WIN!
And win when it counts.
A string of 3 or 4 games where he plays above average to good will not do it. I have seen him do that twice, only to follow it up with poor play for several games.
He really just needs to do two things to take his game and this team to the next level. If he would..........
1. Get the ball out. Stop taking sacks every other play. Yea yea OL OL OL OL. Plenty of those sacks were on the OL. But, quite a few were due to Tannehill not having a clue how to manipulate the pocket, avoid rushers, and being indecisive when it comes to his reads. Get the damn ball out. There were plenty of instances where Tannehill had ample time and failed to make a play as well.
2. Start hitting that deep ball. If Tannehill would just connect on a few more of these it will force the opposing defense to respect his ability to hurt them deep down the field. This will open EVERYTHING up for our offense. Hitting the deep ball would result in several more points per game both directly, because of connecting on a long TD, and indirectly, because it will open up the rest of the offense so much.
If Tannehill could just do those two things he could be good. But, I am not sure he can do those two things. I love how so many people assume these aspects of his game will magically evolve. We will see. I do not think throwing a good deep ball is something that will just happen with practice. We shall see.
But, the bottom line is Tannehill needs to win for me to have any faith in him at this point. And as I said, it will take more than just a few decent games in a row. I am not suggesting that he must play well every single game, nobody does that. But, he needs to play well in 12 of 16. That gives us a great chance to win 10 with our defense.
Tannehill's problem is that even his best games do not register in the amazing range. His best games fall into the above average or good range for an NFL QB. This is why we fail to score 30 points. You just can not win that way. With a defense as good as ours it is a shame we do not at least make the playoffs. The efforts of our defense is completely wasted because we can not consistently score in the mid 20's with the occasional 30 point game. It just does not happen. Look at all of the games we would have won last season if we had scored 24 in every game.
Tannehill's best games are above average. He is good for 2 or 3 of them each year over the last two seasons.
His good games are average for NFL standards. Even those games we win most of them because of our defense.
His average games are below average for NFL standards. The sad thing is that because of how good our defense was, we win a good portion of these
His below average games are poor games for NFL standards. We lost a lot of games that we could have easily won if he had just played average for his standards. These are the killers. These are the games he mixes in way too often.
Tannehill gives you 3 or 4 of each of those type of games each season. And that is why this team has not won the last 2 years. He needs to be consistent. I do not need him to be one of the best 10 QBs in the league. If he were just in the upper half and played consistent football, this team would be a contender. Alex Smith would have won a ton of games with this defense last season.
But, hell if Tannehill would just do the two things I started this post with, he likely would be a top 10 QB. He does several other things well already. He is not terrible at anything other than those 2 aspects. He throws a great 10-15 yard out. He could improve down the middle, but I think hitting those deep throws would open the middle up for him much more and give him good targets.
So if Tannehill is going to earn my trust back he needs to win. If the defense plays as well as it did last season, anything short of a 10 win season is a disgrace. Im starting to think this defense could be even better than last seasons. If it is, they may carry us to the playoffs unless Tannehill starts throwing more INTs.
