Giving big deals to Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry will backfire on the Titans
Titans fans need to stop celebrating the idea that Tennessee will keep both Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry in free agency.
Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry combined to lead the Titans on a magical playoff run in 2019. Ironically, re-signing the pair of offensive stars in free agency will likely relegate Tennessee to mediocrity for years to come.
Tannehill and his agents have managed to parlay a good back of the regular season plus a pair of playoff games into a four-year, $118 deal from the Titans in free agency. A deeper look into the deal doesn’t reveal much more upside from the team perspective, as $91 million in potential guaranteed money makes it pretty obvious that the Titans are committed to Tannehill as their starting signal caller for the next several years.
Inking Tannehill to a multiyear contract will allow the Titans the “luxury” of using the franchise tag to retain Derrick Henry. He was an absolute monster for Tennessee down the stretch of the regular season and in the playoffs. Henry was arguably the most important single player to any team during last year’s postseason.
That doesn’t make paying a premium price for a running back a wise decision for the franchise. The smartest teams in the NFL have come to the realization that paying big money to players at that position is a good way to ruin your salary cap. The Titans aren’t overcommitting to Henry in terms of years at the moment, but they are giving him a king’s ransom to run the ball for them in 2020.
That makes the decision to franchise Henry slightly better than the choice to overpay Tannehill in free agency. Handing $118 million to Tannehill might have been the required investment to keep him with the franchise, but the chances of the deal paying off are remote.
As it stands, the Titans have paid a 31-year-old quarterback coming off a really good half season of football a small fortune. If Tannehill reverts back to the quarterback he was during most of his Dolphins’ career then this will quickly turn into one of the worst deals in football.
Even if Tannehill doesn’t see his performance slip that far, it’s highly unlikely he can replicate last season’s heroics. The median outcome for the Titans is that Tannehill will play like a league average quarterback over the life of this deal. That’s poor value for the dollars they’re investing in his services.
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The Titans’ front office will get a lot of plaudits from their fan base for their willingness to bring two of the team’s biggest stars back into the fold despite their ability to hit free agency. The reality is that these two contracts are going to come back to haunt Tennessee sooner, rather than later. Paying franchise money for a quarterback who couldn’t hold down a starting job with the Dolphins is bad business. Compounding that mistake by paying a premium at one of the NFL’s least valuable positions only takes the Titans offseason from bad to worse.