Former NFL head coach Mike Mularkey admits to leaking false information to media just before he was fired

Former Titans head coach Mike Mularkey has admitted to leaking fake information regarding his future with the franchise before being 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 while he knew that defeat would spell the end of his time in Tennessee, he told NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport that he was actually about to get a contract extension, as he revealed in a new interview.

'The best thing I did there at the end... was when I got called in that Monday morning after the New England game. I knew they were going to fire me,' Mularkey began on Action Sports Jax's 'Brent & Austen', per A to Z Sports.

'So Sunday night, I called Ian Rapoport, and I said, 'Hey, I don't know if you know this, but I'm going to break it to you - I'm getting a new contract in the morning.'

'And he reported that. It was all over the country [that] I was getting [a] contract, knowing that I was going to get fired, but I just wanted to see the faces on the owner and the GM who was out to get me. And I'm pretty sure I got him for for a minute or two. When I walked in the next morning, there wasn't a whole lot of conversation.'

Mularkey did in fact get fired from his Titans role, but not before Rapoport tweeted the coach's misinformation out to his followers.

Rapoport's tweet was retweeted more than 2.2k times and received 2.4k likes.

Notably, Rapoport had reported earlier that January that Mularkey could lose his job if the Titans lost to the Chiefs in the wild card round.

Tennessee won that game but didn't get any further as they fell to Tom Brady and the Patriots at the next stage.

Mularkey, who also coached the Bills and Jaguars before getting to Tennessee, was last in the NFL in 2019 as the Falcons' tight ends coach.