5th round, pick 155: Jayon Brown LB, UCLA
Grade: A+
Jayon Brown was maybe the best pick of Jon Robinson’s career as a GM when you combine the talent with the value. I mean here is a guy who no one was even talking about and who rarely was mentioned as anything more than a 7th round lottery ticket kinda player.
In his first year you could already tell that Brown was different than linebacker the Titans had drafted highly in the past. He had the speed of Zach Brown but the tenacity of Wesley Woodyard. In coverage he was great, and while he was willing to take on the run he didn’t make a great impact there in year one.
Fast forward to year two and he was fantastic. Anything you wanted him to do he could and he would do it at a high level. He was a complete linebacker in the mold of Telvin Smith or Lavonte David.
In a league shifting to linebackers who have to be able to cover and blitz, Brown is the perfect new age linebacker who the Titans would have been lucky to draft in the 1st round much less the 5th.