There’s no question the Tennessee Titans bolstered their wide receivers room with the expected signing of DeAndre Hopkins, but there remains one very big question mark on offense: the offensive line.
After all, the Titans can have all the weapons in the world for Ryan Tannehill to throw to, but it won’t make a difference if the offensive line stinks in pass protection once again.
After seeing a downright putrid performance from the group upfront in 2022, the Titans did their best to revamp the offensive line this offseason with their limited resources, bringing in three new starters while also switching one of last year’s, Aaron Brewer, to center.
The only starter who remains in his same spot from last year is right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere, who struggled during his rookie season. However, he’s set to miss the first six games after violating the league’s gambling policy.
While the revamp is all well and good, the Titans are betting on unproven to mostly unproven players for starting roles.
Andre Dillard, who is projected to man left tackle, has never been a starter for an entire season and had his job with the Philadephia Eagles snatched from him by Jordan Mailata.
Peter Skoronski is a rookie who is expected to play left guard after playing left tackle in college, and Daniel Brunskill, who is the most experienced of the new guys and is projected to play right guard, spent last year as a backup.
As far as right tackle is concerned, it’s anyone’s guess how the Titans will fill that void.
Jamarco Jones figures to be the frontrunner, but he has just seven starts under his belt and is coming off a season in which he didn’t play a single snap due to injury.
The Titans could also opt to slide Brunskill over to right tackle, but that won’t change the question mark he is. If that happens, Corey Levin would likely go to right guard, but his starting experience is very limited.
Aside from those two potential approaches, rookie Jaelyn Duncan leads a list of more unproven players who will be vying for the starting role on the right side.
The good news is — assuming everyone can stay healthy, which is certainly no guarantee — things couldn’t get worse than what we saw last season, but that doesn’t mean the offensive line’s performance will be totally up to snuff.
So, while the signing of Hopkins is definitely reason to celebrate, Titans fans should remain cautiously optimistic because the upgrade Hopkins stands to provide won’t be fully realized if the blocking upfront isn’t much better.