He can be a very good starting qb..... I think your nitpicking, and ignoring alot of the positives....especially the oozing talent. No one said he was a finished product that will be ready day 1. You could make a very similar argument about Griffin.
I don't see the elite player of which you speak. Who is it ? If we view Tannehill as a very good starting QB in the future.... who is there that we just cant pass up for him ? Let's look at the big picture, the situation in its entirety. Blackmon, Richardson, and Claiborne wont be there.
Your proposing we pass on him for a sure thing at a far less valuable postion. You say BPA, i say its reaching for another need. This is the exact mentality that folks have been bitching about. Playing it safe, not showing any stones. You should know the draft is about Value. We're not settled at QB. Sure Decastro and Keuchly will be studs... Rieff will be good... but @ #8 you dont take a Guard or MLB, or RT, no matter how good they are. Floyd is Marshall all over again, doesnt fit the offensive philoshiphy. If they like Tannehill, theres not going to be a player there to make them re-consider.
Not entirely sure where to start here as a lot went haywire in your post.
We'll start off with Griffin. I've never insinuated that Griffin was an elite player. Ever. Not since he's been at Baylor.
As a matter of fact, I've always viewed Tannehill as the better NFL quarterback prospect. Griffin is the better college player - Tannehill projects better to the NFL. But that don't make him a franchise quarterback. Hell, I knew Chad Henne projected better to the NFL than Pat White did, but that didn't mean I viewed Henne as a franchise quarterback. It's a matter of taking the prospect's floor into account based on fundamentals rather than ceiling based in upside.
There's 5 elite talents in this draft. Luck, Richardson, Claiborne, DeCastro, and Kuechly. There's another tier of prospects just below this that fall into a borderline elite category.
One or more of those 5 elite talents will be available for Miami at #8. Riley Reiff doesn't belong in either of those categories so I'm not sure where you're going with that one.
Nor am I nitpicking Ryan Tannehill, I'm evaluating him... and I do based on a set of fundamentals both within the system he played in, and a seperate set of fundamentals that validate his potential. There's nothing being ignored, that I'll guarantee you.
BPA is not reaching for need, it's acquiring talent. If I feel like a player is a franchise quarterback, I won't pass him up. I don't consider every college kid that the talking heads hype up as franchise material as being precisely that. Most of it is driven by marketing groups and sports agents.... that's how you end up with Blaine Gabberts coming off the board early, when I know damn well better than to subscribe to that.
The draft isn't about value, it's about acquiring TALENT, particularly in the top 10 of the draft. A quarterback is only as valuable as his skillset makes him. An average quarterback prospect isn't worth more than an elite talent at less valuable position.
The problem is a lot of people go from one extreme to the other among "playing it safe" and "showing some stones". They miss all of the space in between.
Michael Floyd isn't Brandon Marshall all over again. One of the biggest components of running a WCO is having a receiver who can immediately defeat the jam at the LOS in order to get the 3-step passing game going. There's no receiver in this draft better at that than Michael Floyd. If they want him at #8, it's a better pick than reaching for Tannehill.
The people making the decisions should absolutely take Ryan Tannehill in the top 10 if they're convinced for some reason that he's a franchise quarterback. Hell, they better take Barrett Trotter or a one-legged rodeo clown in the top 10 if they're convinced he's a franchise quarterback.
My point is,
I'm not conviced he's a franchise quarterback. Therefore I'd pass and feel pretty good about this one. It has nothing to do with what they're subject to do.
Jeff Ireland and myself don't necessarily seem to see eye-to-eye when it comes to personnel, never have. I'm not expecting it to start a few weeks from now.