Turning away from Tannehill?
When Dolphins coach Adam Gase took the ball from quarterback Ryan Tannehill by calling two draw plays in the final minutes against the Colts, he went against seven years of investment
Dave Hyde: Dolphins’ move lingers like football malpractice.
The brilliant plan leads to Ryan Tannehill being asked Wednesday if he’d moved on from Sunday, if he thought of changing Adam Gase’s calls for third-and-10 draw plays in Indianapolis, if also he’s now playing for his Dolphins future.
“I don’t know what the agenda is,” the Dolphins quarterback said of his future, “but my goal is to go out there and play for this team, win this game and make the playoffs.”
This, again, is where the brilliant plan of Sunday now leads. Even as the volume has lowered on that Colts finish, and the furnace blast of emotion is gone, the issue of Gase taking the ball from Tannehill lingers.
And you know what? On second glance, the decision looks worse. It wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment decision to call those two draws in the final minutes. They were plotted during the week, as Tannehill said. That makes it football malpractice when you consider the big picture.
For the past three years with this coach and front office — and for seven seasons in total — everything this franchise has done, said, decided, invested, forecast and explained to the players and public is how Tannehill is their franchise quarterback.
Look at the list. They extended Tannehill with a big contract that reaches the Himalayan heights of $26.6 million in cap money next year. They declined to bring in anyone who might challenge him or insure the future.
They didn’t consider trading up for Jared Goff or Carson Wentz in the 2016 draft, or Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson in the 2017 draft. They trusted in Tannehill.
Gase, general manager Chris Grier and vice president of football operations Mike Tannebaum watched Buffalo leap-frog their draft position last year to take Josh Allen, a quarterback they’d had enough interest to interview at their facility before the draft. They passed on such a trade.
They then convinced owner Steve Ross not to trade back and take quarterback Lamar Jackson that draft night. They also didn’t trade up for Jackson and take him with the 32nd pick, as Baltimore did.
In the face of questions, despite two years of Tannehill’s injuries and knowing this would make or break this regime, they remained all in on Tannehill last offseason. And so be it. They believed in the guy with their careers. That’s what coaches and front office people do.
Yet when it came time to confirm that trust, for Tannehill to take that eternal next step, Gase twice called for draw plays on third-and-10 situations with the day on the line.
How can they grade him as a franchise quarterback if he’s not even given the test? How can anyone, really?
And, again, it was all premeditated, too. Listen to Tannehill when asked if he considered changing the plays.
“No, that’s not something I think about,’’ he said. “[Gase] had a reason he called that. It something we’d talked about during the week. Obviously, not during the game. But on third-and-10 situations, they’re very good. I understood the call when it came in. I’m not just in there checking off plays.”
There’s no blaming Tannehill for that. Few quarterbacks would. His personality isn’t that of, say, Dan Marino, who for better and worse checked off plays to swing for the fences. That beat New England to open the 1994 season and lost a playoff game in San Diego to end that year.
Still, you want to see Tannehill succeed or fail in those two possessions rather than check-down passes and draw plays. That, of course, is the Dolphins dink-and-dunk offense. That’s not a criticism. Many teams run this ball-possession style.
Tannehill has the third-lowest “depth of target” on completions this year at 4.9 yards, according to ProFootballFocus.com. Brock Osweiler is fourth at 5.1 yards. (Oakland’s Derek Carr and Detroit’s Matthew Stafford are first and second).
These are just dry numbers, though. Sunday was a dramatic scene that could have changed the unimpressive narrative on Tannehill.
Look at the narrative in Year 7: With a good, 3-0 start, his offense didn’t score a touchdown in New England, made blunders to lose in Cincinnati and was hurt, and then wasn’t asked to win a Colts game.
“You have to turn the page, it’s the NFL,” Tannehill said on Wednesday. “You have to get ready for the next one.”
He’s right. It’s time to quit thinking of last Sunday. But the hangover lingers. Gase can defend those calls. But how can a franchise that’s built everything around Tannehill for seven years not trust him with a game on the line? Again, that’s football malpractice.