Do we have too many holes in the rowboat?

[fyo]

I agree.  The decision would be whether to move on from Tannehill in favor of a first-round QB who would be mentored by a cheaper stopgap.

There is absolutely no chance Tannehill doesn't start next year, barring injury.

That said, let's assume the coaching staff wanted to move on from Tannehill. Even in that situation, I would argue that it makes more sense to eat Tannehill's $20 million cap hit. Cutting him would only cut it in half (whereas you could do it for $4.6 million in dead money the following year) and you can't bring in a replacement for substantially less. Plus, Tannehill knows the system and the coaches -- and even if you weren't satisfied with him, you could hope that staying in the same system for only the second time in his career might be improve his production.

[Dolfanalyst]

There is absolutely no chance Tannehill doesn't start next year, barring injury.

That said, let's assume the coaching staff wanted to move on from Tannehill. Even in that situation, I would argue that it makes more sense to eat Tannehill's $20 million cap hit. Cutting him would only cut it in half (whereas you could do it for $4.6 million in dead money the following year) and you can't bring in a replacement for substantially less. Plus, Tannehill knows the system and the coaches -- and even if you weren't satisfied with him, you could hope that staying in the same system for only the second time in his career might be improve his production.

That's a good point, in that the cheaper stopgap mentor QB probably wouldn't cost less than the cap savings of cutting Tannehill in 2017.  You might as well let Tannehill be the stopgap mentor, and cut him the following year, if that's the way you decided to move forward.

Now the question becomes, do you draft a first-round QB, or do you stick with someone who, now for five years as an NFL starter, and across three head coaches, four offensive coordinators, and lots of different surrounding player personnel, hasn't done anything over the course of any one season that could be considered significantly above average.

I think you draft a QB in the first round.  You can't afford to keep sitting around hoping Tannehill will someday play at the level needed to be most likely to be highly competitive in the league, while he continues to tell you, year after year, and across many varying situations, that he's incapable of that.

At some point you have to stop letting Ryan Tannehill drive the bus on the whole organization.  Right now there's a supposed "QB whisperer" earning a ton of money to coax as much potential out of Ryan Tannehill as possible, and he's still playing at an average level.

When do you finally get to the point when you conclude that Tannehill is the issue, and not his surroundings?

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

From what I have been reading (in articles about Jimmy G trade value) it is a very weak qb class.

[fyo]

From what I have been reading (in articles about Jimmy G trade value) it is a very weak qb class.

That could work both ways, though. Miami isn't going to draft near the top, so quantity is better than quality for the Dolphins. Additionally, it's not like teams are infallible at predicting good/great quarterbacks

[Baba Booey]

I agree.  The decision would be whether to move on from Tannehill in favor of a first-round QB who would be mentored by a cheaper stopgap.

That's not happening either, he is their guy. This is why nobody takes your posts seriously especially when you talk about Tannehill and write these novels multiple times a day about how much you dislike him and he stinks. He has had his best year yet with the ole eyeball test, he has a head coach who lets him audible and change plays and he has played great at times. They aren't going to blow it up in year 2 of this head coaches tenure and bring in a rookie and start the process over now and wait a couple years till the rookie QB is up to speed to make a run. This is a borderline playoff team that needs some fixing on defense. They aren't gonna start over at QB.

[BuccaneerBrad]

Forget a hole in the rowboat. What happened today was the iceberg gouging a hole in the Titanic

[Pappy13]

Put the gun down, it's not as bad as you think. There will be some rust, but I expect Moore to play well enough to keep Miami in the next 2 games.

[Dolfanalyst]

Put the gun down, it's not as bad as you think. There will be some rust, but I expect Moore to play well enough to keep Miami in the next 2 games.

It could really go either way.  If Moore continues his typical interception rate, he could very well lose these games primarily himself.  If he turns that around, the Dolphins do have a chance.

What needs to happen here is that the team needs to get together and tell Moore that the game isn't riding on his shoulders, and not to play as though it is.  The team needs to allow Moore to have a game manager role, where they take on the onus for winning the game, which will then let Moore play more conservatively and protect the ball.

[fyo]

The Dolphins will need to change character because of this. Tannehill is one of the most accurate downfield passers in the league. He's completed 42% of passes going 21+ yards in the air this season. Yesterday's opponent, Palmer, has completed 17%. A guy like Brady? 36%. Alex Smith 24%. Aaron Rodgers 26%. Eli Manning 39%. Cam Newton 26%. Flacco 23%.

Andrew Luck is an accurate player, matching Tannehill's 42%, but those guys are few and far between.

Derek Carr was the most accurate I could find, hitting a massive 49% of deep throws. He does have significantly fewer of the deepest throws (41+), but he's clearly extremely accurate down the field. Carr followed by Matt Ryan (48%) and Russel Wilson at 46%. I could (easily) have missed a few, though.

The upcoming schedule is... interesting. The Jets have the league's worst defense against the pass (going by FootballOutsiders), but the second best defense against the run. They are soft once you get to the second level, but without a credible passing threat that's going to be tough to exploit. Matt Moore played okay in 2011, but it's been 5 years...

Buffalo is actually presents a better matchup for the Dolphins in many ways. Their defensive front has been pushed around all season and their defense against the pass is poor as well.

[Dolfanalyst]

The Dolphins will need to change character because of this. Tannehill is one of the most accurate downfield passers in the league. He's completed 42% of passes going 21+ yards in the air this season. Yesterday's opponent, Palmer, has completed 17%. A guy like Brady? 36%. Alex Smith 24%. Aaron Rodgers 26%. Eli Manning 39%. Cam Newton 26%. Flacco 23%.

Andrew Luck is an accurate player, matching Tannehill's 42%, but those guys are few and far between.

Derek Carr was the most accurate I could find, hitting a massive 49% of deep throws. He does have significantly fewer of the deepest throws (41+), but he's clearly extremely accurate down the field. Carr followed by Matt Ryan (48%) and Russel Wilson at 46%. I could (easily) have missed a few, though.

The upcoming schedule is... interesting. The Jets have the league's worst defense against the pass (going by FootballOutsiders), but the second best defense against the run. They are soft once you get to the second level, but without a credible passing threat that's going to be tough to exploit. Matt Moore played okay in 2011, but it's been 5 years...

Buffalo is actually presents a better matchup for the Dolphins in many ways. Their defensive front has been pushed around all season and their defense against the pass is poor as well.

Moore was 36% in 2011, the last time he played a significant sample of games in a season.

The deal with these downfield passes, though, is that you have to factor in how often they occur, because when you're talking about the difference between let's say 36% and 42%, you may be talking about just one more completed downfield pass per game (if that), and then you have to ask yourself what the impact of that on winning truly is, if any.

[fyo]

Moore was 36% in 2011, the last time he played a significant sample of games in a season.

The deal with these downfield passes, though, is that you have to factor in how often they occur, because when you're talking about the difference between let's say 36% and 42%, you may be talking about just one more completed downfield pass per game (if that), and then you have to ask yourself what the impact of that on winning truly is, if any.

And that's the reason I didn't split it up in 10-yard segments like ESPN does. As for your example, it's exaggerating things. The quarterbacks who have the highest completion percentages downfield also have more throws downfield. The actual effect isn't 6 percentage points (as per your example), but less than half that (2.8 for Tannehill).

In any event, you do have a point that NFL provides very few datapoints for most analysis. The numbers underlying pretty much every statistic we tout are shaky at best. Even something like Tannehill's total season passer rating. If you flip that one pass last week that Parker had taken away in the endzone, Tannehill's season passer rating jumps 2.5 points, from 93.5 to 96. That's on just one pass. If Stills doesn't slip on the comeback yesterday and catches the ball (assuming no YAC), Tannehill's season passer rating jumps 1.4 points.

Interceptions and touchdowns are particularly vulnerable to uncertainty due to small population sizes. Touchdowns happen on only about 5% of all passes and interceptions on about half that. Interceptions are likely even more uncertain than raw numbers imply due to the nature of the plays involved (tipped passes, slips or wrong routes by receivers, quarterback hits, etc). Then there's the big tight end (or receiver) in the endzone effect, highlighting a player type Miami hasn't succeeded in establishing in many, many years.

[masterfins]

Moore is a veteran QB, with plenty of starting experience, he WILL perform well against teams like the Jets and Bills.  Yes he's a bit rusty, and it's a semi short week, with a cold night game against the Jets; but he is better than some of the starting QB's in this league.  The Dolphins WILL win 10 games this season, they WILL make the playoffs.

[Dolfanalyst]

And that's the reason I didn't split it up in 10-yard segments like ESPN does. As for your example, it's exaggerating things. The quarterbacks who have the highest completion percentages downfield also have more throws downfield. The actual effect isn't 6 percentage points (as per your example), but less than half that (2.8 for Tannehill).

In any event, you do have a point that NFL provides very few datapoints for most analysis. The numbers underlying pretty much every statistic we tout are shaky at best. Even something like Tannehill's total season passer rating. If you flip that one pass last week that Parker had taken away in the endzone, Tannehill's season passer rating jumps 2.5 points, from 93.5 to 96. That's on just one pass. If Stills doesn't slip on the comeback yesterday and catches the ball (assuming no YAC), Tannehill's season passer rating jumps 1.4 points.

Interceptions and touchdowns are particularly vulnerable to uncertainty due to small population sizes. Touchdowns happen on only about 5% of all passes and interceptions on about half that. Interceptions are likely even more uncertain than raw numbers imply due to the nature of the plays involved (tipped passes, slips or wrong routes by receivers, quarterback hits, etc). Then there's the big tight end (or receiver) in the endzone effect, highlighting a player type Miami hasn't succeeded in establishing in many, many years.

Right, but if you make those sorts of corrections (the bolded portion) for every quarterback in the league, now the average QB rating in the league is higher, and Tannehill's jump from 93.5 to 96 is meaningless as a measure of how he compares to the league norm.

[fyo]

Right, but if you make those sorts of corrections (the bolded portion) for every quarterback in the league, now the average QB rating in the league is higher, and Tannehill's jump from 93.5 to 96 is meaningless as a measure of how he compares to the league norm.

The point wasn't to make them to Tannehill or anyone else, the point was to illustrate (as you were trying to do with completion percentage for long throws) that even a single throw can significantly shift the numbers, which implies a large degree of uncertainty.

[fyo]

Moore is a veteran QB, with plenty of starting experience, he WILL perform well against teams like the Jets and Bills.  Yes he's a bit rusty, and it's a semi short week, with a cold night game against the Jets; but he is better than some of the starting QB's in this league.  The Dolphins WILL win 10 games this season, they WILL make the playoffs.

I like your optimism. I felt like throwing up after the game and still haven't quite recovered. I can't even begin to feel how Tannehill feels (or the guys on the team or the coaches).