One of the most perplexing things from the Tennessee Titans’ 2023 season was the team not giving No. 11 overall pick Peter Skoronski a look at left tackle.
After all, Skoronski was a great left tackle in college and it was worth giving him a shot there with all the issues Tennessee had at the position after the failures of Andre Dillard, Jaelyn Duncan and Dillon Radunz there.
However, as was talked about ad nauseam all season, Skoronski’s lack of length was one reason behind the decision to keep him at left guard, as general manager Ran Carthon explained on Tuesday.
In addition to that concern, Carthon said the team felt it was best to keep the rookie at one position because of the fear it would hamper his development at a new spot (left guard). Also, Carthon mentioned cohesion as another reason, saying it was easier to “replace one guy versus two.”
Potentially moving Skoronski was talked about, though.
“The goal for Peter was to be the left guard and moving him from a new position to a position that he hadn’t practiced, I don’t think was advantageous in his development, in his growth because he was learning a new position,” Carthon said, per Paul Kuharsky. “Yes, he came in, he was an All-American left tackle in college but — and we talked about this with Peter the other day — at this league, there are bigger, longer players and the length presents a problem now.”
“We discussed it, but moving Peter to left tackle, we’d have to put somebody at left guard and now we’re going back to that part about the cohesion,” he added. “It was easier to replace one guy versus two.”
While Carthon didn’t rule out Skoronski playing left tackle in 2024, it sounds like the goal all along has been to keep the Northwestern product at guard.
“Moving forward now, who knows, we may give Peter a look,” he said. “Peter is a player that I would never bet against to say that he couldn’t do something or he couldn’t play. But we thought at the time when we drafted him that we could put Peter at guard and he would be a mainstay.”
