Pick #24: Chris Johnson, RB, ECU

Hearing that Mel Kiper thought the Titans were loosers on day 1, I started looking over some draft predictions for the Titans #1 pick. None of the big-boys, (Kiper, Scouts Inc, NFL Draft Countdown, Footballsfuture.com, Rivals.com, Great Blue North and the likes), had us taking a RB in the first. Looking over their choices, they all looked towards the obvious team needs, WR and DE. When you look at our local sports people, (Biddle, Kuharsky and Wyatt), they predicted RB, RB and WR.
There seems to be a big difference between know-it-alls and people more closely associated with our team.

 

chris johnson

here is a piece from the Hawaii Bowl write up:

Johnson set an NCAA bowl record with 408 all-purpose yards, and Ben Hartman kicked a 34-yard field goal as time expired to give East Carolina a 41-38 victory over No. 24 Boise State in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl on Sunday night.

Johnson ran for 223 yards, caught three passes for 32 yards and returned six kickoffs for 153 yards. But he committed a costly fumble late that almost sent it to overtime. It was his first fumble of the season.

For those of you who are scared about fumbles...wow he had 1 fumble all year in the last game. Better get the boy some better hands.

 

ECUPirate,

There is no doubt the guy has skills. But Boise State's D sucks. As did most of the defenses he faced.

Most of us here are pissed because drafting Chris Johnson means Chris Henry won't be used again, which means we wasted a 2nd round pick last year.

Hopefully Chris Johnson stays strong and is the gamebreaker that will make a difference for us. But it comes off as a reach pick that admits a failure from a year ago, and doesn't address any of the glaring needs the Titans have at other positions.

 

A complimentary running back who can catch and return and that doesn't fill holes? Speaking of reaches which stud WR that didn't go in the first round did you want?

 

This was interesting, he ran the anchor leg on the fastest 4x100 team in the nation when he was in high school.

 

I'm going to assume he is going to be used as a multi-purpose back. At this point, I'm going to also assume he can catch the ball well. I have a hunch that they will use him as a H-back (scatback) and throw to him in the backfield and even some downfield and that they believe he has the hands to handle it.

IMO, he was only a moderate reach because he wouldn't have been available at the #54 pick. I can only assume that there something about Merling's injury that scared our FO away from him at #24.

I think the BIGGEST fault we can find in our FO is that they DID NOT TRADE UP IN THE SECOND. It was obvious from the pre-draft if we did this we would be assured to fill our needs while also taking the best player on the board. Pittsburgh burned us bad with the Sweed pick. This is where MR/JF got their azz handed to them. They took a HUGE risk not trading up to get a premium #1 WR. Now we are going to have to spend a couple of mid-round picks for "flier" on WR's, which IMO is totally stupid because it hasn't worked out for us yet.

 

Gunny, like you thought a WR wouldn't go in the first round. Easy to call the facts after they happen isn't it. Make you feel smarter?

Anyways, the likely reason the WRs dropped was because every NFL team figured "hey, wrs are dropping... we can wait and still get someone good". That and every WR had at least one flaw, so I'm guessing no team had that one WR rated vastly higher than the others.


What would I have done... Drafted DeSaun Jackson, Devin Thomas, or Sweed. I would know enough to draft an ACTUAL WR rather than try to turn a RB into one.

Yeah we filled that #3 on the depth chart RB need nicely.

 

glad someone else noticed that

I like the pick.

Henry didn't impress me at all last yr (wasted pick) and with White you have no idea how he will show up for training camp

 

All those WRs named did not go till round two. They would have all been a reach in the first round. None of them were that impressive. It seems every GM in the league felt the same way.......It is their job to be on top of things like that. I wish we could have gotten a big time receiver but I'm not sure there was one this year.

 

If the Titans would've drafted a WR then you'd see WR's go. If Phiily or Tampa drafted one it would cause a domino affect.