Football is tough to predict and analyze. In a sport like baseball, a batter heads to the plate with 0, 1 or 2 outs and either has no runners on or a combo of the three bases occupied. On the football field, teams run plays with several different variables; down, yardline, yards-to-go, quarter, number of tight ends, running backs, wide receivers, shotgun or under-center, etc. Predicting individual performance is a tough task due in large part to the amount of interactions between players on the football field. A quarterback’s success is based on the plays called, his receivers, lineman, running backs and the ability of the defense’s opposing players.

Disclaimer: If you’re a football fan just reading this just for the prediction, scroll down a bit to the conclusion section. The bulk of this article centers on the analysis method.

Choosing Similar QBs

This analysis does not include player interaction, coaching or the Miami Dolphins upcoming schedule. Instead, quarterbacks most like Ryan Tannehill through 5 seasons were used to predict Tannehill’s success in 2018, which will be his 6th season (not counting 2017, when Tannehill missed the season due to injury). Stats from all NFL quarterbacks since 1970 were examined to find the 40 K-nearest neighbors.

40 K-nearest neighbors to Ryan Tannehill, after 5 seasons

The Euclidean distance to Tannehill was computed using total completions, attempts, yards, touchdowns and interceptions through the first five seasons of each quarterback’s career.

The 2018 prediction whittled the 40 K-nearest neighbors (above) down to 30 (left). This was done for several reasons: Jeff Garcia was dropped based on his 5 seasons in the CFL prior to the NFL, Mark Rypien had an injury-plagued 6th season and Andrew Luck is yet to play his 6th NFL season. Since we are also assuming that Tannehill will play 13 or more games in 2018, all quarterbacks who played in 12 or fewer games in their 6th season were not included. The list on the left were deemed to be the best fit for predicting Tannehill’s 6th season, in descending order.

Analysis

Histograms were created using the performance of the 30 quarterbacks in their 6th NFL season. The histograms included 20 bins for each category (completions, attempts, yards, touchdowns and interceptions).

Performance of 30 QBs in 6th NFL season in four of five key categories

Some adjustments were made prior to running simulations on these histograms. It would not be wise to conclude a probability of 0 that Tannehill throws 16 touchdowns, tosses 16 interceptions or anywhere in the range of 400–425 completions in 2018. These totals are possible given Tannehill’s previous performance. Also, no matter your feelings on Ryan Tannehill, there is a minute possibility that he has an extremely good season and throws more than 40 touchdowns or an extremely bad season in which he throws 25 or more interceptions. Relatively small adjustments were made to probabilities of likely events that did not occur in the 30 quarterback 6th season, and even smaller adjustments were made to extreme events. Tannehill was given a 0.1% or less chance of going below the maximum and minimum of each category.

Simulation

The above histograms were then used to simulate 10,000 seasons of production for Tannehill. Completions, attempts, yards, touchdowns and interceptions were each independently tallied.

The results of the simulation were very spread. For instance, during independent seasons Tannehill completed 449 and 230 passes, threw 50 and 10 touchdowns and had 32 and 8 interceptions.

Results of 10,000 simulations

Results

Using these 10,000 runs the average season for Ryan Tannehill in 2018 was then calculated.

Ryan Tannehill predicted 2018

320 completions, 520 passes, 23 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and 3,755 yards is the “average” season seen during this analysis, and is determined to be the best representation of Ryan Tannehill’s upcoming season.

Obvious Oversights

This analysis is far from perfect. In fact, it is glaring that Ryan Tannehill’s ability to run, Miami Dolphins head coach Adam Gase’s tendencies as a play caller or trends in Tannehill’s career were not included. And, most importantly, only 30 quarterbacks were examined in order to hone in on a typical “Tannehill-like” quarterback.

The model is, however, consistent with Tannehill’s career averages of 320 completions, 527 pass attempts, 21.6 touchdowns, 13.2 interceptions and passer rating of 86.5. So, it may be more accurate to assume that Tannehill is likely to have a 2018 season that is consistent with his first five seasons, based on how similar quarterbacks performed in their 6th NFL season.

Data source: Pro Football Reference