Peyton Manning never really was the type of quarterback to take a young gunslinger under his wing — just ask Brock Osweiler — and rightfully so. He was the face of the franchise, he was the league MVP and he deserved every single first-team rep he could get. If that meant his backup didn’t develop as quickly as some hoped, too bad; he didn’t plan on them playing anyway.
Apparently, though, retirement has changed Manning’s tune, as he’s been wrangled into mentoring Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill by former Broncos coordinator and current Dolphins head coach Adam Gase.
“It was really cool,” Tannehill told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. “A guy that had his career, the living legend he is, coming off a Super Bowl winning season — it was really cool just to be able to sit and pick his brain about things he’s done in this offense and football things in general: snap counts, things you like, the way you want guys to run routes, little details about the game. We really just got to talk the game, which is something we both love.”
Together, Manning and Gase combined to create one of the greatest offenses in NFL history, and Tannehill is hoping he can do something similar. Talking with Manning gave him a bit of a head start.
“At that time, we weren’t able to meet with the coaches or anything, so I didn’t really have a great handle yet,” Tannehill said. “So I wasn’t really able to dive into the playbook too much. So I had a few questions [for Manning]. If he comes back now, we can have a completely different conversation.”
Manning has been linked to front office positions and he’s talked to several networks about a job in television, but if he can get Tannehill to take the next step, maybe his next career should be in coaching.
