More than statisticallqcant people admit that RG3 played damn good as a rookie and actually better than Tannehill. It doesnt lessen Tannehill one bit and if u think he will be better long term it shouldnt matter.
Well I think most people tend to ask the wrong questions. Everyone wants to ask:
1. Who was better last year? and,
2. Who had better performance?
IMHO, there are better questions to ask, like:
3. Which will have a bigger positive impact on their franchise?
4. Which QB came closer to maximizing his team's offensive potential?
Questions 1 and 2 are common, and focus on year one of long term projects rather than the success of the project. Question two is typically answered with strong support of stats, but fails to account for the rest of the team.
I prefer question 3, which focuses on the reason each team selected each player--the long term.
RGIII had a great year and performed very well. But he did what he already knew how to do, short safe passes, read option, instinctive running, and long passes over the entire defense.
That didn't progress RGIII nearly as far as he could have progresses. It got them in then playoffs, which is great, but it put his career health at risk and stunted his development as a pocket passer. He didn't really improve his intermediate throw game reads or work through non-simple progressions.
If RGIII continues to be a QB who runs a lot, I doubt he is a top QB for more than 7 years. If he becomes a good pocket passing QB who occasionally uses his feet near the end zone and runs out of bounds more, he can be a top QB for twice that long.
To me, Tannehill, who had half the QB experience that RGIII had, developed more than RGIII, and is already the better pocket passer. Tannehill looks on course for 15 years of productivity.
When you match up personnel it becomes clearer:
Hartline-Garcon
Bess-Santana Moss
Legadu Nanee/etc.-Leonard Hankerson
Anthony Armstrong-Derrick Morgan
Running games definitely favor Alfred Morris. Takeaways from the defense definitely favors Washington. The only aspect where Tannehill wasn't lacking help was TE Fasano, who is now gone.
Its hard to compare players on different teams, but in this case I am extremely pleased with Tannehill's development, and wouldn't trade him for RGIII.
But, reasonable minds may differ on that assessment.