Despite Logan Ryan having one of his best seasons as a pro, he claims the Tennessee Titans never really made him an offer in free agency.
Ryan said so as a guest on the “Double Coverage Podcast” with Jason and Devin McCourty on Sunday night.
“Tennessee never really offered me a contract. They never really talked extension, we never really talked in free agency. They didn’t really try to bring me back,” Ryan explained. “And it was kind of the whole ‘you know, we’ll monitor the market, and you’re probably going to get too much and we probably can’t afford because we have a lot of players on this team,’ and I understood it, I understood that completely. I’m like ‘yeah we do have Derrick Henry deserves to get paid, Ryan Tannehill deserves a contract somewhere and we have like 20 free agents and Jack Conklin,’ so I understood all that for sure.”
After not receiving any multi-year deals that were to his liking, Ryan says he then went back to the Titans and offered to play on a one-year deal at the same salary he made in 2019, but Tennessee wasn’t interested.
“I think anybody who plays really well in a contract year wants a raise… So I said ‘look, I’ll come back for the same rate, I want to keep this thing going,’ and they weren’t really interested in that,” Ryan said. “And that’s when I kind of knew that this is a business and they’re going to do what the marketplace says, they’re going to do what’s best, in their opinion, for the team. So that was kind of a little different, but I had to take it and do what’s best for my family as well, and that’s where we’re at.”
Ryan took to Instagram on May 5 to make it official that he wouldn’t return to the Titans even though he hadn’t signed with another team yet. Now we know why.
While he’s clearly disappointed he couldn’t return to Nashville and never wanted to play with this many teams during his career, Ryan takes solace in the fact that he has been a good teammate and helped leave the franchise in a better place, which is certainly true.
“I tried everything I could. I gave everything I could to the franchise, I believe I left it in a better place, I believe the fans understood that, my teammates understood that, and me being a great teammate and a great player is all that matters to me.”
Ryan, who remains on the open market, noted that there is interest from multiple teams. It’ll be interesting to see if he gets the kind of money he’s seeking in a new deal, or if he’ll have to settle for less.
Meanwhile, the Titans already started looking to the future after selecting Kristian Fulton in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He’s expected to be one of the top options to take Ryan’s role in the slot this season.
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