Who knows if the Tennessee Titans every really considered signing Tom Brady over Ryan Tannehill (based on Ian Rapoport’s reporting over the course of the past few months, that doesn’t seem to be the case), but if so the team made the right move re-signing Tannehill on Sunday.
While the thought of having the man they call “The GOAT” coming to Nashville was incredibly exciting, it just didn’t make much sense when you consider the 2019 season the Titans had.
Bringing Brady in would be the exact opposite of the kind of continuity that head coach Mike Vrabel always preaches, no matter what his personal relationship with No. 12 is.
Sure, Brady is a proven winner with a laundry list of accomplishments that seems like a perfect fit for a win-now team like the Titans, but he’s also in the twilight of his career and molding the offense around him would take time.
Now compare that to keeping Tannehill, who has already proven he can run Arthur Smith’s offense with great success after putting up his best season as a pro and winning Comeback Player of the Year.
The age difference is also another big factor. This argument changes quite a bit if we’re talking about the Brady of five to 10 years ago.
Brady will be 43 next season and is coming off one of the worst seasons of his career. There’s simply no telling how much he has left in the tank even if you want to use the argument that he didn’t have much around him last season, which is legit.
On the flip side, Tannehill will be 32 when the 2020 season begins and could offer a solution under center for the next four-plus years. Not to mention, his athleticism simply makes Tennessee better than the non-existent mobility Brady offers.
It has taken the Titans far too many years to find a quarterback who can run the Titans’ offense to the level that Tannehill did last season. That search would likely begin all over again in just a few years after signing Brady.
We can argue all we want about the small sample size and if it’s enough to pay Tannehill the hefty salary he just got paid, but when we’re talking about the prospect of having to choose one over the other, landing on Tannehill was the right call.