Re-visiting what Racey McMath could be for the Tennessee Titans
By Will Lomas
The Tennessee Titans completely revamped their receiver room this year adding several talented receivers. That might have overshadowed one of the biggest boom-or-bust prospects on the Titans’ roster.
If you were drawing up the perfect wide receiver prospect, you would start with elite measurables, a college career spent working against the best competition and elite production that got better every single year.
While Racey McMath wasn’t a perfect prospect coming out of college, he certainly checks off a lot of those boxes.
As far as elite measurables go, 6’3″ and 220 lb. is about as elite as it gets outside of the create-a-player mode in Madden. In fact, even in Madden you probably couldn’t make a player with those measurements who also ran in the 4.3s, but that is exactly what McMath did before the 2021 NFL Draft.
Check.
Working against the best competition comes with the territory in the SEC, but going against the LSU DBs that were on the roster from 2017 to 2020 is even more formidable. Some of the names include Kristian Fulton, Tre’Davious White, Derek Stingley, Greedy Williams, Dontae Jackson, and Cordalle Flott, and those are just the cornerbacks that turned into top-100 draft picks.
Check.
While McMath didn’t have that elite production, you can understand why when you see who was in front of him. Maybe the most incredible pair of wide receivers the SEC has ever had on one team, LSU had Ja’Marr Chase (2021 rookie leader in receiving yards) and Justin Jefferson (2020 rookie leader in receiving yards) as their top two targets.
It is going to be hard to win targets with that duo in front of you.
Incomplete.
I don’t think that Racey McMath is going to take a massive leap and become a Pro Bowl receiver, but he can have a real impact on the Tennessee Titans’ offense.
Racey McMath can be a better version of this former Tennessee Titans WR
As soon as McMath was drafted, his role was clear in my eyes. Regardless of whether you are talking about the Tennessee Titans WR group in 2021 or 2022, McMath should aim to be a bigger, faster version of Kalif Raymond.
Now more than ever that role makes sense because the Titans have several players who can threaten the middle of the field. Kyle Philips, Austin Hooper, and Chig Okonkwo all look like real threats in that area, not to mention Treylon Burks and Robert Woods who look like they can win at every level.
While Burks and Woods can create explosive plays down the field, what the Tennessee Titans offense is lacking is a true deep threat. McMath can fill that role and that seems more and more clear after every practice where he seems to be winning on deep passes with ease.
A deep threat would break the Tennessee Titans’ offense wide open and it would put defenses in a no-win situation any time they took the field against this group, but he needs to develop some consistency before the season starts.
Interestingly enough, he should have a shot to do just that because he and Malik Willis should spend a lot of time making highlight plays during the preseason.
In an ideal world, McMath isn’t the receiver that should get the most snaps, and you could argue that he should be capped around 15 snaps per game to keep the defense on their toes. However, don’t discredit how important those snaps could be and how the threat of McMath could create big play opportunities for the other stars on offense. This is a big opportunity for the second-year weapon, and he seems to be making the most of his chances.