NFL executives believe Dolphins’ Ryan Tannehill sucks

The Miami Dolphins starting quarterback can’t get any love from the media and now he isn’t getting any love from league executives.

According to ESPN, the network who loves to hate all things Miami Dolphins, Ryan Tannehill ranks 27th out of NFL quarterbacks putting him clearly in the lower third of the league.

Mike Sando, nope never heard of him either, has done his 5th annual quarterback rankings and he says he is “backed by a panel of 50 league insiders” to come to his rankings.

Sando says that he has 10 general managers, five quarterback coaches, and 10 others who range from assistant coach to analytics director. And they all come to the conclusion that they have no faith in Ryan Tannehill.

This quote however makes me really scratch my head.

"Because the fourth tier is reserved not only for lesser veteran quarterbacks but also for those without enough playing time to evaluate, exciting young prospects can lag in the rankings. Patrick Mahomes (one career start) is one example this year. Many voters who placed him in the fourth tier think he’ll be better, but they reserved judgment in the absence of sufficient evidence."

Tannehill is ranked on the lowest end of the tier three list one spot ahead of Sam Bradford coming in second to last. Tier four starts with Mitch Trubisky and Josh McCown who will be replaced by Sam Darnold at some point this year. Tannehill is one spot below Jaguars QB Blake Bortles.

In the previous four rankings, Tannehill came in at 23 in 2014, 17 in 2015, 24 in 2016, and 22 in 2017. Sando makes a point that Tannehill’s QBR rating, an ESPN ranking system, has been below 50 all but 2014.

In 2016 Tannehill was having his best season as a pro under new head coach Adam Gase but he tore his ACL/MCL in a late season game against the Cardinals. The Dolphins would make the playoffs but it would be Matt Moore who would lead them.

Tannehill and the team opted not to repair the knee surgically and he tore it more during training camp missing the entire 2017 season while recovering.

Understandably the scope of visual evidence on Tannehill is slim since Adam Gase joined the team. There are 13 games under Gase so it’s hard to tell if what was happening in 2016 was a turning point for Tannehill or as the above stated, “just a level off”.

A lot depends on what Tannehill does in camp and how quickly he gets back into playing speed. Then of course the Gase offensive system will come into play. One thing that isn’t getting Tannehill much love is the knee.

Tannehill isn’t the first player to tear an ACL/MCL and come back. In this modern-era of sports, most athletes come back without much hinderance but for some reason, Tannehill isn’t put into that same category of optimism. In fact a recent NFL article did not have Tannehill among the potential comeback players for 2018. Yet another slight.

At the top of tier 3 is Kirk Cousins, Alex Smith, and Eli Manning. The trio come in at 15th, 16th, and 17th respectively which shows that ESPN’s third tier is rather large with 18 total quarterbacks.

If Tannehill proves them wrong you can bet they won’t say much about it but they surely will let you know how right they are. The above information comes from the ESPN Insiders membership. The link provided to the article above is only viewable for the first tier without a membership.

Note:  original post contained quotes about Tannehill from unnamed sources in the ESPN article. They have been removed due to the firewall for the article.