Reminding Titans fans of the truth.
A lot of Tennessee Titans fans seem to forget what actually happened to the team last offseason. Let’s take a step back and remember how it all really went down.
The misconception is that this is an accurate timeline of how the Titans offseason went down:
-Cut Logan Ryan
-Re-signed obvious free agents
-Decided to let Jack Conklin walk
-Traded Jurrell Casey
-Signed Vic Beasley
-Draft Jack Conklin’s backup
-Sign Clowney to a huge deal
All of those things are in the right order, but that is the wrong narrative about what happened last offseason.
Here is how it really went down.
The Tennessee Titans had $57 million in cap space and had 22 free agents set to hit the open market. Among them were Jack Conklin, Logan Ryan, Dennis Kelly, Anthony Firkser, and two guys you might have heard of named Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill.
Robinson had to make tough calls and cut Delanie Walker and Cameron Wake while also releasing Ryan Succop and Dion Lewis. That added much-needed cap space, but it also created more holes.
Looking at the start of the 2019 season to the 2020 season, the Titans would start the next year with new starters at QB (Mariota), TE (Walker), RT (Conklin), RG (Pamphile), DT (Casey), EDGE (Wake), LB (Woodyard), CB (Ryan), and K (Succop).
Finding replacements
Some of those replacements were found in house thanks to good drafting in the past. Guys like Jonnu Smith, Nate Davis, Jeffery Simmons, and Rashaan Evans were all ready to step up into the spotlight.
That means that QB, RT, EDGE, CB, and K all had to be replaced either through the draft or free agency. No big deal, just four of the five most expensive positions on the roster.
The first move was to lock down Ryan Tannehill to a deal that was HEAVILY criticized at the time. Look no further than this USA Today article where Steven Ruiz compares Tannehill to Case Keenum and presents every other incorrect narrative that was popular at the time.
Next was to tag, then extend Derrick Henry, another move that feels obvious in retrospect, but wasn’t obvious at the time.
The “don’t pay RBs” community thought every running back would burst into flames as soon as they signed a new contract, and the community includes talking heads like Colin Cowherd who summed up the collective reaction that everyone had after Robinson signed Henry to his new deal.
If you didn’t watch that clip, Cowherd basically says, “It is nice that the Titans signed Henry because he is a good fit in Tennessee, but at his best, he isn’t a top-5 RB and you shouldn’t pay running backs.”
By the way, congratulations Derrick Henry on your 2,000-yard season and your place in history as one of the most dominant running backs to ever play the game.
What happened next?
So the two big moves that the Titans made during the 2020 offseason were re-signings that were crucial to the success of the 2020 team and beyond, but moves that were genuinely criticized at the time.
After those signings, the Titans still had holes at RT, EDGE, and CB.
By all accounts, Robinson tried to sign Jack Conklin to a new deal, but the ClevelandBrowns were just offering too much money on what is basically a 3 year/$42 million contract with an average annual value of $14 million per year.
Instead of paying that steep price, Robinson signed Dennis Kelly to a 3 year/$17.5 million deal with an average annual value of $5.8 million per deal. This was crucial in the eventual extension for Derrick Henry and if the Titans re-signed Conklin then Derrick Henry would be a free agent this offseason.
According to OTC, Conklin’s play this season was worth $15.2 million while Kelly’s was worth $11.8 million. So even though Conklin had a better season than Kelly, the Titans are getting more bang for their buck with the man they picked to be his replacement.
With the good comes the bad though, because the only reason we know that Kelly’s deal was such a steal is because the man who was supposed to be the starter never showed up. 1st round pick Isaiah Wilson may never start a game for the Titans based on his off the field actions and while I hope that I am wrong and that he becomes a great 10-year star for the Titans, that is all in his hands.
The Titans “Defense”
Still needing to fill the depth chart at EDGE, the Tennessee Titans went into the offseason thinking that Kamalei Correa would come back and play in his normal role and that the main person/role that they had to replace was Cameron Wake’s DPR (designated pass rusher) role.
Wake’s replacement was supposed to be Vic Beasley and that is a move that I would make all over again. It obviously didn’t work, but the Titans took a 1-year shot on a guy who had averaged 8.5 sacks per year and 8.5 TFLs per season over the last four years.
Giving him an easier workload and letting him pin his ears back and just try to make splash plays would have worked in most functioning defenses. Unfortunately, the Titans had (and have) Shane Bowen as the DC, a man who seems to find ways to dig down deep and pull out the worst season of any defensive player’s career.
Later, Jadeveon Clowney would see the “Bowen Effect” first hand after a LONG offseason recruiting process brought him to Tennessee.
After being demoted from starter to the fourth EDGE behind Harold Landry, Clowney and Beasley, Correa wanted out and was traded for a 6th round pick that ultimately became cornerback Desmond King.
Speaking of cornerbacks, the final hole that the Titans needed to fill among starters was corner. It looked like they had nailed it in the 2020 NFL Draft with Kristian Fulton from LSU in the second round.
He was supposed to join Malcolm Butler and Adoree Jackson as the third man in the cornerback rotation with player-coach Jonathan Joseph helping mentor him and be another veteran for him to lean on since he had worked with Titans DB coach Anthony Midget back in Houston.
Unfortunately, like a house of cards, one issue toppled the entire group of DBs into a heaping pile of mediocrity.
Adoree Jackson sustained an injury before the first game of the season and Fulton was already trying to come back from a hamstring injury of his own which pushed Joseph and 7th round rookie Chris Jackson into the limelight.
Looking back with context
The context is incredibly important when we talk about what happened this past offseason. Jon Robinson didn’t just throw away money on bad players to fill his roster. Poor coaching on the defensive side of the ball erased all the progress that Dean Pees made and rookies and veterans were both subjected to dealing with Shane Bowen as he actively seemed to try to put them in the wrong positions.
On offense, Robinson managed to replace All-Pro Jack Conklin with Dennis Kelly for one-third of the price and that extra money allowed him to make great deals with Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry. Those two became the core of one of the best offenses in the NFL along with another Robinson steal in A.J. Brown.
Was it a perfect offseason? No, but the free agency period and the 2020 NFL Draft were filled with both filled with logical moves, and this process still led to one of the best offenses in the NFL and an 11-win season despite one side of the ball refusing to show up all season.
Trusting the process is an overused phrase in sports now, but with Jon Robinson, during the 2020 offseason, the problem was never with the moves that he made aside from missing on Wilson in the 1st round. The problem ultimately came from Mike Vrabel’s decision at DC which should reassure some Titans fans…until you remember that Vrabel doubled down on that decision again this offseason.
Well…let’s hope that Jon Robinson can throw enough talent at the defense that even the Bowen/Vrabel connection can’t mess it up.