The Tennessee Titans pre-draft process is hard enough to decypher with a regime change, but it only gets more complicated when you throw in smokescreens and rumors.
Even though we don’t know how much emphasis Ran Carthon will put on private visits, at the very least they indicate that the Tennessee Titans are interested in learning more about a prospect.
Since you are only allowed 30 private visits with players before the NFL Draft, you can assume that there will be a smokescreen here or there, but for the most part, those visits are used on players that the team is genuinely interested in.
With a large number of those visits announced, now is a good time to take a look at what these visits might mean and what insight it gives you into the Tennessee Titans’ thoughts heading into the draft.
Breaking down the Tennessee Titans visits
Rarely do we get a chance to know all 30 visits, but the majority of them do leak out by the time the draft rolls around. Right now, I have a list of 24 prospects that have either visited with the Titans or who have met with them virtually (each team gets three of these). Some of these players won’t count against the 30 allotted visits because they are considered local visits.
1. Anthony Richardson QB, Florida
2. Will Levis QB, Kentucky
3. Broderick Jones OT, Georgia
4. Darnell Wright OT, Tennessee
5. Quentin Johnston WR, TCU
6. Emmanuel Forbes CB, Mississippi State
7. O’Cyrus Torrence iOL, Florida
8. Felix Anudike-Uzomah EDGE, Kansas State
9. Keion White EDGE, Georgia Tech
10. Tyler Scott WR, Cincinnati
11 . Hendon Hooker QB, Tennessee
12. Gervon Dexter DT, Florida
13. John Michael Schmitz iOL, Minnesota
14. Julius Brents CB, Kansas State
15. Quan Martin S, Ilinois
16. Jonathan Mingo WR, Ole Miss
17. Anthony Bradford iOL, LSU
18. Tank Dell WR, Houston
19. Jaelyn Duncan OT, Maryland
20. Payne Durham TE, Purdue
21. Ventrell Miller LB, Florida
22. Mohamoud Diabate LB, Utah
23. Devonnsha Maxwell DT, Chattanooga
24. Darel Middleton DT, Bethel
When you step back and stop looking at the names and start looking at the position groupings, a few things stand out.
First, it looks like the focus at the top of this draft is going to be either quarterback or offensive tackle. No visits from Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jordan Addison, or Zay Flowers suggest that receiver is going to be something that the Tennessee Titans look at on Day 2.
Second, the only EDGEs that the Tennessee Titans have visited with so far are guys who are projected to be drafted in the middle of the second round. Given where the Titans are drafting in the second round, these might be players that could slip into the third round that Tennessee wanted to do their homework on.
Third, Ran Carthon is doing his due diligence on guys from his alma mater. There are really only five or maybe six prospects from Florida with draftable grades and the Tennessee Titans had four of them in for a visit, not to mention Mohamoud Diabate who transferred from Florida before the 2022 season.
Finally, the fact that there is only one name on here who is a tight end (and even then it is someone projected to go in the 6th round), is strange. In such a deep class, it makes sense to try to get some time with some of the prospects that will get drafted on one of the first two days of the 2023 NFL Draft, but the Tennessee Titans seemed to disagree.
Remember, this is an incomplete list and there are several names that we don’t know, but there aren’t enough spots left on the list to disprove all of these points and trends.