Ian Rapoport, a well-respected NFL insider, broke silence after finding himself at the center of an intertwined situation when former Titans coach Mike Mularkey played a joke that transformed into one of Rapoport’s career-defining moments.
Ian Rapoport Responds to Mike Mularkey’s Prank: “It Was Not Fun”
lan Rapoport discussed how the whole saga happened on Friday’s episode of The Insiders on the NFL Network. He disclosed that the saga dates back to the 2018 playoffs when most teams were laying off their coaches.
Ian Rapoport, the well-known and renowned NFL insider, has built himself a strong reputation for his keen attention to detail and insider knowledge, reported that the Tennessee Titans were expected to part ways with head coach Mike Mularkey.
However, things took an unexpected turn when Rapoport received confidential information that Mularkey might be getting a contract extension. Lan Rapoport made a headline that led to immediate criticism from fans and team officials.
“After the 2017 season, in the 2018 playoffs, I reported several times that the Titans were expected to fire Mike Mularkey. And then I got a tip from a trusted and reliable source that he was getting a contract extension after a playoff run. I reported it — he was fired the next day. It has been one of the biggest mysteries of my entire career. And now, it has been solved.”
However, it was during an interview Mularkey did on the Jaguars hour with Brennt & Austen that Mularkey revealed that he was called in for a Monday meeting with his bosses after his team’s Divisional Round loss to the New England Patriots in January of 2018.
Expecting to be relieved of his duties, he decided to play a joke on them by calling Rapoport on Sunday to tell them he was getting a contract extension. But known to Rapoport, this piece of information was far from the truth, leading to one of the biggest boondoggles of his journalism career.
On learning this from the record shared, Rapoport responded:
“Those guys, yukking it up — pretty funny, for them, I guess,” Lan Rapoport said. “If you don’t care about accuracy and taking someone’s reputation and rubbing it in the mud. Everyone said Mike Mularkey’s a good guy — he always was to me. I liked him.
Thought he was very respectable. That is not cool. That’s not funny. I was a younger reporter then, and the amount of online hate and ridicule I got, because Mike Mularkey thought it would be funny to get back at his old boss, was not fun. So, I don’t have much to say. I don’t blame Mike Mularkey. But I want to. That was not cool, and that was not funny. And we should treat truth better than that.”
Years ago, Mike Mularkey thought it would be funny to lie to me to get back at his #Titans bosses. It was not funny.
With one of the biggest mysteries of my career solved, I responded on The Insiders. pic.twitter.com/chrJll1T6b
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 23, 2024
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