OK, we all know rookie QB's have their ups and downs, have trouble adjusting to the speed of the game, struggle with inconsistent reading of defenses ... yadda yadda yadda. And, of course, Tannehill only had 19 starts at QB in college and our GM and personnel department thinks 30 is the minimum threshold of experience. So, yeah, Tannehill was always going to make mistakes.
Prior to his being drafted, and through training camp, I expressed a concern that he had tunnelvision and stared down or locked on to his receivers. While that did prove to be a problem, I must say that he was dramatically better at fixing that than I expected. Kudos to Tannehill and our staff for working on that problem. But, many of his mistakes still center around this issue.
Here is an analysis of each of the 13 interceptions. These are all my humble opinion analyzing each play. Reasonable minds may differ, but here's what I saw.
1. Texans: Legadu Naanee quits on his route. WR mistake, Naanee later cut and not picked up by any other NFL team.
2. Texans: JJ Watt swats the ball up in the air for Brian Cushing to intercept. He did a lot of that last year.
3. Texans: JJ Watt blocks another ball at the line of scrimmage for a different teamamte to intercept. He blocked so many at the LOS he he later earned the nickname "JJ Swatt."
4. Jets: On the last play of the 1st half Reggie Bush goes down injured. On the first drive of the 2nd half Tannehill makes a rookie mistake and tries to do too much. QB bad decision, poor vision.
5. Cardinals: Davone Bess makes a very slow cut outside and Tannehill stares him down. Bad combo, as it is very easy for the LB to see the play develop, read Tannehill's eyes, and easily undercut the slow Bess's route. This is one of the reasons Bess is no longer a Dolphin, because his lack of speed makes it easy for defenses to intercept against him. The pass was accurately thrown, but a poor decision by Tannehill to throw that ball fueled by lack of vision to see the LB underneath and Tannehill not looking off the defense. Classic rookie mistake. QB, bad decision, poor vision, staring down a receiver.
6. Cardinals: Timing throw to Hartline on the sideline. Between the time Tannehill commits to the throw and it arrives, Hartline fell down, easy pick for the aware DB. When Andrew Luck makes this mistake, the DB's drop the ball … but only a couple times last season did anyone drop a potential Tannehill INT. Bad luck, but not Tannehill's fault. Probably not anyone's fault, but if blame must be assessed, it goes to Hartline for falling down.
7. Titans: What a horrible game. Tannehill simply fails to see the LB in the flat, and much like the Cardinal's/Bess interception, it's an easy pick for the Titans. QB's fault, bad decision fueled by poor vision. He simply should never have made that throw. Period.
8. Titans: This is a stinging INT. Tannehill threads the needle and literally hits Fasano between the numbers in the chest, and it bounces off Fasano's chest into the LB's arms … of course HE makes the INT. No ability to separate from the LB, comedically poor execution, and is on the ground unable to tackle the LB. This play is probably one of the reasons we didn't resign Fasano. TE's fault.
9. Titans: Simple underneath throw to the LB. QB's fault, bad decision fueled by poor vision. He doesn't see the LB underneath, so he doesn't look him off, quickly locates and locks onto the RB and the LB simply steps under and intercepts the ball. Again, if this had been Luck or Griffin, the LB drops the ball, but this guy made the INT. QB's fault, tunnelvision, bad decision. Mercifully this game is over.
10. Bills: Another INT because Davone Bess is slow and Tannehill tries to force it into Bess deep with double coverage. Facepalm. Classic rookie bad decsion. QB's fault, bad decision. Some people call this bad deep ball accuracy, but it's not. The problem here is 100% that Bess NEVER STOOD A CHANCE against double coverage deep, and Tannehill made a bad decision to throw that ball. There was no good spot to throw it.
11. Bills: Watch this one closely, because IMHO, it's one of the very few inaccurate throws that caused an interception. Lot's of turbulence across the middle, but there is a tiny window to thread the needle and make this a completion, but there's no margin for error. Tannehill threw one of his extremely rare inaccurate throws, late accross the middle and behind the receiver, missed that window, and caused an INT. QB's fault, inaccurate throw.
12. Seahawks: Lightning struck twice? This may be another inaccurate throw behind the WR that caused an INT. But, there is also coverage underneath that Tannehill is trying to avoid and may have been throwing a back-shoulder throw that Bess didn't read, so it's not certain whether it was inaccruate or mis-communication.
13. Patriots: Bad decision. Tannehill has time, but chooses to throw to a WR (Rishard Matthews maybe?) who is tightly double-covered. QB's fault, bad decision.
To recap:
1. WR quit
2. JJ Swatt
3. JJ Swatt
4. QB bad decision, hero throw
5. QB bad decision, vision
6. WR falls down
7. QB bad decision, vision
8. TE ball bounces off chest
9. QB bad decision, vision
10. QB bad decision, Bess long
11. QB inaccurate throw
12. QB inaccurate throw (possible mis-communication)
13. QB bad decision
So, of those we have 5 bad decisions, 3 of which were poor vision, 1 was an attempt to put the team on his shoulders and do too much. We have 2 inaccurate throws, 1 of which may have been Bess misreading a back-shoulder throw. Those 7 are all on Tannehill. Sure, he didn't get the good luck of DB's dropping his potential INT's much, but all 7 of those were the rook's fault.
Then 2 more were JJ Watt blocks at the line of scrimmage that were intercepted. He did that a lot last year, but it's debatable whether that's Tannehill's fault or not. I'm of the mind that if it continues it's his fault, and if it doesn't, it was probably not. But, clearly OL had a tough time midsection-punching JJ Watt and keeping him down and out of the passing lanes all year.
And finally, 3 were not Tannehill's fault. These include Naanee quitting on a route over the middle, Hartline falling down when the ball was in the air, and the ball bouncing off of Fasano's chest into the arms of the LB.
Looking at the current roster, Naanee and Fasano are gone, and Bess (who was the target for 3 INT's) are gone. Hartline, who only had 1 INT despite putting up big numbers and consistently making the tightrope catch along the sideline, returns. We added Wallace to stretch the defense and give Tannehill some easy throws. We added Keller, who while he can't block and isn't a size mismatch in the red zone, should be able to create separation and give Tannehill a consistent target over the middle. Also, we added Gibson, who is bigger, faster, more athletic and more physical than Bess was. All of these moves should help Tannehill get some less-difficult throws compared to last year.
All in all, we did pretty darn well for a rebuilding team. That is in no small part attributable to Tannehill performing very well for a rookie without much collegiate experience. Also, a quick look at his INT's reveals a guy who doesn't really make the same mistakes repeatedly. Yes, he needs to work on his peripheral vision, looking off defenders, and like every rookie needs to improve his decision making. But, for a guy with one of the 3 worst receiving corps in the NFL (along with St. Louis and Clevland), he showed fantastic accuracy and much better decision making than I expected. He's still developing, but I was extremely impressed. To me, Tannehill projects to be a guy who doesn't make many mistakes. Omar wants to hate on Tannehill, but when I look at this, I see a guy learning and improving. It's no surprise that he had only 1 INT in his last 5 games ... and I'm not surprised.
