Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill made headlines this past week when he suggested that he didn’t want to mentor the team’s rookie passer, Malik Willis.
“I don’t think it’s my job to mentor him,” Tannehill said. “But if he learns from me along the way, that’s a great thing.”
The whole controversy is extremely overblown.
Tannehill is the Titans current starting quarterback. His job, the thing he is paid to do, is to lead the first-string offense. So far in the offseason the front office has attempted to replace him not once, but twice.
“They were dipping their toes in on Aaron Rodgers earlier in the offseason before he re-signed in Green Bay,” ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter revealed this week.
“They checked in on Deshaun Watson and found out that he wouldn’t be traded within the division.”
The team has shown zero investment in Tannehill. But he is supposed to go out of his way and teach his replacement, something that isn’t in his job description at all?
This week, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin also went into detail regarding why this entire so-called controversy is dumb.
“You know, it’s good when it occurs, but it’s certainly not necessary,” Tomlin said. “That’s why we have offensive coordinators, quarterback coaches, assistant quarterback coaches, people who are employed and their sole focus is the development of players.”
Specifically, Tomlin made it a point to highlight that it wasn’t in Tannehill’s job description to mentor anyone.
“Certainly, there’s growth and development opportunities and learning opportunities among players, but it is definitely not their function,” Tomlin continued.
“Their function is to have themselves ready to go and be good teammates, and I think that’s probably what you speak to just in terms of providing common human decency and courtesy to someone if you can help them along the way. I’m sure Ryan is open to that, but I think he was just stating the obvious, that he was not employed to do that. He’s employed to play quarterback.”
There are plenty of reasons not to like Tannehill and his wife. They’re definitely a little weird sometimes.
Yikes. https://t.co/uTAEkpudFf
— Game 7 (@game7__) May 7, 2022
But this ain’t it.
Hopefully all parties involved can move forward in a healthy and constructive way and stop bashing Tannehill for something he doesn’t deserved to be bashed for.
Related: Sonya Curry Admits She Almost Aborted Stephen Curry (Video)
A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
