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The Miami Dolphins need a "franchise" quarterback. Everyone knows that. Everyone agrees on that. The disagreement comes when the question turns to, who is that franchise quarterback? Lately, the most common answer seems to be Ryan Tannehill, the former starting quarterback for the Texas A&M Aggies.
With Tannehill's head coach, Mike Sherman, now serving as the Dolphins' offensive coordinator, everything seems lined up for Miami to select the player who wanted to help his team so much, he spent two years playing wide receiver while attending quarterback meetings.
Once again, we find everyone in agreement - the Dolphins are interested in Tannehill (unless, it's all a smokescreen, but let's not go down that road tonight). It's why they are interested - and who is interested - that seems to be up for debate tonight.
Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk.com posted at 8:59pm EDT tonight that ,"a league source tells PFT that the man pushing hardest for Tannehill is owner Stephen Ross." Then, at 10:26 pm Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald wrote, "I have just had an e-mail exhcange with a very, very, very highly placed source within the Dolphins organization. In very colorful language the source tells me the profootballtalk.com report is not true."
PFT writes that Ross wants the team to draft Tannehill in order to "turn the page" on an "embarrassing" offseason. Ross, according to PFT, sees Tannehill as the way to make everyone forget about Jeff Fisher, Peyton Manning, and Matt Flynn (though they do admit it's "unclear" if the Dolphins did not want Flynn, or if Flynn did not want Miami).
The PFT report concludes that:
"Ross needs to find a way for his team to stand out as it otherwise fades into the South Florida sports landscape. Tannehill will make a difference in 2012. If he fails, they'll be no worse off in 2013 and beyond than they otherwise would have been.
"That said, there's no guarantee Ross will ultimately get his way. The story for now is that he's pushing for Tannehill."
Meanwhile, Salguero responds to that idea, by saying:
"I can totally see Ross giving his opinion on players. He has done it in the past. My source, meanwhile, tells me Ross has not had any conversation with Jeff Ireland telling him which player to pick and that conversation will not happen, either."
Salguero also writes that the idea that Miami sees Tannehill as a way to raise ticket sales in 2012 is simply wrong, because fans, and the team know, "[t]The kid is simply to [sic] raw to beat out veterans Matt Moore or David Garrard."
Salguero concludes his article by adding:
"Finally, pft says there's no guarantee that if Ross is pressing for Tannehill he'll get his way. Really? If Ross says draft Armando Salguero in the first round, Ireland will do that and try to make the case I have an under-rated arm. Trust me, whatever the owner wants, he gets.
"In this instance, however, my source tells me the owner isn't making the call."
So, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross may or may not be pushing for Ryan Tannehill. Glad we got that cleared up.