Ryan Tannehill on Dan Le Batard radio show: ‘Marino told me to mess up the first diaper I changed’

ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard hates interviewing head coaches and quarterbacks. It is not something he hides, and he points to the fact that coaches and quarterbacks are all well-practiced in the “speak-but-say-nothing” skill. On Friday, one of Le Batard’s nemeses, Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill, appeared on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz during the show’s Miami local hour.

“Tannehill, do you even know why you are our nemesis?” Le Batard opened the interview.

“I think it goes back a few years, to the robo-quarterback thing,” Tannehill replied, recognizing exactly why Le Batard does not like having quarterbacks on his show. The Dolphins starting quarterback laughed as Le Batard agreed with the reasoning.

If you do not listen to the Le Batard show, it is a sports show on ESPN Radio that tries hard to not be a sports show. They cover the major topics, but they enjoy talking about interesting things in sports and in pop culture more than they like to give takes on the main sports storylines. It also leads to interviews that contain killer questions for Tannehill about what Lauren, his wife, would say is the most annoying thing that he does.

“She hates when I leave the dishtowel wadded up by the sink,” Tannehill replied. “Happens every day.” He went on to explain that he continually knocks the towel into the sink, gets it wet, then throws it onto the other side of the sink as he gets a new, dry one, then forgets about the wet one and leaves it there. “You win some, you lose some,” he told Le Batard. “I just lose that one.”

Tannehill then demonstrated his quarterback-speak, and pass rush evasion skills on the next question. Jon Weiner, professionally known as Stugotz, co-hosts the show with Le Batard, and followed up the question about Tannehill annoying Lauren by reversing it and asking Tannehill what Lauren does to annoy him. As any husband will tell you, there is only one way to properly answer that question, and Tannehill nailed it. “My wife is a perfect little angel,” he said, laughing when Stugotz yelled back, “Oh, come on Tannehill!”

“Listen, I live with her,” Tannehill added as Le Batard asked if Stugotz was familiar with any of Tannehill’s work on their show. “I’m not going to air out any dirty laundry on the radio,” Tannehill continued, laughing.

Le Batard then added, continuing to laugh, “What she does to annoy you is leave things sometimes in the rental car.” Lauren, in 2014, reportedly rented a car, then changed it for another car a couple of hours later. When another woman rented the original car, she discovered an AR-15 rifle, locked in a case, in the backseat of the vehicle.

Tannehill laughed and replied, “Yeah, that will do it.”

“There were a ton of things I didn’t know how to do,” Tannehill said as the conversation turned to being a new father. Lauren and Ryan welcomed Steel, their son, back in July 2016. “They send you home with this baby, and you are strapping him into his car seat, and you’re like ‘Am I doing this right? Can I get someone to check it? Is there a manual for this thing?’ And they are just waving at you like ‘Good luck with everything.’ You go home, and you have to change these black tar diapers, which are really kind of disgusting, but it’s your kid so you don’t want to be disgusted. There is definitely a learning curve. I’ve been peed on, I’ve been pooped on, I’ve been thrown up on. So, yeah, there’s definitely some stuff that people don’t want to talk about, but it happens.”

“This happened during last football season,” Tannehill relayed when asked about how many times he has been peed on by Steel. “I’m going to change him, and I get his diaper off and clean him up. It’s not a poo diaper, just a pee diaper, so I get the diaper off and clean him up. About that time, he starts spitting up. So, he’s laying on his back, so I sit him up so he’s not choking on it, and I wipe his face. He’s a newborn and can’t really do anything at this point. So, I start wiping off his face. Well, then, poo...straight onto my hand because I am holding him at this point. Straight onto my hand. So, I’m like ‘Ahhh...no way! Ahh!’ Then I hear....now he is peeing also. Splashing on the floor, on my shirt, on my face. It was unbelievable. I really had all three bodily fluids happen at the same time. Unbelievable....At that point, I knew I was in for it, I didn’t own my life anymore.”

Oh, the fun of being a new parent.

“There’all types of things,” Tannehill continued when asked about other examples of being scared as a new parent, not sure if you are doing something right. “Am I parenting right? Am I watching him closely enough? My wife always gets on me because she will leave me with the baby, and I will set him down and turn my back for what I think is probably about five seconds, usually it is longer than that, if I am going to be honest with you, then I hear a crash behind me, and I look behind me and he is into something. So, there’s always a bit of a fear whenever I’m on watch. I just don’t want him to get hurt too badly or mess up anything where I am going to get in trouble.”

Yep, sounds exactly like a dad.

Stugotz then asked if Ryan has ever forgotten that Steel is there. At first, Tannehill denied it, but then corrected himself and said “Actually, one time. My brother was in town. I was on baby duty, my wife was out of the house. This was a few months ago, in the offseason. During his nap time in the afternoon, I’m out back on the boat, working on my boat, and it’s been a little while. My brother looks at me and goes, ‘Hey, do you think we should check on Steel?’ I was like ‘Oh, crap, I forgot I had a baby in there.’”

Le Batard and Stogotz laughed as Stugotz added, “It happens man, sometimes.”

“Just to finish that,” Tannehill added, “he was still sleep and everything was fine.”

After a conversation about Tannehill adjusting to no longer being the priority for his wife, and Tannehill joking that he has raised his hand and made sure Lauren knows he is in the room, Le Batard asked Tannehill, “Who’s the guy in your huddle who is going to be doing that because he feels like he is always open and being like ‘Hey, I’m still here. Ryan, I’m still here!’?”

“Name one guy who won’t do that,” Tannehill replied. “That’s more like it. Every receiver wants the ball, and that’s the way you want it. I don’t really have a problem with it.”

“I’m the guy that is stumbling into the hotel with three bags and a stroller and everything else that the baby needs,” Tannehill replied when asked if he has help when they go on trips.

Tannehill then, when asked if there was anyone in the locker room who would never change a diaper, revealed that he was burying the headline, having gotten parenting advice from Miami legend and Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino. “Marino told me to mess up the first diaper I ever changed, so I would never have to change one again,” Tannehill laughed.

“That’s good advice,” Le Batard said. Then followed up asking for more advice Tannehill has received from Marino.

“Let’s see, his favorite one is ‘Pick a guy and let it fly.’ That’s his go to line.”

The conversation turned to Tannehill at a wedding and his dancing skills. Tannehill then dodged a question about his go-to karaoke song, with Le Batard commenting that Tannehill was avoiding it like it was a pass rush.

The interview then closed with Le Batard asking Tannehill, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most happy, how happy was Miami’s quarterback that the interview never included a question about how Tannehill’s knee - which was injured late last season - was feeling. “Ten,” Tannehill replied almost immediately.

Le Batard added, how much does Tannehill wish all interviews covered topics like they just covered, rather than actual football. “100 percent,” Tannehill answered.

“How’s the knee, by the way?” Stugotz jokingly asked.

“You had to go there. You had to go there. You almost made it,” Tannehill answered. “You were literally almost there. You could see the finish line, but just couldn’t help it.”

It was a perfect The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz interview, talking to a sports personality about everything but sports. Heading into Father’s Day weekend, it was fun to listed to stories from Tannehill about being a new father. And, it did show off some of Tannehill’s personality, rather than him sticking to the robo-quarterback answers.

You can check out the full interview on ESPN Radio’s website.