Hey Yo: Sports Talk with Some Southern Swagger

As we sit here today the Tennessee Titans are in the unenviable position of being two years away from being two years away (shoutout Bruno Caboclo) which is unfathomable in today’s NFL. Apathy has set in with the Titans fanbase, ticket prices are cheaper than a Bud Light on Broadway, and the roster has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. It obviously isn’t something that happened overnight it’s a culmination of years of mismanagement which I will detail in the coming weeks but when trying to figure out where the downfall started going back to the 2018 Draft is a great place to start.

When thinking about the NFL draft I like to think of draft picks as lottery scratch offs. You are going to miss more than you hit and when you do hit, you are more likely to get a free ticket (depth player/fringe starter) than you are to hit something more than a free ticket (legit starter/Pro Bowl caliber player). If given the option, the more scratch offs you have the better the chance you have at winning something. It is why the good Franchises play the comp pick game and tend to trade down to gain more picks than trading up and going all in fewer picks in the draft. If you didn’t already know you all can see where this is going.

The 2018 NFL Draft the Titans ended up making 4 picks. Traded up to pick LB Rashaan Evans in the 1st round, traded up to get Edge Harold Landry in the 2nd round, and traded up yet again to move into the 5th round to draft S Dan Cruikshank. The only pick that didn’t involve a trade up was in the 6th round where they picked QB Luke Falk. The process that went into this draft is one that you could argue a Super Bowl contender might should consider if they thought they were 1-2 players away and they fell in love with those players in the draft evaluation period, but the Titans were a 9-7 team with a negative point differential. The process was terrible, and the results weren’t much better.

Rashaan Evans was a disappointing middle linebacker that never lived up to the 1st round hype. Harold Landry was a solid edge for the Titans and the only true contributor from the draft class. Dane Cruikshank was an oft injured special teamer that never really contributed for the Titans on defense. Luke Falk never played a down for the Titans. Just a disappointing draft for a team that wasn’t nearly good enough to go all in by repeatedly trading up and minimizing their draft picks. It’s a mistake of unwarranted arrogance from the Titan’s front office that thought they were closer to being a Super Bowl contender than they actually were. I’m cautiously optimistic that the Titans have hit rock bottom but the journey to the bottom definitely didn’t happen overnight and there will be more to come on this journey.