Tennessee Titans second-year EDGE Harold Landry deserves more respect.
There are players in the NFL who come into the league with great production, athleticism and hype, but for some reason Tennessee Titans EDGE Harold Landry wasn’t one of those players.
Coming out of the draft as a second round steal, Landry should have been revered as one of the top potential pass rushers in his class. While there was some buzz early, he spent a lot of his rookie season backing up Brian Orakpo and Derrick Morgan who were each in the final year of their career.
So tallying up 4.5 sacks in his first season was very respectable considering how few reps he actually go to see. However, his pedigree as the nation’s leading sacker in 2016 and an outstanding athlete should have been a great indicator that better days were coming.
Fast forward to 2019 and Landry doubled his sack total with 9 in the regular season, and if you want to count postseason games then you can officially call him a double-digit sack artist.
On top of that, he also refined his game as a pure EDGE and took steps to stop being boxed into being “just a pass rusher” which is evidenced by his team-leading 12 TFLs. Improving in both the run and the pass game should have fans excited, especially considering he will only be 24 years old this season.
Best kept secret on the Tennessee Titans roster
As someone who has been screaming Harold Landry praise from the rooftops, you can imagine how excited I was to see that someone else saw this. Enter Bleacher Report’s list of “Best-Kept Secrets” for each team.
Wouldn’t you know it, Landry took the Titans spot and Gary Davenport had this to say:
"Tennessee Titans edge-rusher Harold Landry III came into his own in 2019. After a modest 44 tackles and 4.5 sacks as a rookie, Landry piled up 68 tackles and nine sacks.But despite those solid numbers, there’s been more talk regarding the possibility that Jadeveon Clowney will join the Titans than there has that the 2018 second-round pick out of Boston College is one of the NFL’s ascending pass-rushers.Not only do the Tennessee Titans want that to change, but they need it to.After last year’s surprising run to the AFC Championship Game, the Titans have vastly increased expectations. And while Tennessee added former NFL sack king Vic Beasley Jr. in free agency, Landry will be counted on to anchor the pass rush.If Landry continues his upward trajectory and posts double-digit sacks, he will be in line for both his first trip to the Pro Bowl and a big contract extension."
It wouldn’t shock me to see Harold Landry make his first Pro Bowl this season, and it would be a little poetic if learning behind and with Pro Bowl EDGEs early in his career in Brian Orakpo and Cameron Wake, helped shape him into a Pro Bowl EDGE himself.