Did the Tennessee Titans make a mistake resigning Ryan Tannehill?

Pro Football Focus said that the Tennessee Titans made a mistake resigning Ryan Tannehill, but I’m here to tell you that they didn’t make a mistake.

The 2019 Tennessee Titans were down and all but out of the 2019 season through the first six weeks of the season. Sitting at 2-4, the future was uncertain, especially surrounding quarterback Marcus Mariota‘s future with the franchise.

Head coach Mike Vrabel decided to make a change at quarterback and put in newly-acquired Ryan Tannehill in and see if he can do any better than struggling Mariota.

A few wins later, the Titans were back in on the 2019 season, and all of a sudden, they were competing again. Tannehill went on to lead the Titans to 9-7, which was good enough for a spot on Wild Card Weekend.

The Titans faced the Patriots in the Wild Card Game and the Ravens if they won. What seemed to be an impossible task of getting through the franchise that had dominated the AFC and NFL for the past two decades and the NFL’s best team in the Ravens wasn’t impossible for Tannehill.

He carried on his nickname of “Tannethrill” in the playoffs, and thanks to Derrick Henry also stepping up, the Titans beat both the Patriots and the Ravens and shocked the world as they made it all the way to the AFC Championship before losing to the Kansas City Chiefs.

That sounds like a pretty good run to me, and the only thing that can happen in this situation is to resign Tannehill when free agency comes around, and that’s exactly what the Titans did.

Tannehill signed a very big four-year, $118 million extension, with $62 million guaranteed after his breakout season with the Titans.

Sounds deserving, right? Well, Anthony Treash of Pro Football Focus believes it wasn’t a good move for the Titans to give Tannehill a long-term contract, and the Titans should have franchise tagged Tannehill so he can prove he can be good long-term and last season wasn’t a fluke.

"“Regression seems inevitable for Tannehill,” Treash wrote. “His positively graded play rate with the Titans was nearly double what it was with Miami the year prior. Tannehill has always been a relatively accurate quarterback, but his play on the field has shown to be dependent on those around him and the play-caller/scheme. It worked for Tennessee in 2019, and we thought it would be a great idea to bring Tannehill back for another season — but on the franchise tag to prove he can produce the same once more, not necessarily on a deal like this one.”"

That’s a fair point, maybe Tannehill should have been tagged and Henry given the long-term extension. He has been with the franchise longer and picked up a lot of the load in the playoffs.

But I don’t think tagging Henry and giving Tannehill the long-term deal was a mistake. I would’ve been fine with either outcome, but I think both ultimately deserve a long-term deal. Henry’s deal might just come a year later.

Tannehill performed out of his mind in 2019 and not only dominated the eye test, but he also performed very well on paper. He had a career-high completion percentage and passer rating (best in the NFL) and a career-low number of interceptions in 2019.

I don’t think it was a mistake that the Titans gave Tannehill a long-term contract. After his performance last season, you have to give him the deal he deserves and trust that he can fulfill it. Only time will tell if he will actually be able to do so and hopefully, he proves PFF wrong, not me.