Why there is no question about Ryan Tannehill and his $17.5 million | Page 19 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Why there is no question about Ryan Tannehill and his $17.5 million

lurking said:
So with that, do you think Matt Ryan would be ranked 2nd with the 30th ranked offense of line.
If you do you definitely have an agenda.
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Do you even know what PFF does to come up with their rankings?
 
<O> said:
Again I have no idea whether those rankings are valid. I was merely responding to the other person's point about what would happen with Matt Ryan if his line's ranking decreased.

Yes, Tannehill's passer rating since 2014 without the starting line is 87.5. With the starting line it's 101.7.

That's the single best argument I've seen for a strong relationship between Tannehill's play and his offensive line.
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And it should be reiterated that even the Dolphins' starting group has been below average for much of that time. Tannehill with decent OL play is a very good QB.
 
My take has remained the same on Ryan Tannehill. It comes down to one basic question. Can Miami win big with Tannehill at quarterback? I think the answer there is yes.

There are a number of teams who would love to have Tannehill as their starting quarterback, maybe at least half the league. I love the strides he took after the awful first five games last year. I think there's still at least a small tick up in his game.

By all accounts, Tannehill has worked hard to improve on his weaknesses. He is said to be bright. Gase seemingly likes him. No one will ever question his toughness or commitment.

All that said, if I'm Miami, I'd look to add someone who is better than Matt Moore to backup Tannehill and perhaps challenge him. There's nothing wrong with doing that. If the opportunity presents itself and the Dolphins have a chance to draft a quality quarterback, I don't think that would be a shocking move.
 
FinfanInBuffalo said:
And it should be reiterated that even the Dolphins' starting group has been below average for much of that time. Tannehill with decent OL play is a very good QB.
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The only difficulty with that angle is that since 2012, Tannehill's play under pressure has been consistently in the bottom quarter of the league, while his play without pressure has improved since 2012, other than in 2015.

Conceivably there are plays that involve pressure, and plays that don't involve pressure, regardless of whether the offensive line starters are playing.

How then do you explain why Tannehill hasn't improved with regard to playing under pressure since 2012?

The knee-jerk response of course would be that he's simply faced more pressure than other QBs overall. But that isn't the case. The frequency of pressure he's experienced has never been significantly different from the league norm.

And again, I find it hard to reconcile that Tannehill's offensive lines, overall, have surrendered a more disruptive type of pressure, with the fact that they haven't surrendered more frequent pressure. A line that surrenders more disruptive pressure should also surrender more frequent pressure, in that the inferiority of the linemen should cause both, and not just one or the other.

The Football Outsiders folks speak to this every season:

Even the amount of pressure a quarterback sees doesn't tend to affect how he performs with pass rushers in his face. For 2014, the correlation between pressure DVOA and pressure rate was -0.16, suggesting only a tiny negative relationship between the two stats.
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http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2015/2014-pressure-plays-quarterbacks

Interestingly, in a change from Sterling Xie's work from last year, the correlation coefficient between pressure rate and pressure DVOA in 2015 was 0.26, as opposed to -0.16 in the 2014 season. Instead of an increased pressure rate leading to worse DVOA when pressured, the result flipped. This is still not a very strong relationship, though, and it suggests that there is not a consistent relationship between how frequently a quarterback faces pressure and how adept he is at handling it.
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http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2016/quarterbacks-and-pressure-2015

In our data for each season since 2010, every starting quarterback has had less efficiency when pressured than when throwing from a clean pocket. So any TV analyst who states "you must get after [quarterback X]" is actually just preaching an obvious truth for every game plan. No quarterback really likes to be pressured, though some do handle it with better grace than others on a consistent basis.
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http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2017/quarterbacks-and-pressure-2016
 
SF Dolphin Fan said:
My take has remained the same on Ryan Tannehill. It comes down to one basic question. Can Miami win big with Tannehill at quarterback? I think the answer there is yes.
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And believe it or not I agree with that, and I think Tannehill has earned the remainder of his contract with the improvement in his play over the past few years.

I would add the caveat, however, that the team will need one of the league's best defenses, especially pass defense, to win big with Tannehill. They simply can't get into offensive shootouts against the league's best QBs and expect to win with Tannehill at the helm. And obviously that's more likely as a team goes deeper into the playoffs.

The Dolphins' defense will need to become something like the defenses of the Seahawks and Broncos of recent years, in that they're able to shut down the league's best opposing QBs. Only then will Tannehill's customary level of play (or even his best level of fairly consistent play) be sufficient to help the team win big.
 
The type of pressure and where it is coming from also has to be taken into account. Immediate? Delayed? Blown assignment? Jailbreak? Up the middle? Off the edge?
 
<O> said:
The only difficulty with that angle is that since 2012, Tannehill's play under pressure has been consistently in the bottom quarter of the league, while his play without pressure has improved since 2012, other than in 2015.

Conceivably there are plays that involve pressure, and plays that don't involve pressure, regardless of whether the offensive line starters are playing.

How then do you explain why Tannehill hasn't improved with regard to playing under pressure since 2012?

The knee-jerk response of course would be that he's simply faced more pressure than other QBs overall. But that isn't the case. The frequency of pressure he's experienced has never been significantly different from the league norm.

And again, I find it hard to reconcile that Tannehill's offensive lines, overall, have surrendered a more disruptive type of pressure, with the fact that they haven't surrendered more frequent pressure. A line that surrenders more disruptive pressure should also surrender more frequent pressure, in that the inferiority of the linemen should cause both, and not just one or the other.

The Football Outsiders folks speak to this every season:



http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2015/2014-pressure-plays-quarterbacks



http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2016/quarterbacks-and-pressure-2015



http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2017/quarterbacks-and-pressure-2016
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None of the stats you reference take into account whether the pressure is quick or not. It also doesn't take into account whether the defense had to blitz to bring the pressure. Every team knows that you must pressure the QB in order to disrupt the passing offense. Every team will attempt to do what it takes to bring that pressure. Teams with start by rushing just the down linemen and dropping everyone else into coverage. If they are successful enough of the time they will not blitz as often. It is an unnecessary risk for the defense. By the same token the offense will try to commit as few resources to blocking as possible. If pressure gets through too often, they will hold in the TE and RBs to attempt to prevent the pressure. Both the defense and the offense are trying to reach a balance. Pressure without too much risk and protection without too many blockers. That is why there is so little variation in pressure % but so much variation is the effect of the pressure. Add down and distance and game score into the mix and you have a ton of room for variation in the effect of "the same amount of pressure".

A QB under immediate pressure on third and long, down by 14, late in the game, keeping in 8 blockers, against a 4 man rush IS NOT THE SAME THING as a QB under pressure on 1st and goal from the 1 with 5 in the pattern against an all out blitz. I repeat NOT THE SAME THING. Any analysis that fails to account for that is a failure from the beginning.

There have been studies that attempt to identify the cause of sacks. Every one I have ever read about the Dolphins in the last few years points to blown blocks as the #1 cause. And, no, before you ask, the percentages were not the same for every offense. Miami's OL was far worse.
 
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