more impressive, but that's one season. Tua of course had a great surrounding cast, so it's harder to see what he can do without one, but he has the accuracy and the smarts which will translate. The rest is .. "luck" lol (from our end).
     
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  5. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Well and it's not really a logically sound strategy, either. If you've built the rest of the team you're unlikely to be drafting high enough to get a great QB. Dan Marinos and Aaron Rodgerses aren't slipping into the 20s of the first round anymore. Teams are overdrafting QBs now. So if you've built your team and are picking in the mid-first round, there will be slim pickings at QB.
     
  6. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Well.. that's not why I think it's not a sound strategy. I mean look at SF and the Titans. You don't need to draft that QB nor do you need one that can carry the team on a regular basis if you've built up the rest of the team. So the probability of finding a good enough QB could possibly be higher (hard to say) if you've built up the rest of the team already, because "good enough" is less than it otherwise would be.

    There's nothing wrong per se with building up the rest of the team. That's actually desirable. It's just that I think it's too unlikely you'll succeed at that because there are so many personnel moves you need to get right for everyone to peak at around the same time, especially in a salary cap era.

    The advantage of getting the QB right early is that you have 10-15 years to build up enough of the rest of the team (not all units have to be great) — peaking at SOME moment in time during those 10-15 years — to make a SB run. So for me it's just an exercise in probability, not whether it means you can draft a great QB or not.
     
  7. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Right but are you factoring in the probability associated with winning a SB with a great QB versus an average QB? Mahomes just beat Tannehill and Garoppolo for example.
     
  8. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    That's why I said it's "hard to say" if the probability is higher once you've built up the team. It could be though. The difference in probabilities occurs BEFORE you ask that question: can you build up the team like that in the first place? At that point I think it's more likely to find a very good QB you can build around. You'll have 10-15 years to get it right after that rather than a much shorter window if you try building up the team first.
     
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  9. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I have to go with the finding a great QB option. Free agency, injuries, decline in performance, retirement, etc. -- too many undesirable possibilities surrounding the "build the team first" approach. Too little margin for error.
     
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  10. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    With Trevor Lawrence waiting in the wings, and the high number of draft picks we had accumulated to offer for the number 1 overall pick, YESSSSSSS!!!!!

    If Lawrence is blessed to be able to get drafted to a team that’s set up, he’s going to be the next quarterback talked about for the next generation.

    If he goes to the proverbial perineal losing teams...Jets, Lions, Redskins, he’s going to be discussed as the draft pick with potential but never panned our. Happens too many times.
     
  11. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    You either discounted or failed all together to read the other factor regarding the Colts the year prior to Manning’s drafting...Lindy Infante.

    Tell you what, don’t talk about “losing records”...don’t talk about this player or that player. Do a heavy read on Lindy Infante, the teams he’s coach and the actual players he’s had on his roster and look at his overall record as a head coach.

    If you give me a good honest read, be truly objective in looking at the overall environment and the win-loss record Infante produced, you’re going to see I’m right.

    If you can’t give me that honest effort, then there’s nothing I’ll be able to say to convince you. Football is a TEAM sport and TEAM building always starts at the top.

    Manning was blessed to be drafted by a team that had Marshall Faulk, Marvin Harrison and Marcus Pollard on their roster. Those 3 players however were cursed at having the Adam Gase of his day in Lindy Infante as their head coach.
     
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  12. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    I already explained that: you can't have a roster that only needs one missing piece at QB to be "great" and go 3-13. I don't care what coach you put in there, you're not going 3-13 with a team that's solid all around except at QB. The records argument is sufficient to make my case. You can't just say ignore it.

    Furthermore, the QB in 1997 was Jim Harbaugh who ended up ranked #8 in passer rating that year. So if with a QB ranked #8 in passer rating (although only starting for 11 games, but his record was 2-9) you end up 3-13, how could one EVER argue that the "rest of the team was set" except at QB. Laughable dude.

    And Infante was coach in 1997 only, not in 1998. You're going to keep ignoring the 3-13 record in 1998 with Mora and supposedly a team set all around, but now WITH Manning? LOL.

    Dude your argument falls flat against actual evidence. And that's just Manning. The single best counter-example to your false claim that great QB's go to teams that are already set is Montana. Two consecutive 2-14 records is the team he was drafted into. But you think those teams were "set" except at QB. lol
     
  13. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    How about when a team is "set" as you call it and it obtains a QB that's projected to be good or very good, but the QB plays at an average level or worse (individually speaking) instead? What explains that?
     
  14. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    If you’re sincerely asking me, it says that quarterback was over-evaluated. I know your feelings about him, but look at Mariotta and Tannehill in Tennessee. Mike Vrabel has that team set and all he needed was a quarterback. He drafted a Heisman quarterback. Should have been a safe bet, right? Well, he didn’t pan out at all but Tannehill did. Same team, same environment same weapons and Mariotta wasn’t able to transition to the NFL level.

    The draft is a craps shoot, regardless of the position but for a quarterback, if he’s set up for success, there’s no excuse for him if he doesn’t pan out
     
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  15. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Oh my God, for REAL???? Do you expect every first year coach to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl?

    You’re a stats guy so look up the stats. First year head coaches and their win/loss record, regardless of their roster.

    And as for Harbaugh, seems like we’ve been down this road before...quarterback ratings and the teams’ win loss record. By that logic, I guess Jamie’s Winston was the best quarterback in the league last year
     
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  16. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    That's just it. This isn't a conversation about "regardless of their roster". You're claiming the roster was already set.

    So the question is: IF the roster is already set how could you have a 3-13 season? Bad coaching alone doesn't make sense. You suggested Infante was the Gase of his time. Even with a "bad" roster Gase never went below 6-10 in Miami.

    Point is: 3-13 in two consecutive years really does suggest serious roster issues.

    There's a high correlation. The point with Harbaugh is that the QB actually played above average statistically so it's not like you can pin that 3-13 record on the lack of a QB. Oh.. and you still haven't refuted the Montana example.

    Hopefully you can see now that your claim is false as a general rule. In general, yes in some cases "great" QB's do go to teams that were already set at most key positions, but often that's not the case. And the league is set up structurally to make your statement less and less accurate over time because bad teams pick first in the draft.
     
  17. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    No.

    The Chiefs beat the Titans and the 49ers.
     
  18. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    You haven't proven that at all. Regardless of how the team was assembled, Peyton was on a really good team, with consistent coaches and HoF players. Coaching matters. A good team can be bad with a bad coach, and vice versa. It's not all about the QB.
     
  19. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    OK, I thought you meant that when a team is "set," the caliber of the QB doesn't matter, that you could put any QB in that kind of environment and he would thrive.
     
  20. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Sure, but there is a probability of winning a Super Bowl as a function of the ability of the quarterback, despite that teams are doing the winning.
     
  21. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Proof? As in make it impossible for any other hypothesis to be true? No one can give you that. For that matter you can't prove he was on a good team. So that's a non-sequitur.

    But if ranking 26th in defense in 1997 and 29th in 1998 (first year with Manning) is your idea of evidence for Manning being on a good team, then you're living in a fantasy world. Same thing with Montana. The defenses for those 2-14 teams were one of the worst in the league.

    No, in general you need a LOT of things to go wrong to have only 2 or 3 wins in a season, in TWO consecutive seasons. That isn't just bad coaching (probabilistically). The most likely explanation by far includes lots of roster issues.
     
  22. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Here's an interesting question: is Cam Newton joining a "set" team in New England? They were 12-4 last year. If so, what sort of performance do you expect from Newton this year?
     
  23. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    It's like to also point out that Marvin, Wayne, and Clark were all first round draft picks. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about advantages that Tannehill never had.

    Also, the offense for the 3-13 year then the 13-3 year, was almost exactly the same. You switched out Faulk for Edge, and Pathon for Wilkins.
     
  24. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    No they're not a set team. They lost for starting caught linebackers in the off-season.

    I'm also not sure the Cam can run the incredibly complex system that NE has been running for two decades.
     
  25. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Faulk for Edge wasn't an "equal" RB switch. Faulk was good with Indy, but Edgerrin James was the best in the league from the outset. He led the league in rushing attempts and rushing yards in his rookie year, and was even better his 2nd year in 2000. So the switch at RB is actually an example of a roster change that likely helped Peyton and improved the W/L record.
    https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/J/JameEd00.htm

    The Faulk we know was from 1999 with St. Louis, not the guy in Indy. You can see that in his stats. They didn't use him as much in St. Louis so his rushing yards wasn't as great, but the Y/C suddenly shot up from 4.1 with Peyton to a 5.4 average over 3 years with Warner. So even on offense there was a key component that needed to be added.
    https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/F/FaulMa00.htm

    Either way, there are many cases where "great" QB's don't go to teams that are already set. Now, once you get that QB, it's much easier to rectify remaining weaknesses, and to build a champion you have to fix at least a good number of them as evidenced by the average z-scores for both offense and defense for SB winners being well above average (with offense a bit higher). But that often takes place after the QB is there, not before it.
     
  26. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    '98 Faulk had 1300 yards and 10 total tds
    '99 Edge had 1500 yards and 17 total tds

    So you're claiming that that 200 yards or so and 7 TDS gave them a 10 game swing, then you're arguing that Edge was more important that Peyton?

    Bad teams drafting high QBs doesn't really work out that great, very often. Lol. I mean, you used Peyton and Montana, candidates for GOAT. Nothing like picking outliers. Lol
     
  27. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Dude.. reading comprehension helps. I said it wasn't an "equal" switch and that it "likely helped Peyton and improve the W/L record". I mean yes 200 extra yards and 7 TD's isn't irrelevant. How much did that help? Who knows. Maybe a game or two?

    I personally think most of the change was due to Peyton himself improving but there's no way to prove that.

    Those aren't outliers relative to the argument TDK was making. He was specifically referring to "great" QB's. So those are precisely the types of QB's you want to look at. Oh, and Montana wasn't drafted high (3rd round).
     
  28. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Yes, the numbers between the two were relatively equal, with Edge getting a few more rushing TDS. It wasn't like Indy went from a garbage back to Edge. They went from a guy playing at a high level to another guy playing at a high level.

    Yes, pulling Peyton and Montana are outliers, there have been plenty of great QBs who aren't GOAT worthy.

    And Montana was incredibly successful due in large part to the innovative offense.
     
  29. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    The difference isn't huge but it's not irrelevant either — probably worth 1-2 wins. You said the offense was "almost exactly the same". A 1-2 win difference in the context of this discussion is not "almost exactly the same", and is worth pointing out.

    Under NO statistical definition of "outlier" are they outliers. Not even close. There are at least 6 such QB's statistically: Young, Montana, Manning, Rodgers, Brees and Brady, depending on whether you prioritize efficiency stats or wins added over a career. None come close to being even 3 standard deviations away from the distribution of all QB's, much less that far away from only "great" QB's. And 3 standard deviations is the absolute minimum — it's actually too generous a threshold in most cases, meaning that using that threshold can lead to biases in your analysis.

    For something to be an outlier it should be so far away from all other data points that it really doesn't belong with any of the other data points. There's never been a QB like that in NFL history. To give an example of an "outlier", Montana would be an outlier if you compared him only to the bottom 1/4 of all QB's in history.

    True but irrelevant for this discussion. The point here was very specific: many great QB's do NOT go to teams that are already good, with the rosters already "set" except at QB.
     
  30. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    The offense was almost exactly the same. I'm not talking about production, I'm talking about the players. You traded a great running back for another great running back, and a starting receiver switch.
     
  31. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yes, player pedigree wise I agree.

    However, production is what matters — that's what helps explain win% discrepancy (e.g., rookie Manning vs. 2nd year Manning is a huge difference production wise, especially the INT's, even though it's the same player).
     
  32. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Of course production is what matters, but at the same time, many factors can affect production. I'm saying it's not like Indy had Terry Kirby at running back, and then switched him for Edge. In that situation, I wouldn't say the offenses were pretty much the same, even though it's still only one player. Know what I mean? I'm just saying, the overall team didn't reality change drastically from 3-13 to 13-3. It was basically the same team both years. Yes, they got a bump from Edge, but that doesn't explain a 10 game seeing. I agree, I think Peyton not having more ints than tds was key. But werev there other changes? I honestly don't know...I don't know what the coaching staffs were from year to year, I haven't looked.
     
  33. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    There was a 19.5-point swing in offensive passer rating between the two years, which is astronomical and which, given the rest of Manning's career across a tremendous amount of variation in surrounding casts and the typical trajectory of young NFL quarterbacks, is almost certainly attributable to Manning's maturation as a quarterback after his rookie season. Not all that difficult on this one.

    That would be like Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing up the 85.5 passer rating he did last year, and having that jump to 105 this year. The Dolphins' record would likewise change substantially for the better, obviously.
     
  34. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    That 3-13 to 13-3 change is similar to the difference between Tannehill's passer rating in Miami vs. his 2019 passer rating in that you can try to add up the expected statistical effects of various influences and there's just nothing that gets you there.

    The RB production difference was worth maybe 1-2 games, Peyton's passer rating improvement suggests maybe a 3 game difference, the improvement in defense more like 2-3 (and the advantage of looking at "effects" like this is that the effects of coaching changes are included even if you can't isolate coaching), and you can try to add some effect of schedule or so, but at best that gets you to 10 wins from 3, and that's clearly an overcount because you can't just add these things up independently (e.g., the passer rating TD's + RB's passing TD's are double counts, and other stats are correlated).

    So as far as I'm concerned you really can't "explain" that 3-13 to 13-3 difference unless you assume some extreme case of random variation (e.g., WHEN those INT's occurred was "just right" to maximize win%). In general, I would never ascribe a 10-win difference primarily to any kind of roster change we've actually seen (or that I remember) in the NFL from one year to the next. So who knows, though that idea of the timing of (let's say) the INT's is something one could test.
     
  35. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Offensively that’s difficult to say. The Patriots had quite the roster turnover in the offseason. I see with the Patriots maintaining 5 running backs and adding a 3rd TE along with the addition of Newton, this is going to be an entirely different offensive scheme than we’ve seen with the past Patriots. They retained Edelman and Slater but their OL has also had a huge turnover. So these Patriots are not last years Patriots.

    Defensively, between Flores stealing some of New England’s players as well as those opting out due to COVID, their number 1 ranked defense from last year is not intact.

    So to ask about Newton going to a “set” team, that’s not really an accurate question to ask. Every team has losses and signings during the off season but typical the base core of the team usually remains intact.

    Newton will benefit from having Burkhead, Edelman and Slater but Newton doesn’t possess the same skills set as Brady. I actually look for the Patriots to be of a running team this season, more than seasons past.

    But then again, with Belichick you sometimes never know. That’s the only thing the Patriots are really set at...HC
     
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  36. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    That team also went from a passer rating differential of -24.6 to one of +4.6. Strength of schedule went from fifth-strongest to middle of the league.
     
  37. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Brad keeps pointing to consecutive 3-13 seasons...and you just pointed out the swing in passer rating from 98-99. Let’s be honest though...honest and purely objective; how many rookie quarterbacks drafted in the top 5 or even top 10 for that matter who are named starting QB the first game actually light up all of the stats board and produce win after win?

    Manning was making the transition from college to pro. Mora wasn’t afraid to let Manning throw the ball. If memory serves me correctly he threw 575 times that first season for 3700 yards completing 56% of his passes and 26 TDs along with 28 Ints. The boy was learning and learned from his mistakes. That’s what made him great at Tennessee and what made him great in the NFL.

    What REALLY hurt the Colts in ‘98 was their defense that gave up a league high 24 or 28 points per game. I forget which
     
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  38. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Passer rating differential is related to wins in a 16 game season by W = 0.1551*PRD + 8, which gives you +4.5289 wins for that +29.2 passer rating differential.

    Strength of schedule might lead to a ~1 win difference, based on 2019 numbers. How to arrive at that estimate? The standard deviation in wins in 2019 is 3.2, and the maximum SoS difference is about 0.1 (NE is at the top with 0.537 and Baltimore at the bottom with 0.438). Those SoS translate to 8.6 wins vs. 7 wins for an opponent.

    When you randomly sample from two normal distributions, one with 8.6 as the mean and the other with 7 as the mean (both with 3.2 standard deviation), I get about 64% of the points from the 8.6 win distribution being larger than from the 7 win distribution. That corresponds to 10 wins. If SoS were identical the result would be 50% = 8 wins. This means that the maximum possible effect of SoS is about 2 wins. Here it's about half that, so 1 win.

    So parsing things out by passer rating differential and SoS adds 5.5 wins only. Add in some extra effects not in those two stats and you're once again up to that ~10 win max (7 win difference) I was alluding to. It's really hard to explain much more than 7 wins here through stats, which leads to only one remaining source: random variation that was "just right".
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2020
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  39. AGuyNamedAlex

    AGuyNamedAlex Well-Known Member

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    Let's be entirely fair to the defense, when your offense is giving the ball up at that rate you arent going to look pretty unless you're an all time great defense.
     
  40. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Turnover differential went from -14 to +9 as well.
     

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