CreepingDeath Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 https://www.footballoutsiders.com/film-room/2019/film-room-ryan-tannehill 05 Dec 2019, 10:41am by Derrik Klassen A winning team is way more fun to discuss and brings more media coverage. This article starts by comparing the similarities of the QBs that have started for the Titans this year. Quote The obvious similarity between the two is how they manage their time in the pocket. Over the course of both of their careers, neither player has been particularly impressive in managing the pocket or understanding that they need to get the ball out on time. Among the 35 quarterbacks with at least 40 games started since 2012 (Tannehill's rookie season), Mariota and Tannehill rank 29th and 30th, respectively, in Pro Football Reference's sack index, which simply accounts for how often a quarterback is sacked relative to league average. In 2019, specifically, Mariota has been sacked on 13.6% of his dropbacks, compared to Tannehill being sacked on 12.0% of his dropbacks. They hold the two worst sack indexes among quarterbacks with at least six starts this season. Along the same lines, Mariota and Tannehill are near-identical in how long they hold the ball on average. Per NFL Next Gen Stats, Mariota's time to throw in 2019 is 2.84 seconds, which ranks 12th-highest among 38 qualifying quarterbacks. Tannehill trails just behind at 2.81 seconds, earning him the 16th-highest mark in a tie with Russell Wilson. Considering Tennessee ranks respectably at 13th in pressure rate, according to Sports Info Solutions (subscription required), it's quite damning of Tennessee's two quarterbacks that they get sacked at the absurd rate that they do. While Tannehill is not elite, I will say that he is making the plays necessary to win games. Click the link, read the article and read about Klassen's opinion as to how Tannehill is better (intermediate passes). There are nice gifs to go along with the analysis. Quote Again, there is nothing new or fancy about any of this. Even without going all the way back to the "glory days" of hard-nosed iso running and heavy-personnel under-center offenses, we can look at the Los Angeles Rams' offense in recent years. Their entire passing identity revolves off of play-action from under center, particularly plays like the two above in which the quarterback throws (almost blindly) to the skinny post cutting over the middle. Though a quarterback doesn't need to be the sharpest to make these plays work, they do need to have fairly impressive arm strength and a quick enough trigger to throw before the linebackers can regain their depth. Tannehill's arm talent and boldness have permeated throughout the rest of his game as well. Per Next Gen Stats, Tannehill throws into tight windows 21% of the time, which is significantly higher than Mariota's 15.1%. Likewise, Tannehill's average depth of target (8.9) is more than a full yard deeper than Mariota's (7.2). Most reasonable people would expect Mariota to have the higher completion percentage given those numbers, but Tannehill's completion percentage is more than 10 points higher. In my opinion, this is the stat that really separates the two QBs. Tannehill is willing to take more chances and it has ripple effects throughout the whole team. -- Personally, I'd be fine with the team sticking with Tannehill going forward. I haven't been persuaded that he is "elite", though. Thrill, and Number9 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post BudsOilers Posted December 6, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 Good read Quote Sometimes fixing a machine is as simple as replacing one faulty gear. Mariota too often sputtered and stalled out for Tennessee's offense to move the ball. Through Week 6, before Tannehill took over, the Titans were 28th in drive success rate and 30th in points per drive. Since the switch to Tannehill, Tennessee ranks fifth and sixth in those same categories. The Titans have also gone from the third-worst three-and-out percentage to the sixth-best. In almost every way, the Titans offense has morphed into one of the league's best not due to exceptional quarterback play or any game-breaking schematic development, but because the system is being executed in a way that it wasn't before. At some point, this absurd run from Tennessee has to come to a stop. Henry can't keep putting up over 150 yards each game and it's tough to imagine Tannehill has suddenly bloomed into an elite quarterback in his eighth professional season. When it does begin to slow down, however, there should be no complaints about them being an average or slightly above average unit. The passing offense under Mariota was anemic in a way that actively held the team back, whereas Tannehill's guidance of the offense at least provides Tennessee the means to compete in every single game. The elite argument aside, one thing that top tier QB's do is execute their piece consistently. Tannehill has absolutely done that. Pineapple Tebow? Not so much. Just more proof that the problem all along was Mariota and that it was completely asinine to wait six real games to fix it. Number9, rns90, big2033, and 2 others 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rns90 Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 Welcome aboard, Football outsiders! OILERMAN, and BudsOilers 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamRamrod Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 We knew going into it that he was going to be as bad as Mariota is at taking sacks. Didn’t know how much he would have improved on deep balls and in clutch situations though. I’m still reserving judgement on him being the QBOTF. He’s been fantastic this season no doubt, but he’s had stretches in the past. 6 games is a small sample size versus the rest of his career. Obviously love what he’s done so far with the Titans. big2033, and Btowner 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreepingDeath Posted December 6, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 3 minutes ago, TeamRamrod said: We knew going into it that he was going to be as bad as Mariota is at taking sacks. Didn’t know how much he would have improved on deep balls and in clutch situations though. I’m still reserving judgement on him being the QBOTF. He’s been fantastic this season no doubt, but he’s had stretches in the past. 6 games is a small sample size versus the rest of his career. Obviously love what he’s done so far with the Titans. From the article: Quote Tannehill's other notable similarity with Mariota is his deep passing. While Tannehill has thrown a few memorable deep passes this year, such as his 40-yard strike to Khalif Raymond last week to stick a dagger into the Colts late in the fourth quarter, the consistency isn't there. In fairness, Tannehill has been a questionable deep passer for his entire career, so it was never the expectation for him to be a high-end deep passer when he took over the reigns. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamRamrod Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 (edited) 6 minutes ago, CreepingDeath said: From the article: He was compared to Mariota for a reason haha. PFF said we traded for Marcus Mariota when we traded for Tannehill. Tannehill is obviously much better, but they had similar traits and weaknesses on paper in the off-season. Edited December 6, 2019 by TeamRamrod CreepingDeath 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supdawg Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 (edited) Saw this earlier. I think it's appropriate for this thread: What sucks is the nosedive the defense has taken in the same period. Imagine if our offense and defense was playing well at the same time? Edited December 6, 2019 by Supdawg CreepingDeath 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callidus Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 7 minutes ago, XanderMXIX said: The defense wasn’t that great. They were just playing scrubs and now we have injuries to go along with that Kill yourself TNTitans, and japan 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post nine Posted December 6, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 People obviously want to draw comparisons between Tannehill and Mariota....but there's really no comparison to be made. Tannehill isn't flawless... but he's playing with confidence and executing the plays as called. By comparison, Mariota had regressed and spiraled downward so dramatically, he effectively rendered the entire offense useless. Mythos27, Callidus, CreepingDeath, and 4 others 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryBoats Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 (edited) 31 minutes ago, nine said: People obviously want to draw comparisons between Tannehill and Mariota....but there's really no comparison to be made. Tannehill isn't flawless... but he's playing with confidence and executing the plays as called. By comparison, Mariota had regressed and spiraled downward so dramatically, he effectively rendered the entire offense useless. Actually Tannehill is exceeding his expected completion % by nearly 10%- the highest in the league by a long shot. So he's executing well beyond what is being schemed for a QB. Both he and Maria's expected completion % were in the low 60s, so while he was bad, the throws required are difficult by NFL standards. The expected completion % under lafluer was 68% , so he was a hell of a lot better at scheming guys open. Edited December 6, 2019 by abc2330 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudsOilers Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 29 minutes ago, nine said: People obviously want to draw comparisons between Tannehill and Mariota....but there's really no comparison to be made. Tannehill isn't flawless... but he's playing with confidence and executing the plays as called. By comparison, Mariota had regressed and spiraled downward so dramatically, he effectively rendered the entire offense useless. He didn't regress. He was doing the same stuff in 2016, 2017, and 2018 but people, including you, blamed the scheme, the coaches, the OL, or skill position players. Now, at times, he played well and the offense produced but far far too often he played poorly and the offense was below average to awful. Justafan, and OILERMAN 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecepticonShawn Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 1 hour ago, Callidus said: Kill yourself That guy is Maker84 part 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supdawg Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, XanderMXIX said: The defense wasn’t that great. They were just playing scrubs and now we have injuries to go along with that LOL, Perhaps you should read this article on EPA. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/8379024/nfl-explaining-expected-points-metric We went from 4th highest in the NFL to about 12th lowest. Edited December 6, 2019 by Supdawg Number9 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsntLifeFunny Posted December 6, 2019 Report Share Posted December 6, 2019 2 hours ago, BudAdams said: Good read The elite argument aside, one thing that top tier QB's do is execute their piece consistently. Tannehill has absolutely done that. Pineapple Tebow? Not so much. Just more proof that the problem all along was Mariota and that it was completely asinine to wait six real games to fix it. This is the truth. It’s not only that Tannehill processes faster, has the better arm, and is overall a better QB; one of the most important factors is that his play thus far has been consistent, even his negatives. We know what we are getting, which makes it much easier for coaches to game plan for, which is totally dissimilar to Mariota where he was so inconsistent game to game and was constantly getting nicked up in-game, forcing in the backup. You can’t coach a system around that. BudsOilers, PhinFan1968, and sunworshipper 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OILERMAN Posted December 7, 2019 Report Share Posted December 7, 2019 Man Mariota has to feel like a bag of shit with eyes watching the offense perform without him Supdawg, and Number9 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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