Entering the fourth year of his career, we’ve seen Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill grow from his days as a rookie thrust into the starting spotlight from day one to a player that has become a trusted voice in the locker room. Tannehill’s progress was vindicated with a long term contract extension this past spring. Dolphins past and present have shown confidence in Tannehill, one of those being Hall of Famer and two-time Super Bowl champion signal-caller Bob Griese.
In a recent interview with The Finsiders, Griese expressed his opinion that Tannehill needs to be a loud voice in the locker room and a leader that the team will get behind. To him, it’s Tannehill’s team and he must lead with purpose.
“I think he needs to be the go-to guy,” said Griese. “He needs to be the leader on the field. This is his fourth year, second year in this system, and he just needs to be the guy and carry everybody else whereas before his first and second year everyone was kind of carrying him along. When you’re in your fourth year and you’ve got some good players around you there’s high expectations and I think Ryan knows that, and I think he’s ready.”
Griese sees the fourth season for Tannehill as an incredibly pivotal one. For the Hall of Famer himself, his fourth season was one that changed the entire direction of the franchise involving the hiring of legendary Head Coach Don Shula and the acquisition of Hall of Fame wide receiver Paul Warfield. That 1970 team went 10-4, then went 10-3-1 the next year, and then recorded the only perfect season in NFL history in 1972 en route to winning Super Bowl VII.
The experiences from Tannehill’s previous three years is something that Griese sees as a positive, despite the hardships that the team has faced. He believes that can be used to kickstart this 2015 Dolphins team similar to how Griese’s team in 1970 took off.
“I’ve always said that you learn more from losing than you do from winning,” said Griese. “Ryan is the type of guy that for every one of those losses he’s going to go back and say ‘alright, why, how, and what did that defense do to us that the next one is going to do to us and I’ve got to learn and be better from that.’
“It’s just a matter of learning about the new guys he’s got on the receiving end of it, and I think Ryan’s going to be fine.”
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