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8. Ryan Tannehill, Miami Dolphins
- Ryan Tannehill's development as an NFL quarterback was bound to be a process, and there was no guarantee that it would work out. He was a receiver in his first two years at Texas A&M, playing quarterback for just two campaigns. He had three different offensive coordinators through his first four seasons with the Dolphins (Mike Sherman, Bill Lazor, Zac Taylor), and was dealing with a receiving corps that was finding its own collective feet as Tannehill was learning the subtleties of the position.
- He had a bit of a breakout season in 2014, when he completed 66.4 percent of his passes, throwing 27 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, but regression hit to a point in the following season. Tannehill's completion rate slipped to 61.9, and though he threw for a career-high 4,208 yards, he had obvious issues with reading defenses and aligning with the timing of his targets on deep passes.
- It's one of the main reasons the Dolphins hired former Broncos and Bears offensive coordinator Adam Gase as their head coach before the 2016
- season. In Denver and Chicago, Gase developed a well-deserved reputation as the kind of coach who would maximize his quarterback's attributes and minimize his inefficiencies by matching a coordinated deep attack with a short to intermediate passing game in which receivers were schemed open as much as they got free from defenders with their own physical abilities.
- The difference was clear. Before he was lost in December with a partially torn ACL, Tannehill put up a new accuracy rate to all parts of the field—he completed a career-high 67.1 percent of his passes overall, and he improved his completion rate on passes thrown 21 to 30 yards in the air from 31.9 percent in 2015 to 45.5 percent in 2016.
- Tannehill still needs development when it comes to judging coverages on deep passes—there's a rogue element of his game that he may never be able to shake. But he has the athletic talent to be one of the league's best passers, and with Gase on board, expect to see continued increases in efficiency and accuracy over the next few seasons.
