Since 2012, few teams in the NFL have gotten less value from their draft picks than the Tennessee Titans.
In a recent article from ESPN that took a look at the Career Approximate Value Over Expected (CAVOE) of every team’s draft classes since 2012, Tennessee ranked No. 29 on the list.
The Titans’ best draft class was the 2019 group, which comes in at 35.1. Five of the six players drafted that year are starters with the Titans going into 2022. Tennessee’s worst draft class was the 2013 group, which landed a CAVOE of -108.2.
Here’s a look at how each of the Titans’ draft classes since 2012 have fared in CAVOE, as well as which picks have the highest and lowest marks.
2012 (-28.4): LB Zach Brown (8.1)/WR Kendall Wright (-17.7)
2013 (-108.2): DB Damion Stafford (3.2)/G Chance Warmack (-37.1)
2014 (25.7): DT DaQuan Jones (29.8)/RB Bishop Sankey (-18.3)
2015 (-61.2): DT Angelo Blackson (5.1)/G Jeremiah Poutasi (-24.4)
2016 (21.5): S Kevin Byard (26.4)/DE Kevin Dodd (-24.5)
2017 (-11.6): LB Jayon Brown (13.8)/WR Taywan Taylor (-8.3)
2018 (6.1): OLB Harold Landry (9.1)/DB Dane Cruikshank (-3.0)
2019 (35.1): WR A.J. Brown: (19.2)/OLB D’Andre Walker (-5.2)
2020 (-17.5): DL Larrell Murchison (0.5)/OT Isaiah Wilson (-10.4)
2021 (-15.1): CB Elijah Molden (0.5)/CB Caleb Farley (-5.1)
While things have gotten better under general manager Jon Robinson, who is responsible for two of the team’s draft classes with the highest CAVOE on the above list, he has struggled in three drafts (2017, 2020 and 2021), including in each of the last two.
As a result, there is a fair amount of skepticism about Robinson’s ability to draft. Sure, he hit an absolute home run with the 2019 class, and, to a lesser extent, the 2016 group, but in a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” world, Robinson’s recent results mostly overshadow past ones.
