On Wednesday, news came out about two quarterbacks that severely reduces the chances of the Tennessee Titans moving on from Ryan Tannehill in 2023.
First and foremost, it would be a massive mistake to move on from Ryan Tannehill. For two years he has been the scapegoat for Todd Downing’s mistakes because he was the only player healthy enough to be the face of the offense for the majority of Todd Downing’s reign of terror.
For reference, Tannehill has started 18 games for the Tennessee Titans with Arthur Smith, and 19 games with Todd Downing. You tell me which time he had a good OC and which time he didn’t:
Option A: 67.3% completion rate, 8.6 yards per attempt, 66 TDs, 7.2% TD percentage, 13 INTs, 1.7% INT percentage
Option B: 66.5% completion rate, 7.3 yards per attempt, 43 TDs, 4.0% TD percentage, 20 INTs, 2.3% INT percentage
Option A is a Pro Bowl QB (for whatever that is worth at this point) and one of the most efficient QBs in the NFL. Option B is a decent QB who is good, but not splashy enough to make a run-first team into a contender.
The problem with the Tennessee Titans has always been that it is centered around the running game and that it has been run into the ground by a bad OC for two years, it was never the QB talent.
The good news is that Todd Downing is gone and it looks like Tannehill is here to stay for another season after the recent news about Tom Brady and Trey Lance.
Two QB dominoes fall making the Tennessee Titans’ decision easier
For the second time in 365 days, Tom Brady has announced his retirement.
If that sticks, that takes one potential quarterback off of the board for Mike Vrabel and Ran Carthon. I don’t think that they would have tried to go all in on Tom Brady pushing them back into the playoffs, but his decision reduces the chances from highly unlikely to zero.
The other and much more interesting news is that San Francisco 49ers QB Brock Purdy won’t be healthy in time for the 2023 season.
#49ers QB Brock Purdy needs Tommy John surgery and is expected to miss about a year, according to notable orthopedic surgeon Dr. Mark Adickens.
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) February 1, 2023
A return in 6-9 months is unlikely.
Adickens is a former NFL player himself, was the 5th overall pick in the 1984 supplemental draft. pic.twitter.com/tv7UlSpcag
It is highly unlikely that Jimmy Garoppolo sticks around for another year in San Francisco since they have an eye on the future and they really don’t have the cap flexibility to pay him like an NFL starter for another year.
That means that Trey Lance has won the San Francisco 49ers QB job basically by default.
Several Tennessee Titans fans had an eye on Lance as a potential trade target since Ran Carthon was a part of the front office that gave away a king’s ransom to draft him two years ago. If Brock Purdy was in place, it might make sense for the 49ers to make a trade and try to replace some of the picks they gave away for Lance.
However, that trade market is gone before it even had a chance to materialize after this news.
Those are two massive pieces that have fallen into place and that makes the cloudy QB market this offseason, a little bit clearer.
As it stands right now, the only other QBs that could possibly replace Ryan Tannehill with the Titans are Aaron Rodgers, Lamar Jackson, Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, and Will Levis.
It doesn’t seem like any of these are realistic options for the Tennessee Titans aside from maybe Richardson or Levis, but neither would start in 2023 and that would mean basically conceding the entire season which isn’t something that Amy Adams Strunk, Ran Carthon, or Mike Vrabel seem to want.
So, that leads us back to Ryan Tannehill, the talented quarterback who showed that he could be one of the most effective QBs in the NFL, but who has been held back by bad playcalling and an injury-plagued supporting cast.
In related news, the OC job just became that much more important.