The assumption is that the Tennessee Titans will go after a balanced tight end in free agency or later in the 2022 NFL Draft, but one beat writer is predicting that they are going to make a huge splash this offseason.
Omar Kelly is a beat writer covering the Miami Dolphins and he has obviously been very busy this offseason. Lost in the mix of the hirings, firings, lawsuits, and ownership questions, is the fact that one of the NFL’s best tight ends has played in Miami for the last four years and he is set to hit the market.
Something else that isn’t getting enough attention is that Kelly just predicted that the Tennessee Titans would sign this player.
That tight end is former second-round pick Mike Gesicki, and he has quietly been outstanding for the Dolphins.
Could the Tennessee Titans really sign Gesicki?
Despite a revolving door at the quarterback position, Gesicki has posted three straight seasons with at least 500 receiving yards and over 10 yards per reception. That is a level of consistency that Tennessee Titans fans can appreciate after a season where no one knew which skill position players would even be healthy enough to see the field each week.
Don’t confuse consistency with being average though because Gesicki actually ranks 5th in receiving yards by a tight end over the last two seasons behind Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, Darren Waller, and George Kittle.
Before the question gets asked, yes the Tennessee Titans can create enough cap space to sign Gesicki while being able to comfortably re-sign Harold Landry.
The bigger question is whether or not Gesicki makes sense for the Titans. Tim Kelly’s most used formation is 3 WRs, 1 TE, and 1 RB, and his second most used formation is 2 WRs, 2TEs, and 1 RB. Now, the gut reaction when seeing that is to say that the Titans need to focus more on a receiver than a tight end, but Gesicki would give kill two birds with one stone.
Gesicki played 15% of his snaps inline and over half of his snaps in the slot, so if the Titans view him as a full-time WR3 and a part-time TE2 who never leaves the field they could value him enough to pay him his projected $11 million AAV.
Who knows whether they will do it or not, but it is strange to see the Tennessee Titans being name-dropped like this. They don’t have money to burn like a lot of teams and they aren’t a big enough market to do it just for the clicks, so the only connection I can see is that Ryan Tannehill was Gesicki’s quarterback during his rookie year.
If Kelly is reporting this, maybe it is because he and Gesicki or he and Tannehill have talked about a reunion in the past, and Kelly believes that they would work well together.
Time will tell, but it is something to watch for Tennessee Titans fans.