Tennessee Titans rookie power rankings after 1st preseason game

Tennessee Titans rookie power rankings

Before this starts, there needs to be an understanding of what the Tennessee Titans rookie power rankings are.

This isn’t a reactionary list of who the best players are going to be based on one preseason game. Instead, this list is going to serve as a jumping-off point for the careers of these rookies.

Over the last four months, Tennessee Titans fans and analysts have gone back and poured over cut-ups of these players in college, analyzed athletic testing numbers, listened to comments from draft experts, and seen them go out and put up weeks and weeks of work in training camp.

This list is going to combine all of that information along with the value of where the player was selected and the long-term outlook of these rookies and rank them from best to worst.

For example, last year the top spot in power rankings like this would have gone to Kristian Fulton in August, but by December Teair Tart might have been at the top of the power rankings. That is because last year you could argue that the Tennessee Titans got as much production from Tart as they had gotten out of Fulton, but as an UDFA, Tart was a much better value.

With that in mind, here are the first power rankings for the Tennessee Titans 2021 rookie class.

5. Tennessee Titans LB Monty Rice (3rd round)

Rookie linebacker Monty Rice is probably not someone that many people expected to see on these power rankings, but he did a lot of things on Friday that deserves praise.

Last year the Tennessee Titans linebackers were painfully slow in analyzing and attacking, and that was one of the big flaws that kept this team from winning 13+ games. Rice doesn’t seem to fit that mold and you could see him adapt and evolve as the game went on.

Rice had a sack waived off because of a defensive holding call, but in reality, the pressure was so quick that there was no way that the hold actually had any impact on the play. Fans will take any big play they can get on defense after last year, but what really stood out was an adjustment he made on the fly.

The Atlanta Falcons sent Feleipe Franks out at quarterback after they had seen enough of A.J. McCarron and this put some stress on the defense. That pressure was mainly because he would roll out of the pocket and tuck it and run instead of looking to pass.

After a big run, Rice visibly changed the way he was going to play against the naked bootleg that the Falcons were running and instead of the safe play covering the flat, he started to attack the quarterback to prevent Franks from piling up easy rushing yards.

His plan worked and it snuffed out the only spark of offense that the Falcons had all night.

4. Tennessee Titans WR Racey McMath (6th round)

Wide receiver Racey McMath is on this list because of the buzz he has created in camp even though he didn’t do much against the Atlanta Falcons in the first preseason game.

Any time you draft a player in the 4th round or later and they make they are active on game day as a rookie, you have hit. If that is the bar, then it looks like McMath is going to be a hit with the upside of potentially being a homerun.

As a special teams player, he clearly has the size, speed, and (most importantly) the willingness to make plays in the third phase of the game. While he still needs to clean up his releases and knowing how and when to fight for the ball, the raw potential is clearly there.

The Falcons game saw Mason Kinsey featured heavily, but I have to wonder whether the Titans try to force the ball some to McMath in these next two preseason games to see if he is making progress as a receiver.

3. Tennessee Titans CB Caleb Farley (1st round)

The big concern for Caleb Farley was whether or not he would be able to practice during training camp. Before the draft, no one was concerned about his skill, athletic ability, or anything else, it was all about whether or not he would be able to put pads on before Week 1 of the season.

Well, even though he didn’t play in the preseason game, Farley has cleared that bar and he has been practicing in training camp already.

There is no reason to rush Farley into the starting lineup when Jackrabbit Jenkins and Kristian Fulton look like starting-caliber boundary cornerbacks. Even though Tennessee Titans fans haven’t seen Farley in action yet, the fact that he is practicing and getting his legs back underneath him with no concerns about his health is the important thing.

Will he drop in these rankings if he never has a padded practice vs another team? Maybe, but if this is a list of long-term value then it is hard to push Farley too far down the board when he has done exactly what Titans fans hoped he would do after he was announced as the pick in April.

2. Tennessee Titans OL Dillon Radunz (2nd round)

People seem confused about whether Dillon Radunz was good or bad on Friday vs the Falcons, and it is easy to see why.

The entire offensive line struggled, but that was because they were missing the five starting linemen as well as the backup center and a backup offensive tackle. When you are missing seven of your eight-best linemen, you are going to look bad.

Still, when you focus on Radunz specifically, he did a little bit of everything and he looked good doing it. He was solid in pass protection, he looked quick with his outside zone steps, he showed strength when asked to drive block, and he even pulled from right guard on a play early in the game.

Two years ago everyone was ready to cut Ben Jones because he had a down season, but in retrospect that probably had less to do with his talent and more to do with the fact that he was playing in the middle of Quinton Spain and Josh Kline.

Using that same logic, if Radunz was good when he was surrounded by third-string offensive linemen, won’t he look even better when he has Pro Bowl-caliber talent around him?

Tennessee Titans who just missed the cut

Elijah Molden, CB (3rd round)

Molden hasn’t been able to show much of his ability yet because he has been banged up, but the Titans have raved about his mentality and football IQ since they drafted him. It is easy to love his tape and he can play multiple positions on the field, so it is only a matter of time before he cracks the top-5 on this list.

NaQuan Jones, DL (UDFA)

Jones has seemed like the most impressive UDFA from the Tennessee Titans 2021 NFL Draft class since he walked into rookie minicamp, and that showed in the game vs the Falcons. He showed plenty of power and only two defensive tackles played more snaps than Jones did on Friday.

The coaching staff is trying to get a good look at Jones and he has the style and the body type to be a backup for Teair Tart in the middle.

Dez Fitzpatrick, WR

Fitzpatrick is off to a really bad start with the Tennessee Titans, but it doesn’t seem like he has any major red flags right now. He isn’t skipping practice or being out of shape, it just seems like he is having trouble making an impact on the field.

At the end of the day, Fitzpatrick is going to get more attention than your average fourth-round pick because Jon Robinson traded up to get him and when he was drafted it seemed like the Tennessee Titans were going to expect a lot from him.

With hindsight, we know that Julio Jones was the real plan the whole time and Fitzpatrick should be viewed like Tajae Sharpe was. Still, you hope that he improves as time goes on and he gets this bust label off of his back quickly.

1. Tennessee Titans EDGE Rashad Weaver (4th round)

This was covered a little bit in the re-watch notes that were posted on Saturday, but Rashad Weaver has been everything that Tennessee Titans fans could have hoped for and more. Here is a small section from that write-up.

"When it was all said and done, Weaver’s night finished with him picking up 1.5 sacks, 2 tackles for loss, 2 quarterback hits, and a batted pass where he read a boot perfectly and climbed the latter to swat down a pass as soon as it left the quarterback’s hand. Weaver’s stat line is incredible, but some of that is because he played so many snaps over the course of the game. However, that volume is what makes this stat from PFF so impressive:"

It is easy to get excited about what you see when you watch Weaver play because there are plenty of NFL veterans playing against similar talent across the league and no one looked as dominant as Weaver did this weekend.

His power, length, flexibility, contact balance, and effort were all on full display and no one could keep him covered up.

It didn’t matter if a tight end and tackle were double-teaming him on a run play or if he was getting chipped by a running back or tight end as a pass rusher, the Falcons couldn’t run anything effectively when Weaver was on the field and he looked like a true game-wrecker.

These power rankings can and will change, but Weaver is going to earn playing time in the regular season because of how dominant he has looked. That playing time along with the value of hitting on a fourth-round pick is going to give him the inside track on the top spot in these power rankings unless someone can come along and make a huge splash.