Former Titans head coach Mike Mularkey has admitted leaking false information about his future with the franchise before he was fired in 2018.
Mularkey’s Titans went 9-7 during the 2017 regular season before losing to the Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs.
And even though he knew that loss would mean the end of his time in Tennessee, he told NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport that he was close to getting a contract extension, as he revealed in a new interview.
“The best thing I ended up doing there… was when I got called up that Monday morning after the New England game. I knew they were going to fire me,” Mularkey began Action Sports Jax’s ‘Brent & Austen’per Sports from A to Z.
“So Sunday night I called Ian Rapoport and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m going to tell you: I’m getting a new contract in the morning.’
Mike Mularkey is seen after the Titans lost the divisional round game to the Patriots in 2019
Ian Rapoport was told by Mularkey that he was getting a new deal, and reported as such
‘And he reported that. It was all over the country [that] I got [a] contract, knowing I was going to get fired, but I just wanted to see the faces of the owner and the GM who was out to get me. And I’m pretty sure I’ll get him for a minute or two. When I came in the next morning, there wasn’t much talking.”
Mularkey was indeed fired from his Titans role, but not before Rapoport tweeted the coach’s misinformation to his followers.
Rapoport’s tweet was retweeted more than 2.2 thousand times and received 2.4 thousand likes.
Especially Rapoport had previously reported in January that Mularkey could lose his job if the Titans lost to the Chiefs in the wild-card round.
Tennessee won that game, but did not advance as they fell to Tom Brady and the Patriots in the next phase.
Mularkey, who also coached the Bills and Jaguars before coming to Tennessee, was last in the NFL in 2019 as the Falcons’ tight ends coach.