2022 NFL Mock Draft: Building the Tennessee Titans offense for Tim Kelly
By Will Lomas
The Tennessee Titans top-100 picks
Knowing how the board fell in the first round and the options that the Tennessee Titans had, it might be obvious who I selected for them here.
Round 1, pick 26: Jameson Williams WR, Alabama
We have seen the Tennessee Titans swing for the fences in the first round over the last few years and despite the fact that Jameson Williams doesn’t pass the Matias Wodner rule, he is an easy fit.
The least important thing on his resume but the most important thing for Mike Vrabel is that he plays special teams. He plays with aggression as a gunner on the punt team and he had 2 touchdowns on just 10 punt returns this season, so the Coach of the Year will sign off on this immediately.
If the prompt is trying to build an offense that fits Tim Kelly, then giving him a young version of Brandin Cooks seems like a great place to start. The Tennessee Titans have A.J. Brown to be the WR1 and they have Julio Jones (when he is healthy) to be the chain moving WR2 and occasional deep threat. What they don’t have is a speed demon with soft hands that almost single-handedly broke the best defense in college football.
The ACL injury won’t bother the Titans too much because they have gambled on injured rookies and have seen it pay off, and also because Tennessee just doesn’t play rookies early. They force players to earn snaps and even when they are clearly better than the veteran in front of them (see Radunz, Dillon) they don’t get to see the field early.
Round 3, pick 90: Cade Otton TE, Washington
Otton is a big, physical tight end with four years of experience in a system that asks him to block all over the field. Those are things that the Titans are going to look at and every now and then he flashes some high-level football I.Q. that shows you that he is going to interview well.
At the end of the day, the Titans don’t need an elite, toolsy guy at tight end. What they need is a big Jonnu Smith type guy who can wall defenders off as a blocker, make tough catches in the air, and force defenders to tackle him instead of just falling down. Otton can be that guy.