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In a recent ranking of all 32 quarterbacks in the NFL, Tennessee Titans signal-caller Ryan Tannehill landed in the bottom half of the league.
On top of having Tannehill ranked No. 18 out of 32 starting quarterbacks, Cory Kinnan of Browns Wire also placed the Texas A&M product in the “Kirk Cousins clones” tier of quarterbacks, stating the following:
The Titans’ roster is terrible. Their skill players are abysmal outside of running back Derrick Henry, and maybe second-year wide receiver Treylon Burks. But even that is still to be seen. While Tannehill’s numbers won’t hit that of Goff’s, his athletic ceiling pushes him above.
Tannehill though, like Goff, has proven only to be productive within a heavy play-action scheme. He can give you a bit more when the pocket breaks down, but there is reason to believe his best football is behind him.
Swap Goff and Tannehill if you want. I might later.
Truth be told, the only real issue I have with his statement is his assessment of the Titans’ roster as a whole.
No one is pretending this team is a Super Bowl favorite or anything of that nature, but too many people exaggerate the Titans’ holes because they ended the season on a seven-game losing streak.
Tannehill has shown that he can win a lot of games as long as he has adequate help around him. Obviously, things aren’t ideal at the moment when it comes to the receiver position, but Tennessee is arguably one DeAndre Hopkins signing away from being back in the playoff conversation.
And regardless if that happens or not, you really can’t completely rule out a coaching staff led by Mike Vrabel, an offense built around Derrick Henry, and a defense led by Jeffery Simmons and Kevin Byard.
If you ultimately believe the Titans’ ceiling is limited with Tannehill under center, that’s fair. But to act like the team around him is a bottom-five roster is pretty ignorant.
You can’t exaggerate a seven-game losing streak when the team was ravaged by injuries, while also ignoring their previous six-game winning streak when the team was actually healthy.
And that’s especially true when recent history (2019-22) says the real Titans team is the one that was 7-3 to start the year instead of the one that finished 0-7.
However, at the end of the day, this is a quarterback-driven league, so any team who doesn’t have a star quarterback is often deemed a pretender in the grand scheme of things.
Needless to say, when your quarterback falls into the “Kirk Cousins clones” tier, you’re probably not going be given the benefit of the doubt too often.