NASHVILLE, Tenn. – As the Titans sort through their open interior offensive line positions, they won’t have a ton of physical battling to assess.
Austin Schlottman, Cordell Volson, Jackson Slater, Fernando Carmon and Pat Coogan will have 16 padded training camp practices. Those will be their biggest moments to make their cases for the starting center and right guard slots.
One of them will come against the Carolina Panthers in a joint practice ahead of preseason Week Two in Nashville. And Robert Saleh said at the owners’ meetings that he hopes for a similar, one-practice arrangement ahead of the Titans' other two preseason games.
Then of course, there will be the three preseason games.
“When I first started in the league, you had two-a-days, full pads,” said Dave Ziegler, Titans assistant GM. “There were more reps and there was more opportunity to see those guys in combative situations, to really get a feel.
“But I don’t feel like it’s to the point where you can’t have a camp battle, where you can’t get good work in.i think through the preseason games, through the joint practices, through what we do here just on a day-to-day basis, I think you can get a good feel for that.”
All five of the candidates fit a type for the Titans – hard-working with good football IQ. Ziegler still left open the idea of adding from outside.
The way Carmona spoke of how he intends to get to work when he arrives on the Titans campus sounds like what the team expects of all of them.
“I think it’s very simple, you’ve got to work hard,” he said. “You’ve got to show everybody in the building that you’re not just talking but your work is backing it up. I’ve always told myself, I’m not going to talk until people know I’m one of the hardest working, if not the hardest working person in that building. So, I think it just starts with working hard and gaining that respect from my teammates early.”
Mike Borgonzi made it clear during the Titans’ draft process that he believes interior offensive linemen do not have to be especially gifted athletically, so long as they understand their limitations and can smartly play within them.
That’s the way Ziegler spoke about Coogan, who won a Rose Bowl MVP with Indiana.
“The football intelligence piece is just so important,” Ziegler said. “He was a guy we did pinpoint that, if available at the right time, would be a target for us for multiple reasons. One, we see some position flex there, he’s played center, he’s played guard. The football intelligence piece was very high. As Mike talked about, with the offensive linemen for us, the grit, the toughness, the nasty, the want-to finish, those are things we really value in those offensive linemen and he fits all of those.
“Because of his intangible, he’s going to reach his potential. He’ll come in like every other draft pick and compete for a spot. If he’s good enough to start, then he’ll start. If he’s not, we think we’ll have a guy that’s a quality backup that can give us some flexibility in multiple spots.”
Sixteen padded practices. It has to be enough. I think it could still leave the Titans doing some projecting when they settle on a starting line.
