Sam Darnold or Ryan Tannehill: Which quarterback would you want?

Who would you rather have: Sam Darnold or Ryan Tannehill? Is it that simple?

Ah, quarterbacks. Where would we be without them? To have a good NFL quarterback is to guarantee at least some separation from mediocrity. Great teams don’t have bad quarterbacks, period. Good teams may have average quarterbacks, bad teams may have good quarterbacks, but never will a championship team have a bad quarterback.

Which begs the question: How can you tell how good a quarterback actually is? For some teams, their current quarterback keeps the rest of the roster afloat. The quarterback is skilled enough to mask most struggles that the team may have.

Take a team like the Houston Texans. Where would they be without the clutch, game-saving antics of Deshaun Watson? Maybe they’d go 1-6, like they did in 2017 when Watson missed the rest of the season with a torn ACL.

For other teams, the roster does the heavy-lifting while the quarterback just steers the team. We’ve seen this many times over the years, including the 2015 Denver Broncos. Despite Peyton Manning’s early-season struggles and Brock Osweiler taking over the job midway through the season, the team’s historic defense paved the way to a title. I don’t think anyone will say it was Osweiler who led the team to the playoffs.

Of course, for the few lucky teams, it’s a perfect marriage of both aforementioned situations. A good quarterback working seamlessly with a good team. Unfortunately for the New York Jets and the Tennessee Titans, this golden situation doesn’t apply to them.

The 2019 season shed some important light on where their respective quarterbacks, Sam Darnold and Ryan Tannehill, stand within these scenarios. The comparison of the two is made easier by the games they started last season — 13 each.

But this won’t be a Player A versus Player B situation. The differences between Darnold and Tannehill are too evident. One’s a recent top pick with supposed heaps of potential. The other is a former disappointment who revived his career with the 2019 Comeback Player of the Year award.

So why would be it so hard to compare the two passers? Is it because Darnold’s youth bumps his value? Is it because of Tannehill’s past woes? Is it because we really haven’t seen enough of either to give them an appropriate label?

Well, I’m here to tell you that those questions — while influential to understanding each quarterback’s success — are not the right ones you should be asking.

The question isn’t what each player has done, it’s how they’ve done it. Understanding their individual situations may provide key answers into what type of player each is, and ultimately, what truly defines a good NFL quarterback.

The Case For Sam Darnold

Any time you’re a high draft choice, the sky seems to be the limit for you. Through two seasons, Darnold has flashed the talent that persuaded the Jets to take him third overall in 2018.

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Of course, being that high of a draft pick meant that Darnold would likely not be going to a good team. In Darnold’s first season as a Jet, the team went 4-12. The following year bore better fruit, though New York still finished one game under .500.

In other words, Darnold has not been in the best situation for a young quarterback. His head coach, Adam Gase, has had issues with controlling the locker room in the past — reports say that still continues as evidenced by the Jamal Adams fiasco.

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Aside from potential off-the-field problems, the team has struggled to field a viable supporting cast for Darnold. In 2019, 6 percent of Darnold’s throws were dropped by his teammates, the third-highest rate in the league. In comparison, Tannehill only experienced a 3.2 percent drop rate, good for the second-lowest rate.

It’s not like Darnold hasn’t been unable to make the throws, either. 17.8 percent of his passes were deemed as bad throws by Pro Football Reference’s advanced passing metrics. If accuracy were judged by one stat, this would have made Darnold the 15th-most accurate quarterback in the NFL last season.

Darnold’s offensive line hasn’t done him any favors, either. Darnold was the 12th-most sacked quarterback over the last two seasons, and he only played 26 out of 32 games. When adjusted for sacks per pass attempts, Darnold becomes the 10th-most sacked passer.

If that isn’t enough to display the lack of help for Darnold, consider that all of the Jets’ wins in the last two seasons have been with Darnold as the starting quarterback. Basically, we haven’t been able to see Darnold’s best self because of the lack of help around him. After the Jets gifted him a revamped offensive line in the offseason, perhaps we’ll finally get to see the 23-year-old at his best.

His first two seasons compare similarly to the first two seasons of another third-overall draft pick: Matt Ryan. While the two quarterbacks have differing styles, Darnold and Ryan’s stats were nearly identical. The two biggest differences come in overall record and sacks, which strongly favored Ryan in his first two seasons.

Not that history dictates Darnold’s future, but Ryan’s third season kickstarted his leap to becoming an All-Pro quarterback. If Ryan can do that with a better team, imagine what Darnold could do in 2020 and beyond.

The Case Against Sam Darnold

Ironically, the same thing that works in Darnold’s favor also works against him: we haven’t seen much of him. He’s yet to play a full season, and while stats aren’t the end-all indicator of a quarterback’s potential, they haven’t been that promising.

Among quarterbacks who started at least 16 games over the past two years, Darnold had the third-lowest passer rating (81.1), the third-lowest completion rate (59.9 percent) and the fifth-highest interception rate (3.27 percent of his passes have been picked). He’s also thrown the fourth-most interceptions in that time span (28).

While he’s certainly been the victim of drops, Darnold has only completed over 70 percent of his passes twice each season, barely. Tannehill did it five times just last year. The statistics have not been kind for Darnold. Is it a product of a bad team, a bad passer or both?

Two seasons shouldn’t be the only indicator of whether a quarterback is good or not. But it still leaves many questions surrounding Darnold. While Tannehill isn’t exempt from questions, he did offer a better glimpse of what type of quarterback a team could get.

If you’re willing to take the gamble on Darnold, it could pay off. A lot of teams might not want a passer who hasn’t proven anything concrete, and that’s Darnold’s biggest weakness. Not many teams would be comfortable with a projection and could opt for something they’re more familiar with, such as Tannehill.

The Case For Ryan Tannehill

Unlike Darnold, Tannehill has actually proven something. Last season, Tannehill led the NFL in passer rating (117.5) and posted the third-best completion percentage (70.3) en route to winning Comeback Player of the Year. He also won seven of his first 10 starts before helping the Titans pound their way to the AFC Championship Game.

Even more surprising was Tannehill’s downfield accuracy. In Miami, he was never known as a downfield passer. He averaged less than 6.8 Adjusted Yards per Pass Attempt, which Pro Football Reference uses to account for the actual number of yards a pass travels in the air. In Tennessee, that number skyrocketed to 10.2, which was the best in the league.

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On top of that, Tannehill was fourth in Average Completed Air Yards (7.5), third in Average Intended Air Yards (9.6) and fourth in Average Throw Time (9.2), per NFL’s Next Gen Stats. Essentially, this means that Tannehill was making big throws and didn’t rely much on Yards After Catch from his receivers. That seemed to be a common misconception, especially since Tennessee was only 16th in overall YAC last season, per the Washington Post.

The Titans have normally boasted a stellar offensive line, yet interestingly enough, last season was an anomaly. Tennessee’s offensive line surrendered the second-most sacks (56) while allowing the most sacks per pass attempt (11.1 percent of Mariota/Tannehill’s attempts led to sacks).

While Tannehill was only on the wrong end of half of those sacks, that’s still a large enough number to not give Tannehill the benefit of a good offensive line. If anything, the Titans’ offensive line benefited their running game, not their passing game.

There’s no denying that in the right situation, Tannehill can flourish. He was a clear upgrade over Marcus Mariota in Week 6. If the first five games were any indication, Tennessee wouldn’t have won nine of their next 13 games with Mariota under center. As much as Tannehill’s ascension gave the Titans new life, Tannehill was equally as reborn as a Titan.

Based on last season alone, he could be a capable starter for another five or so years.

The Case Against Ryan Tannehill

As with Darnold — and with any player — stats will never tell the full story. Unlike Darnold, stats and team situations are very favorable for Tannehill. But what does that say about Tannehill as a quarterback?

There is a clear difference in Tannehill’s supporting cast compared to Darnold’s supporting cast. Tannehill had the luxury of a top rushing offense to cover his tracks; Darnold had no such help. Also, the emergence of A.J. Brown in the passing game aided Tannehill’s passing. The rookie wide receiver was sixth in YAC (465).

Adding an asterisk to Tannehill’s career season is the possible inflation of value. The less passes a quarterback throws, the higher chance the numbers reflect an extreme. Well, Tannehill only attempted 286 passes, the fewest amount — by nearly 100 — for any quarterback who started at least 10 games last season. Therefore, his numbers might appear more efficient because he threw the ball less.

The idea that Tannehill is only good in the right system is also a fair statement. After all, Tannehill was nowhere near as efficient in his six Miami seasons, where he clawed through three head coaches and five offensive coordinators. Perhaps Tannehill isn’t a playmaking, game-on-the-line quarterback, but rather just a viable one who gets the job done. While there’s certainly a case against that, the truth is just one season isn’t enough to determine who Tannehill is.

We’ve seen plenty of veteran quarterbacks find success one season, only to fall from the spotlight the next. (RE: Case Keenum, Nick Foles, Sam Bradford, to name a few.) Could Tannehill be the latest iteration of the one-year wonder? 14 solid games isn’t enough of a sample size to make a fair evaluation.

And finally, the simplest distinction between Tannehill and Darnold might also be the most significant: age. Darnold turned 23 last month. Tannehill turns 32 next month. This matters because some will scoff at the older Tannehill and prefer a younger passer with a higher ceiling, while others may disregard Tannehill’s age and point to older, more successful quarterbacks in the NFL, like Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, etc.

After years of average quarterback play, Tannehill may have reached his peak after his award-winning 2019 season. The easy assumption is that he doesn’t have the ceiling that Darnold has; therefore, he is less valuable. With major help around him, could Tannehill simply be a product of favorable circumstances?

The Final Verdict: Tannehill or Darnold?

What we know about these two quarterbacks is, ironically, what we don’t know. We don’t know how good Darnold actually is because he hasn’t had a good chance to prove it. He hasn’t been around long enough nor has he had a good enough supporting cast. Then again, how good is a quarterback if he needs that much help?

As for Tannehill, we don’t know if 2019 was a fluke, or if it was a changing of the guard for the veteran passer. We also don’t know just how influential Tannehill was to the Titans’ storybook playoff run, or if it was the other way around. Though the stats indicate Tannehill was the difference-maker, he was undeniably not the sole reason behind Tennessee’s unexpected trip to the conference championship.

But we can assume anything. And it’s those assumptions that will be the driving force for choosing between Darnold or Tannehill. The answer to this debate lies in your answers to many of the discussed questions.

And in doing so, you may find yourself stuck in other ageless debates. How important is youth to a quarterback’s value? Their supporting cast? Previous seasons? At what length does projection play a role in determining a quarterback’s value, or will you simply rely on what has been presented so far?

Maybe the answer isn’t the answer at all. Maybe there isn’t one, at least not now. There may not be an answer for 33 years. Because the debate between Darnold and Tannehill falls under the wider umbrella of discussing quarterback value. And no one has the same criteria to defining a quarterback’s value. 32 teams will look at each passer differently, and with that, lies my own reluctant answer to the Darnold-Tannehill debate.

It’s an answer that isn’t really an answer, yet it will be the one thing this discussion gets remembered for. Because most people only seek the results, not the path leading to the results.

My answer: Give me Tannehill, but only on teams with an established offense and coaching staff. He wouldn’t succeed in Darnold’s place, just like Darnold would likely succeed in Tannehill’s situation. But of the two, only Tannehill has shown he can handle being a starting quarterback, even if the circumstances are in Tannehill’s favor.

For those just skimming for an answer to get mad about, I’d go with Tannehill as my starter on roughly 20 teams. I don’t think either quarterback has done enough to convince me that they’re a franchise quarterback, yet that again opens up the question of what exactly is a franchise quarterback. I think Darnold has slightly more talent and much more potential, but I think Tannehill is slightly more proven and therefore, safer.

In my mind, safety is usually more valuable than projection. Now if you had asked me which quarterback I’d rather have in five years, the answer will differ. But for now, I’d rather have Tannehill as my quarterback, though not by much. I’m happy to discuss more on my Twitter @ZachCohenFB.