5 Prospects Tennessee Titans GM Jon Robinson won’t select in Round 1

Don’t bet on the Tennessee Titans taking any of these five prospects.

Any good NFL general manager can find talent in the first three rounds of a draft, but it’s the great GMs who understand what they need to look for in prospects and they find ways to add talent in each of the later rounds. The Tennessee Titans are lucky to have a great GM in Jon Robinson.

During his time in the position, Jon Robinson has selected 35 players over the course of five selection meetings, and he’s drafted multiple players at every position except for the tight end area.

That sample size should give observers a pretty good idea of what Robinson is looking for. What we’re going to look at today is a list of players commonly mocked to the Tennessee Titans that don’t match up with these tendencies.

Is it impossible that the Titans are going to draft one of these players? Well, no. We have seen GMs completely abandon all reason and tendency and spend high draft picks on kickers or get a wild hair and go against their research for players that they believe are outliers. Still, at the end of the day, it’s always wise to go with what history says.

Here’s something to help you avoid disappointment, Here are five prospects the Titans figure to ignore in Round 1.

Gregory Rousseau probably gets ignored if you’re a Tennessee Titans fan.

Former Miami Hurricanes standout Gregory Rousseau has gone from being overrated as a top-ten prospect to being underrated after he only tested like a ‘good, but not great’ edge defender at his Pro Day. There are two problems with Rousseau that work against him. First of all, he didn’t play in the SEC.

As superficial as that sounds, Jon Robinson seems to understand that the best players in the NFL generally come from the most talented conference in college football. Over the last three years he’s spent all of his first-round picks on SEC talent. He’s also gone with SEC prospects with two of three of his second-round selections.

The one outlier in this is theory is Harold Landry, which brings us to what will likely be Jon Robinson’s second problem with Mr. Rousseau. He hasn’t had sustained production. In his first draft class, Robinson spent a second-round pick on Kevin Dodd who was a one-year wonder. Unfortunately, the Titans got almost nothing from him.

He corrected that mistake by drafting Harold Landry two years later. He averaged 1.45 TFLs and 0.78 sacks per game over his three years as a starter with the Boston College Eagles. Both of those rates of success were phenomenal over an extended period of time, and that’s probably why Robinson chose him as opposed to going with yet another SEC guy.

We can probably rule out seeing Bateman in a Tennessee Titans jersey.

We have talked about why any non-SEC player is going to have an uphill battle to be the Titans first pick, but we need to talk about an even better filter for draft prospects. Jon Robinson has adhered to something called the “Matias Wodner rule”. Just in case you’re unaware of what that is, here’s the rule and why it is so important:

"Every receiver Jon Robinson spends a draft pick on MUST have two or more 1,000-yard seasons. Looking back from 2014-2019 there are only 39 players with 2+ 1,000 yard seasons, so just under 8 receivers per draft class. Robinson has drafted four of those receivers (Corey Davis, A.J. Brown, Tajae Sharpe, and Taywan Taylor) and those are the only receivers he has spent draft picks on. At this point, you can doubt whether it is mandatory for a college receiver to produce like that, but it is definitely a strong preference."

Rashod Bateman seemed like he was trending towards Wodner territory after his 2019 season, but he struggled throughout his 2020 campaign. Even if you double his yardage total to account for what the SEC did this season, he still wouldn’t fit the rule.

Now, there are some reasons to think that Bateman may be an outlier. He was coached by P.J. Fleck, who also coached Corey Davis, and both Bateman and Davis seem to be guys who can win inside or outside at every level of the field.

Bateman isn’t the physical specimen that Davis was, and it’s hard to determine how the Titans are going to value first-round talent at the wide receiver position. Still, it’s hard to state that Bateman checks every box, especially when he’s being compared to Corey Davis.

Ronnie Perkins would probably be a mistake for this Tennesee Titans team.

One of the most aggravating things to Titans fans is when people use mock drafts to talk more about players they like instead of actually paying attention to the Tennessee Titans’ needs.

On paper, Ronnie Perkins kind of passes the test as he finished his career with nearly a TFL and half a sack per contest in 33 in-game appearances. When you watch him play, you see a player that the Titans have typically avoided in the past.

For reference, the two high picks that Jon Robinson has used on edge guys were spent on guys with the body types to be every-down defenders in the NFL. Kevin Dodd had a frame similar to then-starter Derrick Morgan, and Harold Landry’s ability spoke for itself (he’s also played nearly every snap since his second year in the league).

What keeps Perkins from being that type of prospect is the fact that his college production is based almost solely on an Oklahoma defense that was very aggressive and never asked their rushers to do anything on their own.

Most of the stats that Perkins accumulated came from offensive linemen completely missing him on stunts and blitzes or plays where he is slanting when the ball is snapped. He almost never has to read and react and he offers very little versatility at the next level due to a limited athletic profile and a lack of instincts when he isn’t helped by aggressive playcalling.

Toney is another wideout that you can scratch off of the Tennessee Titans list.

This one is going to hurt a lot of feelings, but the facts are the facts. Kadarius Toney has an almost zero percent chance of landing with the Tennessee Titans in the upcoming draft. Even if he fell into the second round, it’s doubtful that he’s going to be someone that Jon Robinson will like for a few very important reasons.

Obviously, one of those reasons is the fact that he doesn’t even come close to passing the aforementioned Matias Wodner rule, and he never even had one year with 1,000-yard production. Even more disturbing is the fact that he was with Florida for three years (27 games) prior to 2020 and he never had a season where he reached 200 receiving yards.

Aside from being the definition of a one-year wonder, he has had injury concerns, and that began his first season at the collegiate level. When you’re five-foot-eleven and you weigh less than 200 pounds, it’s a really bad look to have almost no production AND multiple injuries.

What might be most concerning is the fact that Titans fans just saw Isaiah Wilson try to get a rap career going in the middle of an NFL season when the team was starting free agents off of the street as opposed to just starting him. You could understand why Robinson might be a little concerned about drafting a player highly who also already has a burgeoning rap career on top of all of these other issues.

If the Tennessee Titans take a lineman, it won’t be this one.

This is probably the worst pick that has ever been taken in any mock draft for the Tennessee Titans, and that can be stated for a few reasons. Let’s start with the most obvious. Jalen Mayfield was drafted to play tackle in a recent mock, but he isn’t regarded as a tackle by most of the trusted voices in the draft community.

There’s also this. Most have criticized him for his sloppy technique and his short arms. These are clear indicators that he is going to have to kick inside to play the guard position at the next level. He would also be the least athletic offensive tackle that the Titans have ever drafted.

Give this a look if you will.

Oh, and he also didn’t play in the SEC. There’s another knock against him.

let’s bundle some of the other concerns into one point. He decided to enter the draft even though he was a junior, despite only appearing in two games during his final season He should have gone back to school, and on top of that, he was only the starter for one year at Michigan.

If last season taught the Titans front office anything, it’s the fact that they shouldn’t take chances on offensive linemen that don’t have All-Pro upside. Look no further than the fact that they put up 30-plus points per game with Dennis Kelly and David Quessenberry as starting tackles for most of the season.

When it’s all said and done, here are the facts. The Titans don’t need to take this guy in the first round. They don’t even need to tea him in the top 100 picks.