The hype surrounding Ryan Tannehill may be going too far.
The Tennessee Titans quarterback is on a remarkable hot streak in his new offense. The timing couldn’t be better. He’s powering through the playoffs, with help from running back Derrick Henry. That campaign is setting up Tannehill for a profitable free agency. Perhaps that’s why NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal has Tannehill ranked as the No. 2 quarterback headed for the open market. Tannehill was below Dak Prescott and above Drew Brees (No. 3) and Tom Brady (fourth). Yikes.
Here’s what Rosenthal wrote about Tannehill:
“It feels so wrong to rank Tannehill here, above some of the legendary names below. Maybe it is wrong. But Tannehill’s sensational stretch in Tennessee makes him look like an ascending starting quarterback rather than a very short-term solution (like the 40-somethings). The Titans are likely to keep him off the market.”
Tannehill is 31 years old while Brady is 42. Tannehill just beat Brady in the wild-card round of the playoffs. But because of all that, a team will have to make a major commitment of time and money to Tannehill. And the chances are that his future production will fall between his stint in Miami and his tenure in Tennessee. He’ll regress and the contract will turn cumbersome. It’s a false sense of security.
Brady, meanwhile, will likely sign for a short-term deal to finish out his career. Oh, he also has six Super Bowl wins, and he finished as the 11th-best quarterback on Pro Football Focus. He wasn’t brilliant, but he was much better than his counting stats showed.
Tannehill feels like the next Nick Foles, a player who hits his stride at the perfect moment but is almost inevitable to slide after he gets big money.
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