The Tennessee Titans had a rather polarizing draft weekend. If you based your judgments solely off the reactions of the fanbase and local media, you would think the Titans had an average draft at best.
On the contrary, national media outlets everywhere have seemingly loved the Titans’ 2023 class due to the value they got throughout the weekend.
Truthfully, the majority of the local pushback revolved around two things: the Titans’ continued negligence of the wide receiver position, and/or the decision to tie themselves to former Kentucky quarterback Will Levis, especially via trade up.
Regardless of which side you lean toward, both opinions about the Titans’ draft are objectively true to an extent. Tennessee undoubtedly added some impressive young players to its roster, but it just happened to come at the expense of arguably the Titans’ biggest need.
Nonetheless, there is no denying that Tennessee added some much-needed talent to an offense that needed some.
One of the team’s biggest steals of the weekend occurred at the end of Day 3 when the Titans somehow snatched Maryland offensive tackle Jaelyn Duncan in the sixth round.
Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire recently listed each team’s biggest draft steal, and he agrees that taking Duncan at that spot was a home run for the Titans in terms of value and need.
Here is what Farrar had to say about the selection:
The Titans were able to acquire Duncan with the 186th overall pick in the sixth round for one reason — for all his considerable athletic traits, Duncan is raw like sushi, and may be a multi-year project before he’s able to pass-protect at the NFL level. The 6-foot-6, 306-pound Duncan allowed seven sacks and 28 total pressures last season, with up-and-down results as a run-blocker.
The reason he’s a steal with that pick is that when he puts it all together on tape, Duncan has the kind of agility and movement skills any NFL offensive line coach would love. There’s a lot of coaching and technique work in Duncan’s future, but if he hits… he could be just as effective as Northwestern offensive lineman Peter Skoronski, who Tennessee took with the 11th overall pick.
According to the consensus, the Titans walked away with two top-100 prospects on the offensive line. Needless to say, after last year’s disaster upfront, that type of upside is more than welcomed in Tennessee.
