We get so many post in this forum about how Tannehill is bad or good or inconsistent. It bothers me because when I watch Tannehill play I generally see the same guy every game, a very good but not elite QB. So I've been looking at his stats to try and figure out if there is some kind of leading indicator to tell us when he is going to play poorly. I looked at all kinds of things but it turns out the answer was very simple. With a non elite QB like Tannehill you really want to manage the number of times he's putting the ball in the air. A perfect example of this is Russell Wilson, super bowl winning QB. The league average number of attempts per game has since 2012 (Wilson and Tannehill's rookie seasons) has been right around 35 attempts per game. Wilson averages 26.53 ATT per game and has a career passer rating of 98. Tannehill is right at the league average of 35 with a career passer rating of 84.4. So is Wilson really that much better? Can Tannehill ever lead a team to the super bowl? Well look what happens when you split Tannehill's stats by attempts.
When Tannehill throws the ball
35 time or more;
40 TD
40 INT
265 Yards per Game and a passer rating of
77.08. Not very good.
However, when Tannehill throws the ball
34 times or less (but at least 10 times to ensure that he played the majority of the game);
36 TD
11 INT
217 Yards per Game and a passer rating of
95.66.
That's not quite as good as Wilson but still excellent and good enough for a
75% win percentage. When he throws the ball 35 times or more our win percentage plummets to
23.3%.
So to me there are no more mysteries, if the Dolphins want to win throw the ball less!
