In each of his four seasons in the NFL, Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill has been responsible for at least 96% of his team’s pass attempts. In fact, over the last three years, only 13 pass attempts for the Dolphins have come from someone other than Tannehill. He’s been the entrenched starter since week 1 of his rookie year.

There have been 88 quarterbacks since 1970 who have taken at least 90% of the same team’s pass attempts in every year in any four-year window. That includes eight such streaks that cover the last four years (Tannehill, Eli Manning, Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Russell Wilson).

Among non-proprietary measures, my preferred measure of quarterback play is Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which is yards per attempt with adjustments for touchdowns, interceptions, and sacks. The fine folks at Pro-Football-Reference.com have created a passing index for this (among other) stat, known as ANY/A+, where 100 represents league average, and 85 and 115 represent one standard deviation below/above average. Tannehill’s ANY/A+ was 92 his rookie year, 87 in 2013, 96 in 2014, and 95 last year.

Statistics like ANY/A never tell the full story, but let’s present them just to set the discussion. The table below shows each of the 88 quarterbacks identified above, along with their ANY/A+ in each year during such stretch, the passer’s average ANY/A+, and the number of playoff games started by that quarterback during that four-year window. As you can see, Tannehill stands out: he has the second worst ANY/A+ of any quarterback during that span, and is one of just three quarterbacks that failed to start a single playoff game.

Given how mediocre his numbers have been, and his team’s general lack of success, it’s obvious that the data is missing something. At this point, it’s clear that Tannehill must be on the verge of a break-out season. After all, how else could Miami justify not just giving Tannehill a fifth season, but treating him as the team’s quarterback of the future? The Dolphins have won two Super Bowls and boast arguably the greatest coach and greatest quarterback in league history as franchise icons. The team has won at least 6 games in 44 different seasons since the merger, tied with the Steelers for the most among all NFL teams. Obviously the Dolphins see something in Tannehill that the numbers do not, which brings us back to the question: where does Ryan Tannehill rank in the pantheon of great quarterbacks?