Anyone who has paid attention to football over the last few years knows that John Franklin-Myers is one of the most impressive defensive linemen in the NFL. That is why it wasn't a massive shock when the Tennessee Titans signed him to a free agent contract worth a whopping $21 million per year.
When it comes to pass rushing production, Franklin-Myers was one of the best in the NFL this past season, according to nearly every metric. Specifically using PFF's pass rush metric for interior defenders, out of 120 qualified players, he placed top-10 in sacks and QB hits, and top-15 in total pressures versus true pass sets.
This isn't a one-year blip either; over the past five seasons, Franklin-Myers has only had one season where he didn't have at least 20 combined sacks and QB hits, which means he consistently makes life difficult for quarterbacks even when he doesn't record a sack. For the sake of comparison, Jeffery Simmons has only done that three times over the last five years, but to be fair, the team shut him down early in 2023 when he was on pace to hit those numbers.
How can Franklin-Myers be that impressive and still be overlooked in ESPN's positional rankings? Well, there is a simple explanation, even though it is incredibly unfair to Franklin-Myers.
Titans DL John Franklin-Myers receives inspiration after ESPN rankings snub
The "problem" is that Franklin-Myers is so versatile that he has split time between lining up in the B-gap like a normal defensive tackle and over the tackle/in the C-gap like an EDGE player. For example, last season he spent 68% of his snaps lined up as an EDGE.
Franklin-Myers is a top-10 defensive tackle in the NFL, but the reason he doesn't get enough attention is that he is so good that he can thrive anywhere on the defensive line. That is bad news for him when it comes to his league-wide popularity, but for the Titans, that is incredible news.
The Titans will move him around the defensive front, and they won't be limited in how they deploy him. Imagine, on early downs, they could line him up as the EDGE next to Jeffery Simmons, and then on third down they could kick him inside and have Simmons and Franklin-Myers both rush as 3-techniques, meaning that the offensive line would have to block them both one-on-one.
Even though that means that he won't get the recognition he deserves, it does mean that Robert Saleh will be able to scheme up amazing pressure packages without needing to blitz, which is exactly what he wants.
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