Decisions, decisions. After this weekend’s developments around the NFL, the Tennessee Titans might finally find some sort of reward for this season’s consistent futility.
After losing to four-win Jacksonville for the second time this season – and thanks to the New York Giants’ shocking upset of the Indianapolis Colts – the Titans now find themselves holding the No. 2 overall pick in next year’s draft.
Of course, there is still one more week of the regular season, and the Titans shouldn’t count their draft picks before they hatch. Strange, curious and improbable things have been known to happen in the NFL regular season’s final weekend, perhaps even as strange as the Titans somehow finding a win next weekend against Houston and derailing the whole process of picking in the top two of the draft.
But for now, let’s assume that the Titans will continue their penchant for finding ways to lose for one more week and hold the second pick into the draft. What should they do with it?
Basically, there are three options here – each with its possible rewards and drawbacks. Here we go.
Option 1: Draft a quarterback
Assuming that New England maintains the top pick by losing next week to Buffalo, and the Patriots don’t trade the pick somewhere else, it would not appear the Pats are going to select a quarterback.
They just chose Drake Maye with the third overall pick last year, and while he still has a long way to go, he has shown enough promise to try and build around him.
So that could very well leave the Titans with their choice of quarterbacks on the board. Would they draft Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders or Miami’s Cam Ward to try and finally secure a quarterback of the future? Both were electrifying in college this past year. But college success doesn’t always guarantee NFL success.
Still, if general manager Ran Carthon, head coach Brian Callahan and president of football operations Chad Brinker believe that either Sanders or Ward can transform the fate of the franchise long-term, then they probably have to do it.
After all, the thought process is that you don’t want to be in this position again, and taking the right quarterback can prevent that. Of course, taking the wrong quarterback can land you right back there in a hurry, which is what has happened to the Titans over the past 20 years.
The Titans have historically picked bad years to be bad, meaning there has been no Andrew Luck or Joe Burrow waiting to transform a franchise when the Titans had high picks.
Since taking Steve McNair No. 3 overall in 1995, the Titans have chosen the following quarterbacks with first-round picks – Vince Young (third overall in 2006), Jake Locker (eighth overall in 2011) and Marcus Mariota (second overall in 2015). None of those quarterbacks proved to be a long-term answer.
The organization also has failed to develop quarterbacks, as evidenced recently by Malik Willis and Will Levis, neither of whom was a first-rounder.
So, can the Titans fix the franchise’s quarterback problem with a No. 2 draft pick? History tells us they haven’t.
Taking a quarterback is often a crapshoot for any franchise. Even the first overall picks in the previous two drafts – Carolina’s Bryce Young and Chicago’s Caleb Williams – have struggled to elevate their teams. Second overall picks in those drafts – Houston’s C.J. Stroud and Washington’s Jayden Daniels – have been much better so far, in part because they have better supporting casts. That brings us to option No. 2.
Option 2: Bolster another position
It’s no secret the Titans have plenty of holes on a roster that were not fixed by more than $200 million of spending last offseason.
This team lacks impact players and true cornerstone pieces. Picking second overall in the draft should allow the Titans to find a top-tier edge rusher like Penn State’s Abdul Carter or maybe even the most talented player overall in the draft, Colorado’s Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter.
The Titans need players who can make an impact, and Callahan and Carthon know this well from their previous stops. As good as Joe Burrow is, he didn’t truly begin to fulfill his vast potential until Ja’Marr Chase was drafted the following season, fortifying the Bengals passing game.
If the Titans feel Hunter or perhaps another receiver could elevate the passing game and take it to a new level, then perhaps a bridge quarterback paired with a talented wideout could make this offense operate more like it is supposed to instead of sputtering with turnovers and missed opportunities.
It worked out pretty well for the Titans when they acquired Ryan Tannehill as a bridge quarterback and let him throw to a talented receiver like A.J. Brown, who gave the Titans the most talented receiver the organization has produced in years. And he was a second-round pick, which is another part of the equation.
Picking at the top of the draft in each round, the Titans have to be able to find talent up and down the draft board – players who can come in and make an impact now and for the long term.
Option 3: Acquire more picks
Honestly, if the Titans are not sold on Sanders or Ward as a bona fide franchise QB, this option makes the most sense for a team that has so many defects at so many positions.
We have seen this before, and it worked out pretty well.
A year after Mariota was drafted by Ruston Webster in 2015, the Titans cleaned out the front office and brought in Jon Robinson, who held the first overall pick in that draft. Robinson dealt that choice to the Los Angeles Rams for a bundle of picks and began to turn those picks into building blocks to retool the Titans.
The Rams used the first overall pick to take Jared Goff, who did turn out to be a franchise quarterback, albeit now for Detroit. But Goff did guide the Rams to a Super Bowl. At the time, the Titans didn’t feel like they needed Goff because they were still invested in Mariota.
So, after Robinson made another deal with Cleveland, the Titans’ final haul from all the draft choices obtained for that pick included Jack Conklin, Austin Johnson and Derrick Henry from the 2016 draft and Corey Davis, a top five pick, in the 2017 draft.
Henry became the face of the franchise, and the other three were solid contributors of varying degrees as the Titans returned to respectability in 2016 and eventually made the playoffs for the first time in nine years in 2017.
Obviously, trading that first pick had an impact in rebuilding the Titans and it could have had an even greater impact had the Titans chosen differently with the pick used on Davis.
It’s a little bit of water under the bridge, but players like Christian McCaffrey, Patrick Mahomes, Marshon Lattimore and Haason Reddick all went after the Titans grabbed Davis at No. 5.
But the point is, the Titans have eight picks in this year’s draft and, honestly, could use all the draft capital they can muster. So, trading the pick to fill more holes, whether that means signing a veteran bridge quarterback, drafting one later or even running it back with Will Levis (provided some insurance is brought in) is a viable option to consider.