“Patriots Way” Tennessee Titans 2017 NFL mock draft
By Will Lomas
Why the New England Patriots may hold the key to the Tennessee Titans draft.
War Room. It is one of the best books about building an NFL organization that there has ever been, and maybe one of the best there ever will be. It also may hold the key to the Tennessee Titans draft.
Without going into deep detail, Bill Belichick believes in value in the NFL Draft. To find value you need to know what a player’s role will be in the NFL and take him at a spot advantageous to you.
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The Tennessee Titans are facing a situation where there is a pretty clear hierarchy among the 2017 NFL Draft prospects at wide receiver. In some order, the ranking goes: Corey Davis, John Ross and Mike Williams.
With two first round picks, past Tennessee Titans regimes may have just taken the one they love the most at 5 overall. However, with this team I believe they will try to get the most value possible.
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If the Titans rank all three as WR1s in the NFL, then this could be the perfect time to prove that value and talent identification is the key to building a franchise.
What I am proposing is the Tennessee Titans do whatever they feel is best with the 5th overall pick, and then leverage their picks later to get the 3rd WR off the board. I am gong to show you what I mean in this 2017 NFL Mock Draft.
2 trades happened:
-Tennessee Titans trade 5 overall for for the Philadelphia Eagles 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks.
Then with two wide receivers off the board, I was forced to move up to 12 from 14. That cost the 14th pick as well as the Tennessee Titans original 3rd round pick and the Eagles 4th round pick.
So, before the Tennessee Titans selected their first player, they had 5 picks in the first three rounds: 12, 18, 43, 74, 100.
12: Corey Davis WR, Western Michigan
If you are going to hope one of the WRs fall, then this is the one you hope you can jump for up for. The Tennessee Titans get WR1 without using pick number 5.
18: Reuben Foster ILB, Alabama
Another crazy steal here and another reason why this strategy could make sense. It is doubtful that Davis would have been here if the Titans had taken foster at 12.
43: Evan Engram TE, Ole Miss
Engram may not be the blocker that OJ Howard is, but he is a great receiving threat. Your TE2 can be a bit more specialized and it would give the offense another toy to play with.
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74: Ahkello Witherspoon CB, Colorado
Witherspoon is 6’3 and was insanely productive last year with 19 pass deflections and 34 solo tackles. This is a guy that not everyone knows, but who makes a lot of sense if you compare him to LeShaun Sims last year.
100: Carlos Henderson WR, La Tech
The final pick of the mock draft, Henderson makes a ton of sense to the Tennessee Titans as a Brandin Cooks-lite type player. He is a big play waiting to happen, even though he really didn’t have a great combine.
So, that is what my draft would look like using the “Patriots Way” model of moving around.
The Tennessee Titans end up with a WR1, a stud ILB, a vertical TE, a CB2, and a slot wide receiver in the first 3 rounds. That is a great haul of immediate starters in my mind.