The Tennessee Titans face the looming mid-March free agency period and the 2019 NFL Draft with needs to tend to on both sides of the ball.
At the 2019 NFL combine, Titans general manager Jon Robinson and head coach Mike Vrabel both yielded a number of questions from reporters regarding the direction the team is headed in.
Here are just a handful of hot topics from Wednesday:
1. Safety Kenny Vaccaro is likely to return.
There’s no question safety Kenny Vaccaro did more than just an ample job in the place of an injured Johnathan Cyprien. His performance caught the eyes of both Vrabel and Robinson, and both seem intent on keeping him in Tennessee.
Robinson referred to him as a “primary target.”
“We’re kind of working through several things now with (Vaccaro) and with that position group as a whole,” Robinson said. “There’s some guys that in free agency, Kenny being a primary target, and guys in the draft and we’ll just kind of have to see how that manufactures itself and how that plays out down here at the end.”
2. Nashville may not be the right fit for WR Antonio Brown.
Antonio Brown is the hottest name at the wide receiver position set to hit the free agent market next month. While he would be incredibly effective in a Titans offense that’s still searching for an elite playmaker, the drama he may bring off of the football field seems to be making Vrabel wary.
“I think the one thing that is a clear message to our team that I try to tell them is that we’re going to treat you the same way you treat the team,” Vrabel said. “And it’s an easy way to say that we treat everybody fairly, but we treat them differently. There’s a lot of things that you can put up with as a coach and a team, and there’s some things that you can’t.”
“I think that it’s important that any time you bring in somebody from outside the organization, whether that it be in free agency or you trade for a player, you just have to make sure that you know and are comfortable with what you’re getting. That’s the tough part.”
3. Even if his name isn’t Antonio Brown, the Titans are still open to signing a free agent wideout.
While it is easy to get the sense the Titans aren’t exactly keen on Brown, this doesn’t mean the issue of depth can’t be addressed by adding another established player.
Robinson spoke to this on Wednesday.
You’ve got to have a mixture of veteran guys and youth at really every position group. And I’d say that position group (wide receiver) is one of our younger position groups. We’ll kind of go through free agency and see how the market goes, and if there’s a veteran out there that we think can help us, certainly not averse to adding one of those guys.”
4. Quarterback Marcus Mariota should be back at full capacity for the upcoming season.
Entering a pivotal year in his career, it’s important starting quarterback Marcus Mariota enters the 2019 season at full capacity.
According to Vrabel, Mariota is poised and should be healthy by April.
“I know that he’s ready to get back at it,” Vrabel said. “Just having the conversations, and the text messages that we’ve had, and checking in with him. And he checks in on us, so it’s been good.
“I think he’s been seen by some doctors, and I would anticipate him being ready to go when we get back here in April.”
Mariota will need to perform well and stay healthy as he goes through the final year of his rookie contract. It’s up to the Titans to give him the pieces he needs to accomplish it through the offseason, though.
