Who should Tennessee Titans take in 2024 NFL Draft first round? Isn't it obvious? | Estes
Gentry Estes
Each year, I’m tasked to write who should the Tennessee Titans take in the draft's first round.
Feels this time like you know the name before I say it.
It's just too dull. Too easy. That's why, for months, I've looked for a reason to entertain you by bringing someone else into this column. To toss a wicked, timely curveball. To pitch some big trade or speculate on some other bizarre scenario that’s been floating around for weeks, mostly for media types to try to make this experience more interesting than has long seemed destined.
Surprises do happen in drafts. I can’t say it won’t this time.
But I do know there's good reason behind what’s widely expected – still – to happen with these Titans. The best player available at No. 7 could end up being the best player at the position they most need. I've known it. You've known it. I'd imagine that the Titans do, too. Like I said, it's too easy.
The only way this gets complicated is if the Notre Dame left tackle somehow isn’t available at No. 7. Then you deal with that as it comes and decide how best to go about getting another first-round left tackle. Because the Titans need a left tackle, and they need him Thursday night.
They may want an elite wide receiver like Malik Nabers or Rome Odunze or an edge rusher like Dallas Turner or a special tight end like Brock Bowers.
But they need an elite left tackle.
Quarterback Will Levis needs an elite left tackle. And as I wrote two months ago at the NFL Scouting Combine, elite tackles are rare, and they are expensive. Many of the NFL’s best tackles were drafted high in the first round. In the moment, no team wants to spend a high pick on a boring ol’ tackle, but teams usually end up glad they did.
The Titans shouldn’t overthink this decision, I wrote then.
PREVIOUSLY:Are Titans overthinking this 2024 NFL Draft pick? Think of Will Levis instead | Estes
Nothing in the past two months has swayed my opinion. If anything, free agency only strengthened it. When the Titans moved to fill other pressing needs, it left a trail of crumbs pointing directly toward drafting a left tackle. After all, why pay a fortune for Calvin Ridley only to draft a wide receiver like him?
I repeat, take the best left tackle available, hand him to position coach Bill Callahan and don’t worry about the position for the next decade.
You could bicker over which left tackle is the best, but that’d go against an overwhelming consensus among draft experts. You could also nitpick the 6-foot-9 Alt for various aspects he needs to improve, as with any college player. No sure things in this draft, but Alt is as close to it as you’d find.
He’s what Titans general manager Ran Carthon would call a blue-chip prospect.
“A ‘blue’ player is genuinely like a guy that's going to come in Day 1 and, like they say, ‘plug and play’ and you start them,” Carthon said Tuesday.
That’s Alt.
He's too obvious to recommend anyone else.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes. Click here and bookmark to follow all of his work.