Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill is on the hot seat following his disastrous showing in the playoff loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, which has led many to speculate that the team could draft a signal-caller in 2022.
While it doesn’t appear he has any inside information on the matter, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer believes we should be “keeping an eye on” Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder for Tennessee.
“Is there one (quarterback) he’d (general manager Jon Robinson) be interested in? It’s worth keeping an eye on Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder. I’ve heard that Bearcats coach Luke Fickell and his staff have really talked Ridder up privately to NFL teams. And Fickell’s best friend happens to be Mike Vrabel, the Titans’ head coach.”
Not only are Fickell and Vrabel best friends, but the UC head coach was also the best man at Vrabel’s wedding. If there’s one college coach whose word Vrabel will trust, it’s Fickell’s.
The Titans were in attendance at Ridder’s pro day workout recently, but they’ve been doing their due diligence on all of the top quarterbacks in this year’s class, so there isn’t anything extra to glean from that.
If the Titans indeed have their sights set on Ridder, they might have to jump on him at No. 26 overall. Tennessee doesn’t own a second-round pick and there’s a good chance Ridder will be gone by No. 90 overall.
No matter what, general manager Jon Robinson should be doing his best to bridge the gap between his team’s first- and third-round selections.
A win-now team like the Titans faces quite the conundrum when thinking about taking a quarterback in the first round.
Any quarterback the Titans draft won’t help them until 2023 at the earliest with Tannehill locked-in for this coming season, and the team has more immediate needs at wide receiver and offensive line.
Then again, there’s no guarantee selections at any of those positions will provide an immediate impact, as we’ve seen in recent years.
With all that said, good franchise quarterbacks don’t grow on trees and if the Titans feel very strongly about Ridder, they should jump on him. In a perfect world, that moment would come on Day 2 at the earliest.
