Cashing in on patience and faith
What Ryan Tannehill’s new contract reveals about non-traditional career paths
Ryan Tannehill, quarterback for the Tennessee Titans, was rewarded this past weekend with the biggest contract of his career.
The deal is for four years, and worth $118 million total. Here’s the breakdown:
2020 — $17.5 million fully guaranteed.
2021 — $24.5 million fully guaranteed.
2022 — $29 million guaranteed for injury at signing and fully guaranteed on 5th day of 2021 league year.
2023 — $27.5 million base.
$62 million is guaranteed. So, if Tannehill gets hit by a bus tomorrow and can never play again, he’s set for life.
Here’s three lessons you can learn from Tannehill’s winding road as a quarterback.
Patience
Tannehill will turn 32 this July, and 2020 will mark his ninth season in the league. Originally drafted in the first-round by the Dolphins (8th overall) in 2012, Tannehill had an up and down career with Miami.
Going into the 2020 season, he had amassed only 123 total touchdown passes and missed the entire 2017 campaign with a torn ACL.
Tannehill’s tenure as Dolphins quarterback resembled a lot of the traits young professionals and entrepreneurs seer early in their careers:
Flashes of greatness, getting sacked (maybe not by a 300-pound defensive lineman, but a manager or boss), and merely trying to survive — and stay, in the game.
To give some perspective, the average NFL Career is just over three years. And remember when I said he was drafted in 2012?
Three other quarterbacks were taken in the first round of that draft. Here’s what they’re doing now:
Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts (1st overall) — Retired
Robert Griffin III, Washington Redskins (2nd overall) — Backup quarterback for Baltimore Ravens
Brandon Weeden, Cleveland Browns — Out of football
The comical acronym for the NFL, ‘Not For Long’, is true for thousands and thousands of players who’ve come and gone.
In 2019, new head coach Brian Flores was hired in Miami. He quickly traded Tannehill, and a 2019 sixth-round pick to the Tennessee Titans for a 2019 seventh-round pick and a 2020 fourth-round pick.
Was Tannehill’s time in Miami a failure? Or was he just gaining experience?
Faith
Tannehill went to Tennessee with the understanding he would be backing up starting quarterback, Marcus Mariota.
Every quarterback wants to be on the field, but at this point in his career, Tannehill had to embrace the role of holding the clipboard, and being ready if called upon.
And last season, he was called upon.
Titans head coach Mike Vrabel had the faith that Tannehill could provide a much-needed spark. Benched was Mariota, and in came Tannehill, who never looked back.
Tannehill led the Titans to the AFC Championship, where they would lose to the eventual Super Bowl Champions, Kansas City Chiefs.
But the belief in Tennessee was they had found their man. How much did Vrabel and the organization believe in Tannehill?
They chose him over the GOAT.
Rumors were swirling all off-season about Tom Brady coming to Tennessee (much of it due to Brady’s relationship with head coach and former teammate, Vrabel).
But Vrabel and Titans put their money — and faith — in Tannehill. A good coach, like a good manager, puts his players in the best position to win. And all it takes is one good coach to believe in you, and recognize how you benefit the team.
Embrace being on the field (even if you’re not in the game)
Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young was the backup to Joe Montana for four seasons in San Francisco.
His frustration of not getting on the field shifted when he happened to sit next to Stephen Covey, author of the famous The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, on a chance plane ride.
As Young was lamenting his current situation to Covey, focusing on the cons rather than pros, the author stopped the quarterback in his tracks with some poignant questions.
“Wait a second, is this the best team in the league?”
“Do you play for the best coach?”
“Is Joe Montana around you all the time? Can you ask him questions?”
Young answered yes to all three. And like Tannehill, he would eventually get on the field, and succeed.
Even if you’re on the bench, you can still learn, ask questions and prepare as if you were the starter.
Tannehill did, and now he’s got 118 million reasons to believe all that patience and faith was worth it.
Josh Womack is the head writer at Laugh Staff, and a contributor to Fast Company, Entrepreneur & Crain’s Cleveland Business.
