Kevin Dodd may be out of straws with Tennessee Titans.
Before last year, I thought I was one of Kevin Dodd’s bigger proponents. Now I have run out of things I can compliment.
I thought in his first year that before his injury he showed the ability to use his hands and deliver a punch, then get past blocks. That plus his impressive frame made him one of the more interesting developmental prospects on the team.
In fact, I was so bullish on him that I thought he could have a 6 sack season if he stayed healthy. He didn’t even get 6 tackles.
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The foot injury was a huge red flag, but the biggest issue for me was when Mike Mularkey suggested that the issues were less to do about healthy and more to do about his mental state:
"“It was based on performance,” Mularkey said at the time. “[The foot] was affecting him, I think, a little bit in his head that this thing was not allowing him to play at the level he wanted to, and that affected his performance, which affected why we put him down.”"
So now you have the worst injury a bigger player can have (foot and back are tied) and you have a guy struggling with getting his head in the game. Alright, that is bad but now that he has a new coaching staff you would expect him to be trying to put a great foot forward (no pun intended).
Well, fast forward to OTAs this year and Kevin Dodd is nowhere to be found.
Jim Wyatt said this when asked about Dodd in this weekend’s mailbag:
"I can’t tell you why he has not been present for the open OTAs. I can tell you the guys here have been getting better, and there’s competition at outside backer. Brian Orakpo and Derrick Morgan are front-line starters, and Harold Landry was drafted to make an impact. Aaron Wallace is a versatile backer who can rush the passer, and I think he’s No.4 at outside backer right now….…When he’s on the field, he’s going to have to earn his spot on the team."
Dodd was behind the eight ball in earning one of those top-4 spots anyway heading into camp based injuries and bad tape. Now, he isn’t doing himself any favors at all by not showing up and with no answer on why he isn’t here.
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Maybe the coaching staff knows something we don’t about him, or maybe it is exactly what it looks like: the player that may go down as Jon Robinson’s worst pick is in on a fast track to a different roster.
Let me finish by saying, I hope he comes back and is the guy we saw flashes of in his first year. No one wants Dodd to fail, in fact if he had a 10 sack season every Titans fan would be ecstatic.
However, not only does that look unlikely, but with the team carrying 3 QBs and needing to be flexible on defense and needing to fill out a special teams unit the likelihood of Dodd staying looks smaller every day.