As the Titans open training camp this week, 2024 promises to be unlike nearly any season we have seen from this franchise – certainly in its time in Tennessee.
The offseason brought a plethora of changes and an entirely new approach to business as the Titans fired Mike Vrabel and brought in first-time head coach Brian Callahan to not only overhaul the way the franchise operates, but also its entire way of playing the game.
Callahan enters this training camp tasked with developing second-year quarterback Will Levis and building the offense around him. With the help of general manager Ran Carthon, the Titans spent a good part of the offseason putting the necessary pieces in place to not only help Levis, but change the entire complexion of the offense.
This switch from a power running style, which over the years featured Eddie George, Chris Johnson, LenDale White, Demarco Murray or Derrick Henry, is the most radical change the franchise has undergone since 1994.
That was when they fired Jack Pardee in midseason, ditched the run-and-shoot offense and elevated Jeff Fisher and his defensive-minded, running-first style to begin a 17-year run as head coach.
Even years after Fisher’s departure, the Titans have mostly stayed true to a run-first mindset. But now, because of that pivot, it has meant an offseason (and subsequently regular season) unlike any other since the franchise landed in Tennessee.
There are two primary reasons that the Titans wound up so busy this offseason.
The first, of course, is the switch in philosophy.
Over the past couple of seasons, Vrabel said multiple times that the Titans simply were not built to drop back and throw the football 40 times a game. Vrabel was right in that regard, given that the Titans yielded 113 sacks over the past two years.
Now, it appears that the drop-back passing game and Levis will be the centerpiece of what Callahan wants to do.
“I thought Will was a really good player coming out of college, and I thought when you watched him play this year, you saw growth,” Callahan said early in his tenure. “You saw him learn. The NFL is hard. It’s hard on quarterbacks. It’s particularly hard on young ones.
“I saw a lot of really positive things. Some of the throws, some of his competitive instincts that he put on tape were really impressive,” Callahan continued. “I’m excited to dive more into that. And how can he get better from Year One to Year Two and keep putting him in position to have success so we can score some points on offense.”
Paying now for past mistakes
In order to make that happen, a team that hasn’t scored 30 points since the tail end of the 2021 season needed pieces of the puzzle from free agency and the draft in order to begin that transition.
Key among that was that Henry was allowed to leave and sign with Baltimore, while former Dallas Cowboy Tony Pollard was brought in to pair with Tjyae Spears to give the Titans two pass-catching running backs in the backfield.
Carthon went out and landed veteran receivers Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd, both of whom have had 1,000-yard receiving seasons in their career to pair with holdover DeAndre Hopkins who had 1,000 yards last year in his first season as a Titan.
Of course, all that is moot unless the Titans improve a horrific offensive line – something they set out to do almost immediately when Callahan brought his father Bill on board to be the team’s O-line coach. The elder Callahan has a reputation, much like former Titans coach Mike Munchak, of being one of the league’s best offensive line minds with an ability to get the most out of what he has at his disposal.
To help out there, the Titans signed free agent Lloyd Cushenberry to replace undersized Aaron Brewer at center and drafted JC Latham to fill the massive void at left tackle. Other free agent signings for the line will be sorted out in preseason in hopes of putting a competent starting five on the field to protect Levis.
Free agent dollars
The second reason the Titans have made so many changes this offseason – not only on offense, but also on defense – is simply the fact that the roster was threadbare at so many positions, thanks to poor drafting from 2020-22.
Those draft misses created so many holes on the Titans roster that there are literally no players left from the 2020 draft, and the only player currently listed as a starter from class of 2021 is safety Elijah Molden, who is not a lock to retain that role.
The 2022 class has been a bit better, producing starting tight end Chig Okonkwo and nickelback Roger McCreary, but there are still plenty of players from that group (most notably first-round pick Treylon Burks), who have yet to establish themselves as front line contributors.
So that meant going back to the drawing board with the $87 million available in cap space. That allowed the Titans to not only upgrade the line and find skill position players to fit Callahan and Levis, but it also allowed them to fill some needed holes on defense.
The most notable changes there have been in a revamped secondary that added star cornerback L’Jarius Sneed for Kansas City after he had been franchise tagged by the Chiefs. Veteran cornerback Chidobe Uwozie and recently signed safety Jamal Adams figure to be key pieces of new defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson’s promised aggressive approach.
Callahan talked earlier this offseason about targeting Sneed and Uwozie to upgrade at cornerback. Needing immediate starters, the Titans moved quickly in free agency, seeing the quick fix there better for now than what was available in the draft.
“You have a draft and you have free agency, and you target a lot of your free agency based on what’s available in the draft. So you might have some available defensive free agents, we felt like there were corners that we could sign,” Callahan says. “Maybe there weren’t as many corners in the early parts of the draft that were of the same caliber. Those two processes work simultaneously.
“As you add players of need in free agency, which is what free agency is for, you want to add at positions of need, the draft then opens up for you to take a bit more of an open-minded approach on what the best players are at those positions.”
That said, as the Titans move forward, look for the emphasis to shift back to developing players through the draft, so they don’t have to add so many new players in free agency.
The Titans were fortunate to find top-caliber players like Sneed, Ridley, Cushenberry and Pollard to add to their roster. But that likely won’t be the approach over the long haul as Carthon and Callahan get on the same page in player evaluation and development.
“The hope is that, in the future, we are drafting and developing and just signing in free agency with a little more discretion,” Callahan says. “We had to sign a bunch of players this year, but the goal is always to draft and develop and supplement in free agency each year.”