Now, Ryan Tannehill isn't known to be a quarterback that deals with injuries often, but last year he had an ankle injury that derailed his season not once, but twice. Now, this is important to note because in back-to-back top 12 quarterback seasons in fantasy in 2020 and 2021, Tannehill rushed for seven touchdowns in each of those years. That's a lot of production on the ground for a quarterback.
Now, the interesting thing is, despite his play falling off from those prior two seasons, the team was 7-3 going into Week 12. Tannehill put up top 12 performances in four of the seven games that he played in that stretch. And actually, Tannehill was just kind of a middle-of-the-road quarterback from a fantasy perspective the entire year. As long as he was playing, he had just two games outside the top 24 quarterbacks. And while he certainly didn't win anyone a fantasy championship, he was at least consistently average for most of the year.
Now, Tannehill did have tightrope surgery in December in an attempt to be able to play in a win-or-go-home game in Week 18 to make it into the playoffs. And tightrope surgery is basically a surgery where they drill a hole through the bottom two bones of the ankle, and then they insert a rope or a tightrope into that joint or the hole that they made to basically act as a new ligament to keep those two bones from spreading apart when you step. That's what tightrope surgery does. It actually increases the likelihood that a player can return quickly from a high ankle sprain, and it's becoming more and more common in the NFL.
But the problem with Tannehill was that he still wasn't able to come back for that Week 18 game against Jacksonville. The injury is the first in his NFL career to his ankle, and he shouldn't be at any greater risk than he normally would be to injure it again. Now, from an injury-only perspective, he's on my draft list. The question is, when does the team opt to give Will Levis a crack at the starting job? I'm personally, even though from a health perspective, I'm okay with you drafting Tannehill, I'm staying away from him in fantasy drafts unless I need a floor play in two-quarterback leagues and I'm really desperate for a second quarterback that I know is just going to be middle-of-the-road.
Kommentare