Joe Philbin & Mike Sherman's Use of Ryan Tannehill: A Square Peg in a Round Hole?

[Shouright]

Miami is still in the bottom 1/3 of the league in pressures and when the pressure does come it usually is in 2.5 seconds or less. The line play is just awful.

Right, but there still may be a discrepancy between pressures and sacks that's significantly greater than that for other teams, which then suggests Tannehill is responding to pressure by getting sacked much more than other quarterbacks respond to pressure.

Again, though, I suspect he's getting coached to plant himself in there, which, if so, probably accounts for the bulk of that. The 4th-down play Sunday was just so radically different from what we've seen, and so effective, that I think the coaches have to take notice and adjust going forward. They're essentially wasting a great deal of this guy's skill set.

 

[roy_miami]

Pressures aren't all created equal, one QB could get pressured from his front side and still have a ton of room to move because the rest of the line did its job. Other pressures could be multiple defenders or even a complete destruction of the pocket.

 

[Shouright]

Pressures aren't all created equal, one QB could get pressured from his front side and still have a ton of room to move because the rest of the line did its job. Other pressures could be multiple defenders or even a complete destruction of the pocket.

This is true. If it takes fewer defenders to beat Miami's OL than it does to beat other teams' OLs, then of course Tannehill is going to have a more difficult time finding open men downfield amidst all the remaining defenders.

However, I suspect we're having a recency effect on this, after seeing Baltimore's line be successful with a four-man rush. Not every team is rushing four with three Pro-Bowlers (Suggs, Ngata, and Dumervil). I suspect the other teams we've played weren't anywhere near as successful rushing four.

 

[Czonka39]

Can we fire Sherman and hire the Aggies OC...Nice footage

 

[califan4life]

Take a good look at Ryan Tannehill here:

[video=youtube;ClxFYIThbAE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClxFYIThbAE[/video]

It doesn't take long watching that to figure out that Ryan Tanehill's style of play was different at Texas A&M than it is with the Miami Dolphins. He's throwing on the move a whole lot more in that video.




We have this quote from Joe Philbin just 10 days ago:



Now, that's all well and good. It may make some sense to take some time to have Tannehill develop his ability to scan the field and throw from the pocket, given his relative inexperience at the position.

However, the Dolphins are currently leading the league in sacks surrendered (24), and are second in the league in yards lost on sacks (148). They're leading the league in the percentage of times they're sacked when attempting to pass (11.7%). Peyton Manning by contrast leads the league with a meager 2.4%.

Ryan Tannehill is currently 20th in the league in net yards per attempt (6.0), which factors in sacks and yards lost on sacks and is strongly correlated with wins. Peyton Manning currently leads the league in net YPA with 9.1.

The Dolphins are 29th in the league in total rushing attempts, and 20th in the league in yards per rush (3.7), and I think you have to wonder why they aren't showing more of a commitment to the run to take the pressure off of Tannehill.

Now, of course the team is 3-2, which is a positive sign, but they've been outscored by their opponents 117 to 114, and they're currently ranked 24th in total yards on offense (19th in the league in yards per play). Although they've played the second strongest schedule in the league to this point (Packers are 1st), I think we have to wonder, given the above offensive statistics, whether that's been done with "smoke and mirrors" on the offensive side of the ball.

So the upshot for me here is a serious question about Philbin and company's mindset in playing Ryan Tannehill so differently from what we see in that Texas A&M clip above.

What a difference when you have time to throw the football! Sad that we have the worst OL in the league!