5 Titans players who need to prove they should start in 2021
By Will Lomas
3. David Long, LB
If you aren’t familiar with some of my Twitter account:
A: Why not?
B: You might not know that I have been a big proponent of David Long getting more opportunities on defense for the entire season.
Corey Davis, Jeffery Simmons and Jadeveon Clowney all look really good and they have made the bulk of the plays. I am concerned that we haven't seen David Long for some reason, and I hope Vrabel lets the good players actually play more in the 2nd half. #Titans
— Ran GMC(arthon) (@jlomas72) September 15, 2020
Harold Landry with the initial TFL and David Long cleans it up. WOW, look at that #Titans
— Ran GMC(arthon) (@jlomas72) September 15, 2020
And those tweets go on and on because David Long has been the most electric player on the Titans defense since he stepped on the field against the Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season last year.
However, the coaching staff doesn’t trust him and don’t believe all of this praise they are giving him now. To start the season they tried nearly every possible combination to keep him off the field, whether that meant Nick Dzubnar, Will Compton, or a defensive back getting snaps as the 11th man on defense.
Even now they have no idea what they are doing with him and they lined him up at EDGE some this past week against the Green Bay Packers.
Long is talented and athletic, and he deserves to have a true shot to be the starter at linebacker next year, but he is going to have to continue to stand out on a bad defense or he might get lumped in with the rest of this unit.