Tannehill playing well, but more still needed
Ryan Tannehill fans and supporters can come out of hiding.
It’s safe to openly support the Miami Dolphins quarterback again.
It’s been an up-anddown year — actually a rough couple of years — but the Patience Brigade, which is what I’ve called Dolphins fans who are willing to wait half a decade for a quarterback to develop, are finally reaping the rewards of letting Tannehill mature like wine.
Since returning from the capsule injury to his throwing shoulder, which cost him five games this season, Tannehill has been one of the NFL’s most efficient quarterbacks. Tannehill’s produced three straight games with a 100-plus quarterback rating, which is the
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longest stretch of his career. He’s thrown 16 touchdown passes in the eight games he’s played, and many of them threaded the needle in tight coverage, changed the field, or came in critical moments.
And he’s finally showing a mastery of coach Adam Gase’s offense that could help him enter the stratosphere of the league’s upper-echelon quarterbacks.
“He’s played the way we needed him to play these last few games,” Gase said of his quarterback Monday.
Since 2016, which is when Gase took over as Miami’s head coach, he and Tannehill have Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. has been taking his game to new heights in recent games.
After a few up-and-down years, Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill delivered a 97.6 passer rating (ninth best in NFL during that span) And Tannehill is averaging 7.8 yards per attempt (sixth best), completing 67 percent of his passes (fifth best) and has turned 6.0 percent of his passes into touchdowns (second best).
Heading into Sunday’s road against the Minnesota Vikings Tannehill has a 105.7 passer rating this season, which ranks him as the league’s sixth-best quarterback when it comes to that metric which is used to evaluate the NFL’s most important position.
He’s in the company of New Orleans’ Drew Brees, Seattle’s Russell Wilson, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Los Angeles Chargers’ Philip Rivers and Atlanta’s Matt Ryan. And Tannehill is doing it with an injury-decimated offensive line, without a decent starting tight end, and with one healthy receiver (Kenny Stills)
who knows the offense.
Tannehill understands what is at stake for his team (a playoff berth), and himself ( job security). It’s not lost on him that he’s never produced a winning season for the Dolphins since being selected in the first round of the 2012 draft.
He’s never actually led the Dolphins to the playoffs. It was backup Matt Moore who did that in 2016 by leading Miami to a 3-1 record in the final four games of that season after Tannnehill suffered a knee injury.
Many Dolphins fans have run out of patience with Tannehill despite his 12-4 record in the past 16 games he’s started. And it didn’t help that Gase — Tannehill’s biggest defender and advocate the past three years — chose to run a draw play on third-and-10 late in the game against Indianapolis when Miami needed a play to be made instead of entrusting him with a passing play.
But Tannehill hasn’t lost his belief in his ability. delivering
He’s a smart, diligent worker who has proven he’s a respectable NFL starter. But that only takes a franchise so far, maybe 10 wins a season, possibly one playoff victory on a good season.
The Dolphins need more, and that’s why Tannehill needs to use these final three regular-season games to prove he can do more and elevate this franchise to greater heights than they’ve been for the past two decades.
No matter the outcome of the final three games common sense says Tannehill will remain the Dolphins’ starting quarterback in 2019. He’s more polished than all the other veteran options except maybe Teddy Bridgewater, who will likely become a popular freeagent target, or Derek Carr, who Miami would need to trade at least one first-round pick to Oakland to acquire.
Tannehill has earned one more season as Miami’s starter, but the Dolphins would be wise to draft a quarterback early in next year’s draft.
Miami needs someone talented enough to push Tannehill for the starting job the way Mahomes, a first-round pick in 2017, pushed Alex Smith, a three-time Pro Bowler in Kansas City, before Mahomes replaced Smith this year, leading the Chiefs to a dynamic season.
If Tannehill, who will earn $18.75 million next season, wants to keep his starting job, make him earn it by outperforming a rookie handpicked by Gase.
Going back to his Texas A&M days, Tannehill has never won a quarterback competition in his college or professional career. He’s lost the actual battles and was gifted both his college and NFL starting jobs.
It is time we see Tannehill actually have to compete for the starting job.
But as far as your respect, he should have finally earned that with his play this season.