2020 Offseason
The Titans had fun going deep in the playoffs in January of 2020 and while coming up short, they would look at that stretch with pride and fondness. It was a high point for the franchise, but with the success would come some really important decisions, few of which loomed larger than what to do with Ryan Tannehill.
Tannehill was the catalyst for the season turnaround that sent the Titans on the playoff run, but he was set to be a free agent that upcoming March. While he had played well during 2019-20, he was never known as a game changer in his career, and after all, the Miami Dolphins traded him away for a reason. The team had to decide if they thought his performance was a fluke, or if they could bank on him to do as well if not better in the future.
Almost all teams that see any opening of a true contending window decide to go for it, and the Titans were no different in this case. They brought back Tannehill on a four-year contract, and would eventually lock up Derrick Henry to a deal of the same length, securing two of their main offensive guns for the long haul.
While the Henry contract aged just fine, things did not go quite so seamlessly for Tannehill. His overall deal was not horrible, as he did plenty of good things, especially when considering how quarterbacks get paid nowadays.
But Tannehill eventually proved to be good but not good enough to take the Titans to the promised land, and his contract held them back in several ways. The move to re-sign him was ultimately a blemish on Jon Robinson's record, but just that offseason, it would get so much worse.
The Titans went into the offseason with a gaping hole at edge rusher, and addressed it by signing Vic Beasley and Jadeveon Clowney to one-year deals. Both ended up being massive duds, in fact Beasley flamed out so badly that he was released just under halfway through the season.
Robinson also signed cornerback Jonathan Joseph to play a significant role while a quality contributor in Logan Ryan walked out the door. Joseph did so terribly that he too was released just before the midway point of the season.
Ultimately, the Titans' moves on defense, such as the additions they made, as well as losing Ryan and other veterans in Jurrell Casey and Wesley Woodyard, contributed to them having one of the worst defenses in the league. Those were clear personnel issues, which fell squarely on Robinson's shoulders.
But that is not even getting into the draft class, and that is where Robinson and the Titans as a whole truly started to fall apart. On April 23 2020, they made not only one of the worst first round draft picks in their organizations's history, but one that would go down as one of the biggest all-time busts in the NFL.
They drafted tackle Isaiah Wilson, and it is one thing for a guy to fail because he is not good at football, but Wilson failed at even showing up to do his job. He no-showed at literally the beginning of training camp, would either be late, or flat-out miss other practices and meetings, and was so disengaged to the point where he literally played four snaps in his rookie season.
He would be traded for a seventh-round pick swap less than twelve months later, and as bad as he was, the rest of the draft class was not much better. Kristian Fulton turned out to be a modest hit in the second round, but the Titans drafted no other contributors, and selected another bust in running back Darrynton Evans, this time in the third round.
It was an absolutely dreadful offseason for Robinson, and he really needed to do well since the Titans were looking to build a Super Bowl contender. Even then, it was by far his worst offseason up to this point, and even the greatest of GM's go through rough spells.
He could have easily withstood the disastrous results of these moves if he just did not repeat them moving forward, at least to the same degree. As we would see, however, Robinson would struggle mightily to get out of the funk he found himself in.