Greetings...

Hey,

This will be a 'snack'......

It's been a long time since ive been here...a baby, going to school fulltime and working part time are enough to limit my 'free' time. I did watch the Titans last year with great enthusiasm even though I wasnt posting. It's good to be back even very part time...but you know I can't resist the DRAFT!!!

Some initial thoughts from the draft and reading this board...

First, anyone has the right to question a draft choice. Of course none of us have as much info on the prospects as the Titans have, but that doesn't mean we can't make good decisions about what they should and shouldn't have done. You don't need to be a football scholar to know we've spent 2 2nd rd picks and a 1st rd pick on a position where for the most part, only one of those guys will be playing at a time. That is a waste of value (draft picks) no matter how u slice it.

Second, the Chris Henry experiment should have netted us an awareness and understanding that just because a guy can fly doesnt make him a great (or even good) player. Henry ran a 4.40 40 (for some reason ppl keep saying the fastest at the combine...tied 3 ways for fastest among rb's...not overall fastest by a long shot) at 230lbs...which is awesome! And yet no one put him as a 1st rnd pick...in fact a lot of ppl (myself included) had him as a 4th rndr. Why? Cuz a 40 time and size aren't the only things you look at in a rb. Henry runs fast in a straightline but simply doesnt have the vision/anticipation nor sudden change of direction of the the elite backs. This is why a player that fast gets blown to smithereens in one of the nastiest hits we've seen this decade by a 290lb DL....how do you not see that guy coming right at you dead ahead? I can point to a rb with great vision and slippery-ness but who ran a 4.7...who's in the Hall of Fame. You WONT find a speed burner who can't change direction, lacks suddenness, and has no vision in the Hall of Fame. Think about it. And change of direction has been much more important to the elite backs than top end speed. Sure Marshall Faulk and Barry Sanders were fast, but not really WR fast. They had a speed advantage over LB's which was exploited greatly BY their great change of direction and sudden acceleration. This leades to the obvious...


Third, for all the ppl thrilled with the Johnson selection and enamored with his 4.24 speed, he doesn't appear to have marshall faulk/reggie bush type change of direction. Sure he can blow by all small school players who are probably lucky if they have 1 guy on D who runs in the 4.4 range...but how will this translate to the NFL without sudden change of direction, much faster players who take good angles...and you only run outside 95% of the time? Like Henry a year ago, this is a boom or bust type pick. My hope is that he is a Tiki Barber type back who learns to run between the tackles before bouncing everything outside. If he's not that, hope he's a significantly faster Kevin Faulk and Dinger finds a lot of creative uses for him (ala Faulk and Westbrook) and can absolutely kill ya with swing and bubble screen passes. Hope he is NOT a Justin Fargas but smaller, fumbles more, wont run between tackles...and is just a returner.

Fourth, we need pass rushers. A notable stat came out before the playoffs that a team with a higher ratio of sacking to being sacked usually won. And while no one has been able to stop the Pats, the Giants did it with a relentless pass rush. The Giants have quietly been collecting pass rushers in almost every draft now. We could really use an elite pass rusher opposite KVB! I don't think Jason Jones is it though he may be more than fine at LDE. While most ppl don't like the reach of Hayes...I am of the mind that he is exactly the kind of player you move up for in the middle rnds. Sure he's very raw, but he's explosive! Are we really gonna miss that 5th rnd pick? Would we really have missed Hawkins if we didnt get him in the 4th?

Fifth, what makes the CJ pick in rnd 1 all the more mind boggling (aside from the fact that he's not a complete back (yet), we already have a solid starter at the position, and we didnt need him, and a similar type of back could have been aquired in rds 2-3, is that we DID have a need for a good WR. Limas Sweed was available right in front of us...no trade up (we were focused on CJ from the start). A shame since a grp of VY with White/Charles with Sweed, Crumpler, McCareins/ect seems better to me than White/CJ with Krumpler and the usual suspects...

Sixth, I like Lavelle Hawkins but can anyone tell me how he's different from a handful of guys we already have on the roster? And we already have a handful of returning options as well...doesn't that 4th now seem like it could have been better spent moving up in rd 1 or 2 to get a guy we (not MR) wanted?

Seventh, there must be an unwritten law that the Titans have to 'waste' a 3rd rnd pick on backup TE's...and I thought that was just Reece who did that...! Seems to me we could actually take some talent at OL that could then vie for a starting job instead of a backup TE that should not see playing time without injury. Oi vei!

The Titans have taken on a lot of boom vs bust type aquisitions this off-season...will Crumpler be the player he was? If he is...AWESOME. If not...we have a big problem. Will Kearse revert back to double digit sack days or will he be ineffective and slowed by injuries...leaving whom to play LDE? Will CJ be a boom or a bust as a playmaker? Will McCareins return to form or show the indifference that got him in Mangini's permanent doghouse?

On a side note...I noticed the Titans D finished at 5 for the season with essentially the personell and changes suggested by myself and several others...<pats self on back>...guess we did have top 10 defensive talent as I suggested we did.

Now if we can just trade our 1st and 3rd next year with a conditional 3rd in 2010 for Roy Williams, our offense would actually have a plamaker at QB,RB,WR,and TE.......we hope!!!

OK...that should provide a spark for discussion...

Ive missed you all!

Gut