The 2024 draft is over, but the Tennessee Titans rebuild is still far from finished.
Yes, the Titans nabbed a trio of potential immediate starters in this year’s draft in tackle JC Latham, nose tackle T’Vondre Sweat and inside linebacker Cedric Gray. But general manager Ran Carthon admits the Titans will be busy once again in free agency to fill needs at safety, edge rusher and depth at tight end.
“I feel really good about the draft class and what these guys are going to be able to come in and do,” Carthon says. “I think we have some guys that will come in and compete to start, and I think we have some guys that will come in and compete for spots and make us a team with some depth.
“And (we) know there’s still some holes to fill, and we’re going to get to it. Left some open roster spots instead of filling it up with just all college free agents,” Carthon continues. “We want to be able to have some flexibility to sign some vets and not have to just cut people. But (we’re) looking forward to it.”
The Titans have been plenty busy this offseason, spending to fill holes with some of the better free agents available. They spent big money in acquiring receiver Calvin Ridley (four years, $92 million, $50 million guaranteed), center Lloyd Cushenberry (four years, $50 million, $30 million guaranteed), cornerback Chidobe Awuzie (three years, $36 million with nearly $23 million guaranteed), and then traded for and signed cornerback L’Jarius Sneed (four years, $76 million, $51.5 million guaranteed).
It’s a little “chicken or the egg” here with the Titans, who still have about $19 million left in cap space for these remaining needs to be filled. The Titans have so much money to spend under the salary cap because they have so few players over the last several drafts who earned a second contract with the club.
From the 2016 through 2020 drafts, only RB Derrick Henry, S Kevin Byard, DL Jeffery Simmons and S Amani Hooker earned second contracts with the club. Henry and Byard, of course, are now gone, leaving only two players from that span who were deemed worthy of extensions here.
Of course, a few other players – most notably WR A.J. Brown, OT Jack Conklin, OT David Long, TE Jonnu Smith – were worthy of second deals but were not signed due to cap issues. Not keeping Brown and Long were poor decisions.
If you want to put the Titans roster situation with heavy free agent spending into layman’s terms, think of it as a road that needs to be fixed. Signing free agents is like filling potholes, a little bit here and there to help patch up the problem areas.
But building through the draft is more like repaving the road and ultimately making it smoother for travel, which is where the Titans want to ultimately be.
“We all know that if you look across the league at the organizations that continue to rise and are at there to operate at a championship type level, they ultimately build their football teams through the draft. And that is our philosophy as well,” says Chad Brinker, the Titans’ newly elevated president of football operations. “I know what we did this past offseason. I think the vision is static. It does not change, but the strategy on how to get where we’re trying to get to, sometimes you have to adapt and have to adjust based on the circumstances.”
And so the Titans had to take big swings in free agency just to jump-start their rebuild and be able to put a halfway competitive product on the field for 2024. That’s what happens when you go three straight drafts from 2020 through 2022 without drafting a single impact player.
In that vein, it is still too early to judge the most recent Tennessee draft classes overseen by Ran Carthon. But some of the early returns are promising.
If Will Levis pans out, then it certainly puts the Titans ahead of the game with a franchise quarterback on a rookie deal. That will allow them to be able to spend in other areas while Levis is still relatively inexpensive.
To that end, the additions the Titans have made should help Levis improve and give the front office a clearer evaluation of him as a quarterback and potential face of the franchise.
In the meantime, the search for the right free agents at the right price will continue until the opening of training camp as the Titans try to get the franchise moving back toward contention in an AFC South, which suddenly looks stronger top to bottom than it has in years.
“Roster building is a 365-day process,” Brinker says. “It doesn’t end after this weekend. We’ll continue to look for good football players beyond the draft to add to this roster.”