Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was just as baffled as the rest of us as he watched his quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, post one of the worst performances of his career in Week 1.
Tannehill tossed three back-breaking interceptions and failed to throw a single touchdown in the 16-15 loss to the New Orleans Saints. The three-interception, zero-touchdown game was the first for Tannehill since his rookie season in 2012.
Buy Titans TicketsWhen asked what might have been behind his signal-caller’s performance on Sunday, Vrabel had no answers.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t. I wish that I knew. I wish that I could tell you,” Vrabel said Monday, per Terry McCormick of Titan Insider. “We have to be better. Ryan (Tannehill) has to be better. We have to hit guys that are open. We can’t force the ball into double coverage. So, we have to give him cleaner pockets, like we gave him in the second half earlier. There was some of that. When the play goes bad, we can point to a lot of different things, but we have to be better. We can’t turn the football over.”
While pockets were an issue at times, especially early in the game, the Titans’ offensive line was good enough in pass protection overall for Tannehill to have a chance to succeed.
Two of Tannehill’s picks were thrown into double coverage, and one of those were thrown in the direction of wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who Tannehill appeared to be forcing the ball to.
Vrabel didn’t shoot that notion down, either.
“I think, maybe,” Vrabel said of Tannehill possibly forcing the ball to Hopkins, per Paul Kuharsky. “You’re going to give DeAndre a chance but you’ve got to give him a better chance. But I just think that there’s times where if a guy is double covered, we certainly have to progress through, and to progress through you have to have pass protection to be able to take an extra hit and you’re going to be able to come back and work the back side.”
Despite how bad things looked for Tannehill in Week 1, Vrabel is confident his veteran quarterback will bounce back.
“(Tannehill has) already been in here with the receivers and been in here with the coaches and he’ll respond like he has,” Vrabel said. “He’s been a great competitor for us. He’s been unbelievably tough and determined. I’m positive that those results will be different.”
