Black and Teal
FanSided

Ryan Tannehill sucked it up in Week 1, essentially

By Luke Sims

facebooktwitterreddit

Ryan Tannehill’s Week 1 performance is getting plenty of (negative) attention around the internet after beating the Washington Redskins 17-10 to open the season.

As we build up to the Jacksonville Jaguars vs Miami Dolphins game, you better believe we’re going to hammer it too.

While I’m not a statistician, there are plenty of people who evaluate the NFL who are. The guys who do get paid to look at the numbers had this to say about Ryan Tannehill’s performance:

"He had decent success towards the right side of the field, but out of the five passes he threw outside the left numbers two should have been picked off, and one could have been a pick-six. On one of these throws he failed to recognize underneath coverage and threw it right to the linebacker, while on the other he was late to throw a comeback route to Greg Jennings."

…and those numbers guys had this to say as well:

"Miami’s Tannehill finished with a respectable passer rating of 93.5 versus the Redskins, but he was lucky to do so. When breaking down the tape, he got away with two extremely poor decisions that should have resulted in easy interceptions for the Washington defense, but neither defender was able to make the play; in fact, one of them ended up as a 10-yard completion. If these two plays were picked as they should have been and plugged into Tannehill’s stat line (acknowledging that other stats would change as well, but for the sake of context), his passer rating would drop from 93.5 to 64.6. That number would paint a much different, and more accurate, depiction of Tannehill’s performance on Sunday."

This clip does a great job of highlighting those two bad throws mentioned above (thanks to Pro Football Focus for directing to it):

Every quarterback is bound to have a bad day every once in a while. It happens. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and even Aaron Rodgers are not immune from having bad days.

That said, a lot of superficial analysis may go into what Ryan Tannehill put together during his first week of the season and it’s clear that we need to dive deeper. The entire Miami Dolphins season hinges on how Tannehill performs, after all.

For the Jacksonville Jaguars/Miami Dolphins game in Week 2, it’s even more critical that we look at the past performance of Tannehill (like here) so we don’t get lost in the lofty “potential” that somehow still surrounds this fourth-year starter with very small claims to greatness.

More from Jacksonville Jaguars News

Others may try to dismiss the fact that Tannehill simply isn’t “there” as a quarterback

, but as noted by a commenter of that linked article, “Like this last week. The stat sheet says he played a hell of a game. But anyone with eyes could tell you he didn’t play anywhere near that level of 93 passer rating.”

There are threatening options on the Miami Dolphins offense and there are plenty of opportunities for Ryan Tannehill to succeed. We just aren’t seeing him do it. The examples from Week 1 aren’t some cherry picked samples from a long career of greatness, they are generally a quality example of his standard play (there’s an active internet forum devoted to this).

In his career, Ryan Tannehill is 24-25 as a starting quarterback. He has a 62% completion percentage and has thrown 64 touchdowns to 42 interceptions. These aren’t great stats, but they aren’t bad either. The problem is that sometimes, like last week, he just doesn’t pass the eye test and gets away with some bad throws.

Tannehill’s play is average as a quarterback with an above-average ceiling His standard level is literally standard. Last week he sucked it up and pretty much everyone is in agreement.

I’m expecting more of the same in Week 2 when he comes to town to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Next: Ryan Tannehill is the weak link the Jacksonville Jaguars must exploit

More from Black and Teal

Home/Jacksonville Jaguars News