The Miami Dolphins are 1-3, they've fired their head coach and Ryan Tannehill is angry. Those are the things we already knew, but a report from Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post details just how weird things are inside the organization and it falls on one man's shoulders — Tannehill.
These Ryan Tannehill quotes from Dolphins practice are just embarrassing
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Here are three ludicrous things we learned about Tannehill:
1. Ryan Tannehill gets rattled during practice.
Frustrations have been mounting for weeks, and escalated Saturday during practice prior to the game. Philbin has also been struggling on how to handle his franchise quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, who had been rattled even in practice sessions.
The Dolphins’ pass rush has struggled to start the year, and it’s no wonder why. If their practices have been against a rattled quarterback it should be no surprise that they’re not ready for game day.
2. Tannehill is the world’s biggest jerk toward his own teammates.
On Saturday during practice, Tannehill, after a couple of practice squad players forced turnovers, Tannehill made negative comments toward them, including saying: “Enjoy your practice squad paycheck, enjoy your practice squad trophy.”
It’s nice to see that money doesn’t change people. Yes Ryan, you got a $77 million contract. No Ryan, that doesn’t immediately make you better than everyone else.
3. Joe Philbin protected Tannehill like a mother bird in the nest.
Philbin told the practice squad players to take it easy on Tannehill to not affect the young quarterback’s confidence.
This is such a big problem that there aren’t words to correctly analyze what’s happening here.
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A new coach with a new perspective could turn this ship around in time, but these points should deeply trouble Dolphins fans. Your team just pushed their chips to the center on a player who openly disrespected teammates he should be trying to lift up for the betterment of the organization — that’s a problem.
UPDATE: While Jeff Darlington of the NFL Network denied Tannehill made comments to practice quad players, something definitely did happen in London on Saturday.
Interim head coach Dan Campbell said there would be changes to how the team approaches practice, and while not mentioning his quarterback directly -- Campbell did talk about the situation.
“To me, the best teams that I’ve been a part of are the ones that, during the week, they go after each other,” Campbell said. “Whether it’s practice squad versus the defense. They’re giving the look of practice squad versus offense, but it gets heated. And it’s intense, and it’s people that are fighting to win. they want to get noticed or they want to do their job. It’s not just going through the motions.”
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