Tennessee Titans have a top-10 offensive line again
By Will Lomas
PFF grades out the Tennessee Titans offensive line as one of the best.
Even though the Tennessee Titans run the ball more than nearly anyone in the NFL, the most important trait for an offensive line is how well you can protect your quarterback.
That is why guys like Quinton Spain and Josh Kline are now with different teams after a year where Marcus Mariota was sacked 42 times (a career high). This prompted several changes heading in the 2019 season.
Obviously the first move was to clear the decks at the guard spots, which was made easier with the free agent addition of Rodger Saffold from the L.A. Rams.
In Saffold they got one of the best guards in the NFL and they got a guy who should help out the center as well as make Taylor Lewan even better. I didn’t mention the center by name because that is another change that Titans fans could see this year.
If Ben Jones doesn’t come out and look like he did in 2016, the Titans now have a third year interior offensive line prospect in Corey Levin that legitimately looked like he belonged in the NFL against the Jacksonville Jaguars when he had to step in for Jones.
The battle for the starting center job will probably be a situation where Jones has to fail before Levin gets his shot. However, the right guard is a completely different matter.
Kevin Pamphile was brought back in after a solid performance last year in a limited sample size, but that isn’t the only right guard competing for time. Nate Davis was the Titans 3rd round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft and GM Jon Robinson didn’t draft him to let him sit on the bench for a few years.
The sleeper in all of this is Aaron Stinnie, who was an UDFA that the Titans kept on the roster last year over guys like Akrum Wadley and Deontay Burnett. Stinnie stayed with the Titans all year and the coaching staff apparently sees a lot of promise in the offensive lineman, but I don’t know where they like him most.
He is a career left tackle who won awards for his play at James Madison despite spending his first two years as a defensive lineman. However, in the preseason he played 165 snaps at guard.
At 6’3 he has middling size, but the fact is that he has been coached up by this team for a full year, so it seems like a big preseason for him.
Are you still with me? Alright good, because ultimately the offensive should shake out like this:
LT: Taylor Lewan
LG: Rodger Saffold
C: Ben Jones
RG: Kevin Pamphile/Nate Davis
RT: Jack Conklin
According to Pro Football Focus that offensive line is the 8th best in the NFL in pass protection.
That is a huge leap from where the Titans finished last year which was 24th in the NFL. If this team can just keep Marcus Mariota comfortable in the pocket the rest will take care of itself. We saw that in 2016 and in 2017 when he was protected.
The problem for everyone is that with those other offensive lines, the games where Mariota didn’t get hit multiple times were few and far between.
If the offensive line really does make that kind of jump then the Tennessee Titans are a playoff team without a doubt.