At this point, anyone who doesn’t give credit to Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill for his success and still thinks he’s just a guy who benefits from running back Derrick Henry only isn’t watching Titans games.
And based on this quote from Cincinnati Bengals safety Jessie Bates, he’s one of those people.
When asked about Tannehill on Wednesday, Bates gave all the credit for the signal-caller’s success to his running back (h/t Cory Curtis of WKRN).
“I think Derrick Henry has had a lot of 100-yard games this year and that kind of helps out Ryan a lot,” Bates said. “Ryan doesn’t really do a lot of things that are like wow that pop out on film, I just think that he does a really good job of getting the ball out to the checkdown and not making mistakes, so when you’re running the ball like that it’s hard to make mistakes besides fumbling the football. They’ve done a really good job with that.”
Henry has posted three 100-yard games this season and the Titans have won all three. In fact, Tennessee is undefeated in the Derrick Henry era when he rushes for over 100 yards.
However, Henry has failed to reach the century mark in two of the Titans’ five wins this season and Tannehill has completed 75 percent of his passes for 434 passing yards and eight total touchdowns to zero picks, while also adding a combined 54 rushing yards in those games.
Even in the win over the Texans where Henry rushed for 212 yards, Tannehill had to drive the Titans 76 yards down the field with under two minutes remaining in regulation just to force the game into overtime.
Oh, and he also threw for a season-high 366 yards and four touchdowns in that game.
Dating back to Week 7 of last season when Tannehill became the starter, the Titans are 4-3 in games that Henry doesn’t rush for 100 yards. Not great, but not a losing record, either.
The comment about checkdowns is laughable, also. Tannehill led the NFL in yards gained per pass attempt (9.6), adjusted yards gained per pass attempt (10.2), and yards per completion (13.6) in 2019. You don’t accomplish that by just being a checkdown Charlie.
Clearly Bates isn’t watching enough film.
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