The Tennessee Titans have a few question marks on the offensive line going into 2022, as the team is set to have two new starters upfront, one at left guard and one at right tackle.
The candidates for the left guard spot include Aaron Brewer, Jamarco Jones and Dillon Radunz, who is also the favorite to take the right tackle job in a competition against 2022 third-round pick, Nicholas Petit-Frere, among others.
What do all of those players have in common? The jury is still very much out on their abilities to be full-time starters in the NFL, which is trouble for a Tennessee offense that surrendered the seventh-most sacks last season.
NFL analyst Ben Baldwin recently took a look at every team’s offensive line based on the projected depth charts from Ourlads, which has Brewer and Radunz taking the starting roles at left guard and right tackle.
As a whole, Tennessee’s group is projected to land near the bottom of the NFL in pass protection.
The numbers in the position columns are the average percentile ranking at each spot based on past play based on Pro Football Focus pass protection grades, and the PEPA (projected expected points added) is also calculated using PFF pass-blocking grades.
The Titans’ PEPA of 0.012 ranks 28th in the NFL.
Offensive line rankings in pass protection after the draft (current 5 projected started listed on ourlads) pic.twitter.com/Hgx5bXj5B8
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) May 6, 2022
Adding to that, two of the Titans’ projected starters, Radunz and right guard Nate Davis, are projected to rank 148th and 143rd out of 160 in expected pass protection grade percentile, respectively.
To get a sense of where teams might still have holes, if we took the current 5 projected starters on Ourlads at face value, here are the 20 lowest starters (out of 160) in projected pass protection grade.
There are a lot of teams hoping for jumps from young RTs pic.twitter.com/kOoCqdrIMb
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) May 11, 2022
However, as Baldwin notes, the formula he uses to make his projections certainly isn’t perfect.
Biggest weaknesses of this approach right now:
1. Not enough uncertainty baked in (assumes players will keep playing how they did last year, even the outlier good & bad)
2. No improvement baked in for young players (especially relevant for tackles in years 2 & 3)— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) May 6, 2022
Take this how you will, but it at least gives some credence to concerns about Tennessee’s group upfront going into the upcoming season.
