The Tennessee Titans have spent two first-round draft picks and some significant cash on their offensive line, and they ended up with an elite guard, a good right tackle, and a league-average left tackle. Given where they were two years ago, that would have sounded like a dream, but fans are concerned that question marks at center and right guard will sink the ship.
One of those two question marks is at center, where it looks like a two-way battle between former New York Giants (that will be important later) pivot Austin Schlottmann and rookie Pat Coogan.
Right guard is a bit more muddled with Cordell Volson and Jackson Slater getting looks right now, and rookie Fernando Carmona potentially in the mix as well.
Tennessee Titans offensive line will greatly benefit from position coach Carmen Bricillo
Those competitions won't really have a chance to take place until training camp, when practice actually gets physical and competitive. Still, it doesn't look like the Titans are going to add another player. With no clear answer forthcoming, fans are looking at the situation and trying to make sense of it, but they are leaving out a massive part of the equation.
Former Giants offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo was able to do a masterful job turning around the offensive lines in Las Vegas and New York, and he finished last season with PFF's ninth-best offensive line with the Giants.
Like the Titans, the Giants have a few good linemen in Andrew Thomas and Jermaine Eluemanor, but the majority of the offensive line was comprised of average or below-average linemen who managed to play above that talent level. Because of the pattern of that happening in Las Vegas and New York, that is a strong pattern that suggests that Bricillo is a big reason for their success.
Reframe the expectations of the current Titans' offensive line with that in mind. That means that left tackle, right tackle, and left guard are already written in Sharpie, while center is almost certainly going to be anchored by Schlottmann, who was with Bricillo and Daboll last season.
That leaves only right guard up for grabs, and fans should trust that Slater can make a strong push to win that job. If not, Bricillo has earned enough trust to assume that he can get the most out of the talent available, or that he can find a suitable candidate on the waiver wire or in free agency after training camp.
Don't let the fact that Bill Callahan failed diminish the idea that a good offensive line coach makes a big difference on a football team. Over half a decade, Bricillo seems to have proven that he can be the guy to help get an offensive line back to prominence, and new OC Brian Daboll wouldn't have brought him to Nashville if he didn't think that he was going to make a big impact on this roster.
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