Titans Coach Mike Vrabel on Tannehill's Shaky Performance: 'Ryan Has to Be Better'

The Tennessee Titans opening loss to the New Orleans Saints was caused mostly by a poor performance from quarterback Ryan Tannehill and while head coach Mike Vrabel can't explain it, he is banking on Tannehill improving.

Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel defended his quarterback on Sunday night following the team's season-opener loss to the New Orleans Saints saying the team needed to block better and receivers needed to get open, but on Monday, after presumably getting a chance to watch the film, Vrabel's tone changed.

Vrabel is not the type to often single out players for their own mistakes. He prefers to, as explained above, put the emphasis on the team's failures more than a single man, but Vrabel was candid on Monday when asked about what happened during Tannehill's three interception performance.

"Yeah I don't know, I don't," Vrabel said while looking frustrated. "I wish that I knew. I wish that I could tell you. We have to be better. Ryan has to be better. We have to hit guys that are open, we can't force the ball into double coverage.

This was quite the change in demeanor from Vrabel's defiant tone directly after the game where he spread blame around. Again, the biggest reason for this change could be that Vrabel got to watch the film of the game in which Tannehill looked even worse than he did in real time. 

Vrabel did his best to acknowledge that the people charged with supporting Tannehill do still need to improve as well.

"We have give him cleaner pockets like we gave him in second half, earlier. Again, when a play goes bad we can point to a lot of different things. We have to be better, we can't turn the football over and can't get punts blocked and on and on."

One of the issues that could have caused Tannehill's poor day is a tendency to force things to veteran receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Vrabel discussed whether he thought that was the case.

"I think, maybe. When you play quarterback you can't just sit there. It's a yes-no, you're going to go to a side. If the defensive back is underneath, we probably don't want to throw a back-shoulder, we can't throw a back-shoulder. I'm okay with the decision, you're going to give DeAndre a chance, but you got to give him a better chance."

"I just think that there's time where if guy's double covered, we certainly need to progress through and to progress through you have to have pass protection to be able to take an extra hitch and be able to come back and work the backside."

It may have been a terrible game for Tannehill that his coach has acknowledged, but Tannehill is also already working to correct things and that is something Vrabel mentioned as well. 

"He's already been in there with the receivers and been in there with the coaches. He'll respond like he has. He's been a great competitor for us, he's been unbelievably tough and determined. I'm positive that those results will be different."

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