I find it a little funny that back in January 2013 I said that Tannehill in some regards reminded me of David Woodley because of how often he chose to leave the pocket/run and his bouts of inacurracy.
For the good part of the last three years to me it's been pretty clear that he has been coached to try and stick in the pocket as long as possible to aid his development as a passer. Sometimes it seems to have paid off when he is making progressions in the pocket and great accurate throws, while on the other hand it also seems at times it has gotten him mugged enough to the point where he is jumpy and making some poor decisions.
If Tannehill is getting hit too much I think it's time to let him run, if that means more designed rollouts then so be it. That said, at least for the first three games I thought Albert & Tunsil did a pretty good job of protecting his blind side, so all of the hits and pressures he should have seen coming his way.
My take on the Tannehill situation is a bit different, in that it seems to me that he's relatively incapable of surveying his targets and surveying the pass rush simultaneously.
So when he's surveying his targets, which he's supposed to do, he's much more susceptible to pressure than the average QB because he isn't surveying the pass rush at the same time. It's almost as if he lacks peripheral vision.
And that was rather generous on my part. If I were to put it bluntly, I'd say he's more susceptible to pressure than almost
all QBs, because when I watch even the average
college QB, they seem much better at "multi-tasking" in this way.
So, to apply this to your theory above, it wouldn't really matter if he had been coached to stay in the pocket, because he would have to be coached to do the opposite -- i.e., run immediately (or, ironically, "roll out") -- to overcome this problem.
Certainly he isn't being coached to "stay in the pocket and be oblivious to pressure," yet it seems that's what he's doing, due to this deficiency on his part.
I think he's also poor at situational awareness and anticipating pressure. For example, in down and distance situations in which there is likely to be increased pressure, he seems to have no more an impetus to move from the pocket more quickly after the snap. It's as if he's treating a down and distance situation in which there is likely to be a
heavy pass rush, as a down and distance situation in which there is likely to be a
light pass rush.
So, when you combine poor
anticipation of pressure, with poor
awareness and evasion of pressure, you have someone who is extremely susceptible to pressure and really isn't playing the quarterback position the way it's supposed to be played. You have someone with an arm and that's about it.
Tannehill to me is like the equivalent of putting a track star at wide receiver. The track star has only one trait that's valuable at the wide receiver position --
speed. Likewise, Tannehill has but one trait that's valuable at the quarterback position --
an arm.
Playing the quarterback position well requires a much bigger repertoire of skills. An arm alone won't cut it.
Notice this discussion was started by someone who wants him to "roll out more." Why? Because that solves the problem of Tannehill's I'm alluding to above. If he rolls out immediately, he no longer has to survey his targets and the pass rush simultaneously. He's now free of the pass rush and can survey his targets exclusively.
But, that comes at a high cost, as I've said previously in the thread.
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