Tennessee Titans takeaways from Carolina signing DaQuan Jones

As you may have heard already, unless, of course, you’ve been living under a rock, former Tennessee Titans defensive tackle DaQuan Jones will not return to Nashville this season. He’ll instead be heading to Charlotte, North Carolina, and now, with the 2021 NFL Draft just eight days away, this is probably the last meaningful move for the Carolina Panthers or Titans.

This almost certainly means that the Titans feel comfortable with adding a defensive lineman somewhere in the draft, but there is also another draft implication that is going underlooked.

How did the Tennessee Titans and Jones get here?

About a week ago, everyone started thinking about whether or not the Tennessee Titans would attempt to re-sign Jones. They should have had the cash to make a move if they wanted to, but if they were going to bring him back, what were they waiting for?

Well, timing is everything in the NFL and it looks like Tennessee Titans and their general manager, Jon Robinson, are going to wait until after the draft to make their next free-agent signing. Specifically, the belief is they may not make another signing until after May 3rd because that’s when the window for evaluating compensatory picks closes.

If they were waiting for that, then they had to think that Jones had an offer on the table that could help them add a pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, so I sent a message to the man with the crystal ball for compensatory picks Nick Korte, and I asked what would happen if Jones got a $4 million deal.

here are a few things to chew on and what that means for Tennessee Titans fans.

Korte said that this means that the Tennessee Titans will likely receive at least a 4th round compensatory pick which might be a late-round selection depending on how some other contracts shape up for this exchange.

Well, just a few days after that exchange the Carolina Panthers made this question a reality instead of a theory.

In trying to think like the GM and put on my Jon Robinson hat (recently Titans Sized tried to rule out some draft prospects based on what he’s done in the past), this is all about maximizing value to make the Tennessee Titans better. Basically, that means this. Robinson is saying that he thinks that, in the short-term and the long-term, the roster will be better with that extra $4 million and with a fourth-round compensatory pick to play with than it would be with DaQuan Jones on the roster carrying a one-year deal.

So, again, what does that mean if you’re a Tennessee Titans fan?

So why does this matter so much? Well, most people say that the draft is really only three or four rounds long depending on who your GM is. Even if you like the potential of picks later on in the process, it is rare for a team to find quality starters on Day 3 in any round. In short, the longer you wait, the lower your chances are.

If you believe in that line of logic, then Titans fans should be encouraged because Tennessee now owns ten picks in the first four rounds of the draft for the next two years. Eight of those picks came naturally. One comes by way of DaQuan Jones. One comes by way of a strategy that Jon Robinson used during the last offseason.

Over the last five years, Robinson has had 17 picks in the first four rounds and 12 of those are presumed starters heading into the 2021 season. That excludes Darrynton Evans, but he’d probably be a starter on quite a few NFL teams this season. That comes out to a 70-percent hit rate, so you can pencil in seven more starters over the next two years.

While the Carolina Panthers are getting a starting-caliber run defender, the Titans are increasing their odds of adding another starting-caliber player to the roster over the course of the next two years, one who is younger and less expensive, so when all is said and done, that’s what you should take away from the Titans letting Jones walk this offseason.