The biggest difference between Philip Rivers and Ryan Tannehill is that most of Ryan’s interceptions weren’t his fault
That's the type of thing that bugs me around here. It simply isn't true. Tannehill has almost always benefitted from dropped interceptions higher than the league average. It is blatant if watching the games with a clear lens. In 2013 he led the league in dropped interceptions with 11. But around there that type of thing is ignored if not denied. The drops were apparently supposed to happen. And other picks weren't his fault.
I wasn't going to comment in this thread until seeing the post I quoted. The OP was ripped for presenting something that others disagreed with, even though his numbers were correct from the source he used. Yet when a statement is made that runs directly opposed to the annual most respected evaluation of interception legitimacy, it is allowed to stand.
Football Outsiders raised Tannehill's 2016 interceptions from 12 to a rightful 16. They credited him with one tipped interception and one Hail Mary/game ending interception. I would guess the later came at New England. Those 2 were removed from Tannehill's total but he had 6 dropped interceptions, resulting in a net rise of 4 and an interception rate change from 2.9% to 3.8%. That 3.8% was the 7th worst in the league.
Rivers was on the other end of the luck category. He had 2 Hail Mary picks and one tipped interception, but only one dropped interception. The net was a subtraction of 2 interceptions from 21 to 19 and an interception rate drop from 3.4% to 3.1%.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2017/adjusted-interceptions-2016
Regardless, this is a tired argument. I'm going to stick with my summary prior to the 2012 draft, that Tannehill's upside was roughly 12th in the league. I have never seen any reason to detour from that. Nice player but the physical stuff like stature and arm strength and whatever are always going to be offset by the late bloomer aspect, which aligns with something missing, something wrong...and not as much upside as all the conventional methods suggest.
The standard approach is to assume the recent direction will become the ongoing trend, with little to no barriers in sight. I reject that idea in favor of big picture scope. Ryan Tannehill really doesn't matter. Just like the 2016 Miami Dolphins really didn't matter. More often than not a team that forged the type of season the Dolphins did in 2016 will decline the following year. I don't care about players or subjectivity or day to day hoopla as much as the established and logical tendency. A quarterback with Tannehill's general resume and career path more often than not will flatten out instead of taking the next step. That's what I expected in 2017, and partially due to the likelihood that the team would falter around him. <O> has been presenting those numbers almost daily, toward what win expectancy looks like given our pass defense ineptitude.
Next season looks promising because we'll be on a natural upward bounce after faltering so badly in the won/loss column from 2016 to 2017. At this point I would predict 9 wins.
BTW, the OP has taken plenty of grief but several posters in this thread have previously projected Tannehill upward in forthcoming seasons due to the conventional wisdom that he'll move up the ladder simply via attrition... Manning retiring, Brady eventually retiring, etc. That is flawed logic, as I've mentioned many times. There are always guys legitimately finding that top tier, and it happens early. I remember when the Dolphins actually drafted prodigies.