Unconquered

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Nole by birth in a Nole family, and a Floridian. I have, however, spend the last 25 years in Texas and went to Texas A&M and have heavy roots here now. I'm more than familar with TAMU and FSU... an extremely rare breed.

For what it's worth - I've been to just about every Ryan Tannehill home game (@ Kyle Field, TAMU) for his career.. and the last 25 years at that.. having season tickets every year since 1987.)... and of course watched the rest on TV/Video. So I've seen a LOT of Ryan Tannehill.

Also, let me admit first, I am a FSU homer and a TAMU homer both... so I'm biased as much as anyone else. FSU is in my blood and family history, TAMU is in my latter years and my Alma Mater. Yes, it's easy having "2 loves" when they hardly play and are basically in 2 different circles...

This leads me to Ryan Tannehill.

Before I "explain", I need to debunk some basic sillyness I read everywhere -

1. I would NOT consider Tannehill a high first round pick, but a late first isn't a stretch due to his upside (see below).
2. Recognize the QB position is different than most, and QB's ALWAYS go higher than they might otherwise go.
3. Anyone that thinks Ponder deserved that first round and Tannehill doesn't, is punch drunk stupid full of fandom.

To those that say stupid things like - "Tannehill couldn't even beat out Jerrod Johnson before him". Wrong. Jerrod Johnson was highly touted and higher classed (age-year) than Tannehill, and had a lot of time spent on him before Coach Mike Sherman even got hired by TAMU. Tannehill is/WAS a very talented receiver in addition to his QB skills and was used as such. Did you know that Tannehill was actually behind BOTH Stephen McGee (Dallas Cowboys) and Jerrod Johnson? And yes, Tannehill did beat out Johnson - Sherman benched Johnson (and all that investement) in his senior year for the younger and totally unproven Tannehill. We also need to remember that Stephen McGee was _very_ good at TAMU, touted early as a Heisman candidate and is currently loved by the Cowboys whom drafted him. Tannehill was later pre-season heisman touted after only one full year of football at QB. It's not like he came out of nowhere on the radar.... people noticed him fast.

Tannehill was on a major fasttrack to be Texas A&M's leading receiver "of all time" (we're talking over a 100 years of football here) before he was moved to QB... and despite not even playing QB the last 2 years, he STILL ended up on the top-5 charts of all time.... trust me when I say it was a no-brainer than he would have ended up #1... for whatever that's worth. You might think this a small stat, but you have to look at this guy's overall athletic talent and what he did during those years he wasn't a QB.. he was the team's #1 receiver (by a mile), not just some guy sitting on the bench holding a clipboard.

Ponder has/had no deep ball and couldn't stay healthy ever... yet people touted him so much "for his brains". Great.... but did you realize Tannehill has a massive deep ball, stays healthy, AND he graduated early in BIOLOGY and is on track to be an Orthopedic Surgeon after his career? That's not a "General Music" degree... and Texas A&M is an AAU school to boot.

Now, to the "real" meat of the matter - how good is he REALLY?

a. Tannehill is a good scrambler and is a pocket thread due to his experience as a wide receiver. He's quick.
b. Tannehill has a great deep ball, quick release, excellent arm strength
c. Tannehill is more accurate than most graduating college - dude's VERY accurate. Very.
d. Tannehill had an "average" line most of his career, and good tailbacks, but he had poor receivers that dropped an unbelieveable amount of balls. TAMU's defense the last 10 years has also been bad to horrible in ranking, which has done his offense no favors causing him to have to "push it" more than many other QB's. Let's not predend he's been on "great teams".

Things I think are "bad" about Tannehill if being honest?

a. He was horrible in his final home game, against Texas in their hyped final meeting. Blew the game all on his own. Sherman obviously got fired for it, and deserved blame too... but together those 2 guys had their heads up their collective arses that day. It's just the truth.

b. Defensive reads - Iffy on this.

c. He has to improve his anticipation and "natural head clock" on getting rid of the ball or leaving the pocket. He's average on this. To his defense, he was a college QB just a couple of years and did improve rapidly in that time.

BOTTOM LINE -

Honestly - Is he a worthy of the #8 pick?

Debatable. You have to take into account the team that drafted him's needs (Miami), and that the "top" QB's always go higher than "the other QB's"... as many franchises live and die on that position alone. Could the Dolphins traded down a few spots, and still got him? Maybe, nobody knows if Miami felt threatened on losing him to another team... and by how much. Look at what Cleveland did by trading up one spot just to make sure they didn't lose their first pick choice.

Can he start tomorrow? Not a good idea, he needs learning time. He has tremendous upside.. tremendous..... but with only a few years of real experience playing QB behind him, he really could benefit to development time. It's no secret that his college coach his is NFL coach, which benefits him... and of course helped him get drafted where he did.

And let's not forget... while he may or not be a NFL quality receiver (also debatable), he was one heck of one in College. He was ice.

- Russ