Through the first four games of the 2015 season, Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill had completed 56.7 percent of his passes for 1,080 yards, seven touchdowns and five interceptions for a passer rating of 77.1.
The Dolphins were 1-3 in that span heading into the bye week and fired head coach Joe Philbin.
Since then, Tannehill has gotten considerably better.
“He’s played well recently,” Eagles head coach Chip Kelly said. “I couldn’t tell you why or what the rhyme or reason is but I know he’s played really well and we have to be aware of not only him in the passing game but him in the running game, also.”
In his last four games (the Dolphins are 2-2), Tannehill has completed 74.2 percent of his passes for 1,157 yards, six touchdowns and four interceptions for a passer rating of 104.2.
“He’s confident,” Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins said of Tannehill. “They’re making plays. They’re getting a lot of big plays and that helps them. When they don’t have negative plays on first and second down and they’re ahead of the sticks and they’re on schedule, he’s a really good quarterback.”
Tannehill is ninth in the league this season in 20-plus-yard passes with 31 — 18 of those have come in the last four games.
“He’s in control. He's really throwing a nice deep ball,” Eagles defensive coordinator Bill Davis said. “He really impressed me when I turned on the film to watch him. In the pocket, he's calm in the pocket, he's not nervous in the pocket, and he throws the ball downfield well.”
Dolphins offensive coordinator Bill Lazor spent 2013 as the Eagles’ quarterbacks coach and took some of Chip Kelly’s teachings with him to South Florida (see story). And Tannehill has the skill set (legs) to utilize parts of the playbook the Eagles can’t.
Tannehill is a former wide receiver, and the Dolphins sometimes call designed runs for him out of the backfield. Since Tannehill entered the league in 2012, just eight quarterbacks have rushed for more yards than his 808.
“So the fact that he can do both, you got to be real conscious of where you are in the rush lanes,” Kelly said. “And they actually have designed quarterback runs similar to playing Carolina with Cam [Newton]. It's more like going in against a Cam than it is going against an Eli [Manning].”