From the WSJ:
After last season, the Miami Dolphins decided they were done with Ryan Tannehill. They didn’t have a particularly inspiring plan to replace their longtime quarterback, but they were so sure he wasn’t the answer that they dumped him for a couple of late draft picks.
The Titans entered this year with a quarterback of the future named Marcus Mariota. They left with one named Ryan Tannehill.
Tennessee enters its playoff matchup against the New England Patriots led by one of the most unlikely star turns in the NFL. The most efficient player at the most important position in football somehow began the season on the bench and was cast off by one of the worst teams in football right before that.
By any fathomable metric, Tannehill was unfathomably phenomenal once he took over as Tennessee’s starter. His passer rating, 117.5, was the league’s best. He averaged 9.59 yards per attempt--a full yard better than any other qualifying quarterback. No quarterback in NFL history has ever finished with such a high combination of those two numbers.
He also completed 70.3% of his passes, a remarkable figure that’s made more remarkable by how he has completed 8.1% passes more than expected, based on the NFL’s NextGen stats, which is far and away the highest figure in the league. And this is the same quarterback the Dolphins decided wasn’t good enough for them.
Back in 2012, the Dolphins drafted Tannehill with the No. 8 pick in the draft, and his time there wasn’t so much disappointing as it was unremarkable. He didn’t flame out as an epic bust, but he went 43-49 over seven seasons that were defined by injury, middling teammates and coaches who may have been better if they were replaced by actual dolphins.
So after last year Miami shipped Tannehill, who hadn’t started a full season since 2015, to Tennessee for next to nothing. There, Tannehill was expected to sit behind Mariota, whose career wasn’t especially different. Once a top draft pick, Mariota also struggled with injuries. And when he was healthy, he didn’t always look quite right.
The trade also came at a pivotal point in Mariota’s career, with the Titans needing to decide if they would give him a pricey contract extension or try and move on to someone younger and better. Instead, they found someone older and better.
The Titans started this year 2-4, sent Mariota to the bench and gave Tannehill the nod. He was surrounded by better talent than he ever had in Miami—he had good pass blocking for the first time in his career, not to mention a far better receiving corps.
He also thrived with better offensive scheming that exploits Tannehill’s accuracy and abilities in play action, buoyed by the threat of running back Derrick Henry railroading opposing defenses on any given play. The switch led to a win against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs on a run that ultimately led to a wild-card berth.
Now the Titans face a different question at quarterback: just how much to pay Tannehill going forward. His performance this season is a definitive outlier—both relative to the rest of the league and his own career. But few quarterbacks are ever this good, and there’s reason to believe the changes that underpinned this growth are more sustainable than not.
But that’s a question they can worry about after the season. This Saturday, they have to worry about something else: Tom Brady and the Patriots.
After last season, the Miami Dolphins decided they were done with Ryan Tannehill. They didn’t have a particularly inspiring plan to replace their longtime quarterback, but they were so sure he wasn’t the answer that they dumped him for a couple of late draft picks.
The Titans entered this year with a quarterback of the future named Marcus Mariota. They left with one named Ryan Tannehill.
Tennessee enters its playoff matchup against the New England Patriots led by one of the most unlikely star turns in the NFL. The most efficient player at the most important position in football somehow began the season on the bench and was cast off by one of the worst teams in football right before that.
By any fathomable metric, Tannehill was unfathomably phenomenal once he took over as Tennessee’s starter. His passer rating, 117.5, was the league’s best. He averaged 9.59 yards per attempt--a full yard better than any other qualifying quarterback. No quarterback in NFL history has ever finished with such a high combination of those two numbers.
He also completed 70.3% of his passes, a remarkable figure that’s made more remarkable by how he has completed 8.1% passes more than expected, based on the NFL’s NextGen stats, which is far and away the highest figure in the league. And this is the same quarterback the Dolphins decided wasn’t good enough for them.
Back in 2012, the Dolphins drafted Tannehill with the No. 8 pick in the draft, and his time there wasn’t so much disappointing as it was unremarkable. He didn’t flame out as an epic bust, but he went 43-49 over seven seasons that were defined by injury, middling teammates and coaches who may have been better if they were replaced by actual dolphins.
So after last year Miami shipped Tannehill, who hadn’t started a full season since 2015, to Tennessee for next to nothing. There, Tannehill was expected to sit behind Mariota, whose career wasn’t especially different. Once a top draft pick, Mariota also struggled with injuries. And when he was healthy, he didn’t always look quite right.
The trade also came at a pivotal point in Mariota’s career, with the Titans needing to decide if they would give him a pricey contract extension or try and move on to someone younger and better. Instead, they found someone older and better.
The Titans started this year 2-4, sent Mariota to the bench and gave Tannehill the nod. He was surrounded by better talent than he ever had in Miami—he had good pass blocking for the first time in his career, not to mention a far better receiving corps.
He also thrived with better offensive scheming that exploits Tannehill’s accuracy and abilities in play action, buoyed by the threat of running back Derrick Henry railroading opposing defenses on any given play. The switch led to a win against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs on a run that ultimately led to a wild-card berth.
Now the Titans face a different question at quarterback: just how much to pay Tannehill going forward. His performance this season is a definitive outlier—both relative to the rest of the league and his own career. But few quarterbacks are ever this good, and there’s reason to believe the changes that underpinned this growth are more sustainable than not.
But that’s a question they can worry about after the season. This Saturday, they have to worry about something else: Tom Brady and the Patriots.
