After a horrendous draft night a year ago that saw the Titans lose A.J. Brown in a failed attempt to save money and replace one of the best receivers in the NFL with a rookie, Tennessee entered 2023 in need of a performative masterpiece with a new general manager behind the desk.
And while Ran Carthon didn’t exactly bull us over out of the gate, on Friday night he may have made the best single pick in this year’s draft—the kind of selection that could finally pull the Titans out of an organizational holding pattern they’ve been in for the better part of the last four years.
In quarterback Will Levis, the Titans grabbed a passer who has already been steeped in the offense. To connect the dots: Levis’s hand-picked offensive coordinator at Kentucky, Rich Scangarello, was a top lieutenant of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan for years; and the Titans prefer running a similar outside-zone-style scheme that was brought to them by current Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, back when LaFleur was the Titans’ offensive coordinator in 2018. Before that, Levis played for Liam Cohen, a skilled play-caller from the Sean McVay tree.
