Ryan Tannehill

Ryan Tannehill has run out of excuses for his poor play

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:06 p.m. ET

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Dieter Kurtenbach

The Miami Dolphins are now 1-3 on the season, meaning that the playoffs are a pipe dream and the endless rebuild in South Florida will extend for at least another year.

It might be longer, because at some point, the Dolphins are going to have to face reality and realize that Ryan Tannehill isn’t a winning quarterback.

We’ve already seen what Tannehill is all about this season, and the Dolphins’ Thursday night loss to the Bengals was just more proof that Tannehill, in his fifth season in the NFL, doesn’t have what it takes.

The Dolphins are a bad team, even if they have a few excellent players. Adam Gase might be the best young offensive mind in the NFL, but it’s going to take him a lot of time to fix what ails the Dolphins.

He can start by addressing the quarterback position.

Tannehill has all the athletic ability and arm talent a quarterback could want — there’s not a throw he can’t make — but there’s so much more to being an NFL quarterback. Success is dictated by smarts, not brawn. 

The excuses for Tannehill are plentiful: His receivers drop a lot of passes, his offensive line is a sieve, and the best one — he’s played for three offensive coordinators in five years.

All of these things are factual, but they’re smokescreens.

Yes, the Miami receivers dropped passes Thursday night — every team deals with drops.

And yes, the Miami offensive line looked terrible against the Bengals’ impressive defensive line Thursday.

But then there are throws like this:

The protection was good and the defense was static and in a zone, but Tannehill stared down his primary receiver like he just said something bad about his momma. This is some high school-level stuff — what did Tannehill think was going to be the outcome of this play?

That’s Tannehill’s game in a nutshell — if the throw is easy and everything works out just right, he’ll make the play (most of the time). If he has to make a play — to rise above the fray in a tough or critical situation — he’s woefully out of his depth. Notice the wide-open running back in the middle of the field on this play — Tannehill has to be aware of him, despite the poor offensive line play.

A good quarterback recognizes the defense (the Bengals rarely blitzed Thursday) and makes that throw. And it's throws like that which win games.

But Tannehill can’t win games, and the Dolphins aren’t good enough to cover up that deficiency.

Or, in other words: Tannehill isn’t the Dolphins’ only problem, but he’s proving this season that he’s not part of the solution.

The Bengals aren’t even the best defense in the NFL, but they made Tannehill look like a rookie (and not a good one, like Carson Wentz or Dak Prescott). It got to the point Thursday where Bengals linebacker Karlos Dansby was literally stealing plays Tannehill called at the line of scrimmage. 

Tannehill had one play of worth Thursday night, and it was available only because of woefully broken coverage by the Bengals. It resulted in a 74-yard touchdown to Kenny Stills on the second snap of the game.

From there on out, Tannehill was spun. Outside of that one gimme touchdown, he was 2 of 8 for 9 yards in the first half and 14 of 24 for 115 yards, with that interception, in the game.

That’s not an offensive coordinator problem, that’s a player issue. Look back on the film — more often than not, even with poor offensive line play, there were open receivers to be found. Tannehill had no idea where they were.

That lack of awareness is absolutely unacceptable for a starting quarterback in the NFL. It’s even more unacceptable considering that Tannehill is one of the best-paid players in the league.

Gase, the first-year head coach, has been quick to bench Dolphins who aren’t getting the job done on the field. That’s the standard he wants to set in Miami — if you’re not performing, you’re not playing.

How long can he keep Tannehill out on the field?

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Ryan Tannehill

Kenny Stills

Cincinnati Bengals

Miami Dolphins

National Football League