“His job is to win a bunch of games”: Titans Coach Mike Vrabel defends Ryan Tannehill’s stance on refusing to mentor Malik Willis
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Mike Vrabel and Malik Willis
Tennessee Titans rookie quarterback Malik Willis was put in an unusual spot as first, on the draft night his rankings fell through the roof, and when he was selected by the Titans, veteran QB Ryan Tannehill publicly stated that he will not be mentoring him as it is not his job to do so. This attracted a lot of criticism from across the entire league as analysts believed that Tannehill was insecure and arrogant.
However, today the man himself, Malik Willis who attended the rookie minicamp of the team defended the vet by stating that his new teammate is a nice person, apart from Willis, Head Coach Mike Vrabel has also defended his QB and the comments that he made.
“Ryan’s a good dude, it was never anything negative”: Malik Willis
Head Coach Mike Vrabel stated that Tannehill’s job is to “prepare to help us win a bunch of games and be a great teammate and help out, and I know that he’s going to do that. So that was not any sort of issue for me.”
Vrabel was referring to Tannehill’s May 3rd comments about refusing to mentor the rookie, in addition to this, Vrabel also added that “I thought he was genuine, I thought Ryan handled that very well, I thought he is authentic. I know Ryan is a great teammate. Everybody here knows he’s a great teammate, and that is not his job(to mentor Malik).”
When Malik Willis was asked about Tannehill’s comments in the press conference at the Titans rookie minicamp, he said “What comment? Oh man, we chopped it up, I mean, it was never anything negative. Ryan’s a good dude. Like I said he had us over to the house. Everything’s cool.”
Malik Willis is the highest-drafted QB to be taken by the Titans since Marcus Mariota in 2015 who was taken at No.2. Unfortunately, that did not work out well for them, however, the team appears to be certain in Willis as they traded up four spots to ensure they got him.
Tannehill has not had the best season last year, he had the most INTs since his second season in the league, and the Titans lost to the Bengals in the divisional round. In addition to this, the veteran QB also has the NFL’s highest salary cap number after he signed a new contract last summer to make space for wideout Julio Jones.
Also read: Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley reveal their man crush on Buccaneers star Tom Brady
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Sumedh Joshi
(2235 Articles Published)