Report: Joe Philbin wanted to replace Dolphins’ Tannehill

There are always bits of news that float to the surface after a coach has been fired. In the case of the Miami Dolphins that bit of news surfaced today when it was reported that Joe Philbin wanted to get rid of Ryan Tannehill.

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Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald details some of this in his blog and is the only reporting it. Salguero outlines, in detail how things unraveled for Philbin or in this case unraveled for his belief in the quarterback that many believed was his choice in 2012.

According to this interesting report, Philbin blamed the offensive woes not on Mike Sherman but on Ryan Tannehill and was hoping to replace Tannehill in 2014 with Derek Carr in round one and not Ja’Wuan James. Despite the fact that Philbin was publicly supporting Tannehill it now appears that he wasn’t giving him the support internally.

Miko Grimes, the wife of Brent Grimes had said that there were two sides in the locker room. Those that supported Tannehill and those that didn’t. She didn’t claim there was more on one side or the other but it was insinuated that there were more on the “con” side. Apparently, maybe, Philbin was one of them.

If this is indeed true, then Tannehill would never have succeeded in Miami under Philbin and Lazor. It also quantifies the reasons that Tannehill was never allowed to audible and furthermore it increases the reality that Tannehill wasn’t used to the best of his abilities but instead almost forced to play a style that wasn’t his. IE…standing in the pocket.

Now I’m not saying Tannehill is a great quarterback or will become one but if the head coach, who obviously was oblivious to actually coaching his team wasn’t supporting his quarterback than who else would have. In fact in light of this, I would say that Tannehill’s ability to throw for over 4,000 yards two years in a row is somewhat impressive given the lack of faith from the coach. The next question is whether or not Philbin or Lazor bothered to work with Tannehill at all. Was this something that was left solely to Zac Taylor?

Most of what Salguero is saying occurred between the 2013 and 2014 seasons and then beyond. He brings up the lack of support from Philbin heading into the game against Oakland in London. Following the London game, Tannehill started to get better but Philbin still didn’t rally around the quarterback.

"“when the Dolphins hired Dan Marino and Marino seemed to get close to Tannehill, Philbin resented it. He wanted only offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and QB coach Zac Taylor in Tannehill’s ear.” – from Armando’s blog."

The article is a very interesting read. On one hand, Philbin could have been 100% right about Tannehill and he will never develop but on the other hand, his desire to blame Tannehill, a player that he and Mike Sherman wanted the team to draft, in order to save Sherman’s job can also be viewed as detrimental to Tannehill’s development. Either way, given the infighting that Philbin engaged in with Joe Philbin and then Dawn Aponte, one thing has become clearer. Joe Philbin was a horrible leader and a horrible coach. It almost seems as though his friendship with Sherman was more important than his duties to the team.