Ryan Tannehill no longer the Joe Philbin robot

The Miami Dolphins entered the season with big questions about quarterback Ryan Tannehill and many believed that Adam Gase’s mastery of quarterbacks would come up lame with the former 2012 first round pick.

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Under Joe Philbin and Mike Sherman and later Joe Philbin and Bill Lazor, Ryan Tannehill was a robotic quarterback who was rarely allowed to run, never allowed to audible, and was never coached to truly throw deep down field. His best play was and still is by far the rollout pass.

This year something has changed. Ryan Tannehill isn’t posting the numbers that will generate another 4,000 yard passing season. He currently sits at 2,574 yards on the season with five games remaining. He would need to average 285.2 yards in the remaining five weeks to eclipse 4,000 for the 2nd consecutive season. But this Ryan Tannehill isn’t the same quarterback of a year ago.

Tannehill is turning heads with his leadership and the players surrounding him are buying into him. There is a real change in culture blossoming in Miami and Tannehill’s leap forward has a lot to do with that. Under Gase, Tannehill has the freedom to audible and he has the freedom to move around. It’s these decisions that has Gase liking more and more of what he is seeing.

“I think he’s done a great job”, said Adam Gase earlier this week when asked about grading Ryan Tannehill’s improvement. “He’s really bought into the fact that we’re okay with him making, kind of ad-libbing plays. I have no problem with it. He makes good decisions. He’s aggressive, I know that. When I see him roll to the left and throw it 40 yards down field, I’m sure I’m going, ‘No!’ and then he completes it and I’m like, ‘That was a great play.'”

It’s hard to accept the word aggressive with Ryan Tannehill who has been characterized as a game manager but each week a little more of that shows in the much criticized quarterback. The fact that Tannehill is making plays on his own is the first step to becoming a full-blown leader. It’s been seen in recent weeks quite clearly.

Two weeks ago, Tannehill shouldered the team in the waning minutes and led his team on two consecutive long touchdown drives to win the game. The first one included the entire offense pushing Jarvis Landry into the end-zone. Tannehill included. Last week Tannehill met linebacker Kiko Alonso at the 50 yard line and jump bumped him after he finished off the game saving tackle by Ndamukong Suh.

The players believe in Tannehill and with that comes respect.

Tannehill may never be a gunslinging quarterback like Drew Brees, Tom Brady, or even Andrew Luck taken number one overall in 2012 but in Adam Gase’s offense he doesn’t have to be. Tannehill has always been at his best when he didn’t have to sit back and think. His improvement in playing freer is also starting to give him more sense of the pocket as well.

For the Dolphins and Tannehill there is still a long way to go until all of the fans by in. Frankly too many seasons have passed with false hope and false quarterbacks but this regime of coaches feels different. They actually are coaching their players.

The biggest test for Tannehill and the Dolphins starts this week. December has been the Dolphins biggest nemesis dating back to the days of Dan Marino and Miami must win in December if they have any hopes of playing in January.