So people actually believe that Cutler is gonna throw for over 4000 yards, 27 TD's, and under 12 INT's behind a God awful offensive line coming out of retirement??? I'll take that bet!
Only three quarterbacks had a higher overall accuracy percentage than Tannehill last year, Sam Bradford, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. His numbers aren’t warped by a reliance on shorter throws either. Tannehill was the third-most accurate passer on throws that didn’t travel further than five yards downfield and the eighth-best passer on throws that travelled further than five yards downfield.
Tannehill’s 78.26 percent rating on throws to the 16-20 yard range is notable for a couple reasons.
Firstly, he is only slightly less accurate to that area of the field than Carson Wentz is on throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage. That’s outrageous. Secondly, 22.38 percent (12th in the league) of Tannehill’s throws went into the 11-20 yard range last year. He allows the offense to attack the intermediate level of the defense on a consistent basis.
Intermediate routes are the biggest challenge for quarterbacks to live off of because there is a higher likelihood that a defender is waiting just out of sight to break on the ball before it reaches the intended target. Tannehill being top 10 in accuracy behind the line of scrimmage, in the 1-5 yard range, at one of the intermediate levels and on deep throws means that the defense is being picked apart at every level of the field.
Opposing teams can’t squash the field or sit on routes against Tannehill. They also can’t sit back in coverage and hope for him to miss the easier throws underneath. He keeps the whole field in play on every snap.
Part of the reason Tannehill’s numbers have never reflected his accuracy has been the state of his receiving corps. Unless Davante Parker takes a big step forward the Dolphins won’t have a receiving corps that can carry a subpar starting quarterback. They’re more likely to pull him down with their inconsistency. Tannehill has led the league in interceptions that weren’t his fault in each of the past two seasons. His receivers have been a big part of that.
Turning the ball over isn’t something Tannehill has been prone to over the course of his career. Even while playing under constant pressure and creating big-play opportunities for his teammates, Tannehill has consistently avoided interceptable passes.
Last year he threw an interceptable pass once every 25.93 attempts. That means 3.86 percent of his passes were interceptable, the same number as Drew Brees. Only 12 quarterbacks had a better interceptable pass rate than Tannehill and he was more than two attempts higher than the league average of 23.76 attempts.
These numbers aren’t coming in a system that babies the quarterback. Tannehill has played in three systems in his career. Adam Gase asked him to throw less often because of Jay Ajayi’s emergence and because the previous regime was incomprehensibly put off by running the ball. Throwing the ball less often doesn’t mean a reduced role. Throwing 20 passes to the line of scrimmage each game results in more attempts but less responsibility.
In Gase’s offense, Tannehill threw the ball further than 10 yards downfield 32.58 percent of the time, 17th out of 33 charted quarterbacks. That’s a good spot to be in to create a balanced passing attack.
Without Tannehill the Dolphins would likely become even more reliant on screens. If there’s one legitimate criticism of Gase it’s that he’s overly committed to throwing screen passes. 13.62 percent of Tannehill’s passes were screens last year, second-highest rate in the NFL, but only 8.01 percent of his yards came on screens, 18th-best in the NFL. If the Dolphins became an offense that was reliant on Jay Ajayi and their receivers they wouldn’t win many games.
