Ryan Says Titans Spurned His Desire to Return
Talks between the Tennessee Titans and free agent cornerback Logan Ryan included a contract proposal.
It was not the team that made the offer, though.
“I approached Tennessee with a one-year option,” Ryan said Sunday on the Double Coverage podcast with Jason and Devin McCourty. “I said, ‘Look, I’m willing to come back and work with the team with a one-year deal to earn the right for an extension, to earn the right to go back to free agency next year and I just want the salary I made last year.’ … They weren’t really interested in that.
“That’s when I kind of knew this is a business and they’re going to do what the marketplace says and they’re going to do what’s best – in their opinion – for the team.”
That’s also when he knew for certain that his time in Tennessee was finished. Ryan formally said goodbye via Twitter last Tuesday. Two days later, in what he called his “final farewell,” he donated $26,000 to the Nashville Humane Association, an organization with which he and his family worked closely during his three years with the Titans.
Ryan set career-highs with 120 tackles, four and a half sacks and four forced fumbles in 2019. His four interceptions were one short of a career-high. He was not only one of the leading performers but also a locker room leader for a team scored a pair of playoff upsets and ultimately reached the AFC Championship.
The performance earned him All-Pro votes but has not produced the type of financial reward he expected.
“I think anybody who plays really well in a contract year wants a raise,” Ryan said. “You play well in a contract year, you’re going to get paid, right? So, I was like, ‘Look, I’ll come back for the same rate. I want to keep this thing going.’”
Titans management had other ideas.
“Tennessee never really offered me a contract,” he said. “They never really talked extension. We never really talked in free agency. They didn’t really try to bring me back. 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 [you] because we’ve got a lot of players on this team.’ And I understood it.”
A third-round pick by New England in 2013, Ryan said he would like his next move to provide some consistency. Specifically, he has been to the playoffs six times in his seven-year career, gotten as far as the AFC Championship five times and was a part of two Super Bowl champions with the Patriots.
So, he says his focus is on teams that are obvious playoff contenders or have the right types of players in the locker room to make a significant jump.
“There’s a lot of teams interested,” Ryan said. “There’s a lot of teams I’m looking at, a lot of teams I’m interested in.
“… I never thought I was a guy that would play for three or four franchises. … I want to do everything well. Play right. Be rewarded and just keep it moving. But you realize how rare that is, man. … It’s just a business, man. It is a real business.”
