PFF proves Wilson could help the Titans on every down.
Tennessee Titans rookie tackle Isaiah Wilson is likely to be one of the players talked about the least in the ramp-up to the 2020 NFL Season.
This isn’t really his fault, but he has a lot of things going against him. As if people in the national media needed another player on the Titans roster to pretend to know about, the fact is that there is a laundry list of things that they will use to convince themselves he isn’t worth learning about:
-He was the 6th offensive tackle drafted.
-Andrew Thomas was drafted in the top-5 to a major market, and he was the left tackle opposite Isaiah Wilson.
-He doesn’t have a great stream of highlight blocks to post.
-Wilson never did anything incredible at the combine.
-There is a good chance he doesn’t start the season.
The book on him is already out, no matter what happens this season people who don’t watch him (but pretend to watch him) are going to all say the same thing, “Wilson is a big guy and he did well in the run game, but they are hoping he improves in the passing game in 2021. He has all the tools to be great, now he just needs to be more consistent.”
They will say that because that is the general consensus on him now, and the Titans will be a run-first team so that is the easy narrative to build off of.
However, PFF came out with an interesting stat that shows that Wilson should be more than that in his first season:
https://twitter.com/PFF_Titans/status/1283867821600993281
It would be a lot to ask for a rookie offensive tackle to come in and play at a level close to what Jack Conklin did for the Titans at any (healthy) point in his career. However, there are two things going for Wilson that really help.
First, he is an inch taller and nearly 50 lb. heavier than Conklin, and it wasn’t a mistake that the Titans got a bigger tackle. Clearly the Titans made a conscious effort to get bigger, in fact, Mike Vrabel has made the right side of the line much bigger than before he got there with Wilson and Nate Davis replacing Conklin and Josh Kline.
That suggests that the Titans have a plan in place to utilize that size because no one gets bigger AND switches to a primarily ZBS without doing it on purpose.
On top of that, Wilson rarely makes mistakes and his deficiencies are more about a lack of effort than anything. When that is fixed he will be a moving wall.
Secondly, Wilson really doesn’t have to be Conklin this year. Conklin never got the chance to join a good offensive line with the Titans, and the Titans should probably have at least two Pro Bowl offensive linemen by the end of this year.
If defenses decide to load up the right side to try to beat the young RG/RT combination, then they better have a great group of defenders on the other side to keep the Titans from running it down their throat behind Taylor Lewan and Rodger Saffold.
Also, the Titans offense is based so much on misdirection that even if you have an advantage athletically, there is a good chance that the defender will have to play slower anyway so that they can read the blocks and try to make a play without being in the wrong spot.
So Wilson did his job at the college level, he has the size that the Titans want, he should rarely have to face the other team’s best defender alone, and even if that all goes wrong the defender will have to deal with making sure they don’t guess incorrectly if they want to make a play.
All in all, that is a pretty good position for a rookie to be in and this newest stat helps prove that in situations like that, he can thrive.