Nearly every 2024 NFL mock draft has Tennessee Titans picking OL Joe Alt. Here's why

There's no doubt the Tennessee Titans need help at offensive tackle. But there can be a question about whether the moves the team has made this offseason are the moves a team makes before picking an offensive tackle in the first round of the NFL draft.

The Titans have the No. 7 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. The Tennessean has them taking Notre Dame offensive tackle Joe Alt in our mock draft 2.0 published this week. Not that that's much of a surprise. It's hard to find a mock draft where the Titans don't pick Alt. It's what ESPN's Matt Miller and Mel Kiper Jr. both project. Same with NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah, Lance Zierlein and Eric Edholm. And The Athletic's Dane Brugler. And USA Today's Nate Davis, too.

Penciling in Alt is a formality for mock drafters at this point. The Titans need offensive line help. Alt's really good at playing offensive line. The discussion kind of ends there.

So let's continue that today by looking at three questions: Why do so many people pick Alt going to the Titans? Is picking him the Titans' only move? And does picking Alt line up with the Titans' other decisions of the past year?

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Why do so many people have Joe Alt going to the Tennessee Titans?

See the short answer above: Alt's just really good at blocking. He graded out as Pro Football Focus' best college offensive lineman in 2023 — and in 2022. He allowed only five quarterback pressures in 2023, the fewest by any lineman who was on the field for at least 300 pass plays. He was a consensus All-America honoree as a junior and racked up three All-America honors as a sophomore as well.

The Titans need a left tackle to protect quarterback Will Levis. Alt is a 6-foot-8 mountain of a blocker who might be the most polished run blocker in the class while also being the type of pass protector who seldom ever surrenders pressure. At surface level, everything about this match makes sense.

Is picking Joe Alt the Tennessee Titans' only move?

Of course not. For starters, Alt isn't even the only offensive tackle in this class with a top-10 grade. The Titans could just as easily covet Penn State's Olu Fashanu, a consensus All-America honoree in his own right who's renowned for his top-flight protection skills.

Beyond Alt and Fashanu, this is a pretty strong offensive tackle draft. Ten of the top 50 prospects in the class are tackles. If the Titans wanted to trade back to later in the first round or even wait until the second round at No. 38, there will be options. And all of this is being said before free agency, where the Titans figure to have more than $70 million in salary cap space to spend and could try to address the tackle position there as they tried last year with Andre Dillard.

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Of course, the Dillard move didn't exactly work. And the point remains that 10 of the past 11 tackles voted to an All-Pro team were first-round picks, with eight of those 10 honored were playing for the team that drafted them.

If the Titans' goal is to rebuild their offensive line, using the No. 7 pick on a tackle is the best way to do it. But it's far from their only option.

Would picking Joe Alt fall in line with the Titans' recent moves?

The three men at the center of the Titans' brain trust — coach Brian Callahan, general manager Ran Carthon and president of football operations Chad Brinker — don't exactly come from organizations known for using high draft picks on offensive linemen.

Callahan's former team, the Cincinnati Bengals, haven't picked an offensive lineman in the first round since 2019 despite consistently struggling to protect quarterback Joe Burrow. The San Francisco 49ers, Carthon's former squad, haven't used a first-rounder on a lineman since 2018. The Green Bay Packers, for whom Brinker used to work, haven't picked a lineman in the first round since 2011. All perennial contenders. All built their offensive lines a different way.

Carthon and Brinker were around last season when the Titans used their first-round pick on offensive lineman Peter Skoronski. And hiring Bill Callahan as offensive line coach shows a willingness to invest in making the unit better.

No good front office is going to shy away from improving the roster out of principle. Still, it'll be interesting to see if Callahan, Carthon and Brinker opt for building the line externally as their mentors have.

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Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick atnsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.