Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - INTERVIEW: ESPN's Matt Miller Joins to Discuss Titans Draft Strategy & Perfect Prospect Matches

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

The NFL Draft is HERE and Matt Miller from ESPN stops by to talk all things Tennessee Titans draft! Miller discusses the Titans perfect fit at pick 26 in the first round before he explains the best way for the Titans to get value at their positions of need! Should the Titans go receiver first and then offensive line or the other way around? Miller breaks down where the value is and how to approach. Matt Miller also touches on tight end groupings and the Titans fit at quarterback.Matt Miller can be found on Twitter @nfldraftscoutFollow Tyler on Twitter @TicTacTitansFollow the show on Facebook @LockedOnTitansPodSubscribe to the Locked On Titans YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/LockedOnTitansSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Shady RaysEXCLUSIVELY FOR OUR LISTENERS, HEAD TO SHADYRAYS.COM AND USE CODE LOCKEDON TO GET FIFTY PERCENT OFF TWO OR MORE PAIRS OF POLARIZED SUNGLASSES.Athletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/NFLNETWORK.Blue NileThis Mother’s Day give mom something she’ll treasure forever with fine jewelry from Bluenile.com, and LOCKEDON SPORTS listeners get $50 off $500. Use code LOCKEDON at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to a Locked on Titans podcast special event. The NFL Draft is just a few days away. And to make sure that you guys are as ready as possible, I called in ESPN Draft Guru Matt Miller to talk about the Titans, their draft strategy. Where can you find value in this draft at the positions of need for the Tennessee Titans? What would be the perfect quarterback fit for the Titans? I asked Matt all kinds of Titans draft related questions and he had some excellent insight. So I'm excited to present to you my interview with ESPN's draft guru, Matt Miller.

Well, I am honored to bring on to the Locked on Titans podcast, the one and the only Matt Miller at NFL Draft Scout on Twitter, one of the best in the business, also working for ESPN these days, providing some excellent television content as well. Matt, first and foremost, thanks for coming on and how are you doing today? Yeah, Tyler, I appreciate you having me on. I'm doing well, man. I'm excited. We're close to the draft, inching up. It snuck up

on me. I don't know if you guys feel that same way. It's like, oh wait, the draft is next week. It's like, oh my God, I have so much to get done before then. So it's crazy how we wait for it. We wait for it and then boom, it seems like it's here. Yeah, it's really unbelievable. I remember the days before I was covering the team officially and everything. It felt like it took so long to get through that combine to draft time period. Now it just goes completely. But with that in mind, the draft is basically here. And since a lot of Titans fans seem to notice that you have a good hold and a good feel for what the Titans are thinking or what the Titans doing,

I feel like I can ask you this. Tell me exactly who the Titans are picking at 26. Matt, don't lie. We all know that, you know, I don't, I don't. I think that, you know, like you said, we all have, you know, connections and relationships in this business and you have sources. It's a lot harder at 26 to definitively say the team is going to select this player because they might have targets that aren't on the board. And I think this year is harder than ever because no two teams are alike in terms of their board this year, it feels like. So I've even, I mean, I've had conversations with folks from the Titans and people like, you know, later in round one, and they're basically calling me to say like, hey, what is your mock draft look like? Who do you think the teams ahead of us are taking? Because

it feels like it's all over the place this year. There's not a consensus, I guess is the best way to say it. Whereas last year, like last year, mock drafts are pretty much chalk, right? It was like, all right, quarterback, quarterback, quarterback, Kyle Pitts, Jamar Chase. And like, even if you didn't get the exact player, you probably got the position right. And it was easier for teams in the 20s to say like, all right, Caleb Farley's probably going to be there. Or maybe they took Jeffrey Simmons. Like, I nailed that one, right? Because it was like, all right, injury player, he's going to be on the board.

So I think this year it's a little more difficult. If I had to guess right now, the Zion Johnson connection is so strong that I feel like it's hard to miss that one, especially because the need at left guard. But I throw it out there, like, a receiver wouldn't shock me even after adding Robert Woods. I think it just depends on what the board looks like at that, that pick with which receivers have already been drafted. Yeah, 100%. And quite honestly, if you ask most Titans fans, people will pay attention to the team. They tell you that that interior offensive line spot or wide receiver, the backend of maybe the top five guys could be an option for the Titan.

But that leads me into this question for you as a guy who truly understands the class as a whole. From the Titans' perspective, let's say they have a Traylon Burks. They have a Zion Johnson available at 26. Do you think that as a combination of players that there's better value in getting Burks and then looking at pick 90 for interior offensive line you know one of the Jurgens or even Fortner a little bit later in that range or do you think that the Titans would get more value out of going the other way and taking that Zion Johnson and then maybe Kenyon Green and then looking later at 90 at a guy like a Wendell Robinson or Calvin Austin

or maybe even a David Bell if you were to fall that far? Do you think there's more value in interior offensive line early and wide receiver in the mid-rounds or the other way around? No, that's a great question. I'm glad you posed it that way because I think that's an important way to look at every team's draft class. It's not just who could get round one. It's okay, what is the depth like at other positions of need?

So personally, I would go offensive guard in round one because we're seeing now more than ever, wide receivers are coming to the NFL ready to play. There's also a crazy amount of depth. So each round, traditionally, there's about six receivers that go in each round. That's kind of where we're at right now. So if you're picking at 90, you're probably looking at like the 15th best receiver in a draft, you know, 14 to 15. To me that this year, that is a starting caliber player. You mentioned David Bell from Purdue. He's going to slip because he didn't run well, but he plays exceptionally well. And so, especially because now y'all are in a spot where you only need this guy to be a number three receiver, only, only a number three receiver, right? So, so like Wanda Robinson or jones from tennessee like there are solid solid options for that

speed receiver but if you get into round three you mentioned cam jurgens i think he's way gone off the board i think he'll be a second round pick luke fortner from kentucky definitely kind of fits that mold donovan west from arizona state probably in there as well but like now we're talking about guys like are are they starter caliber? And you don't, you know, it's not like you need a third guard, right? You need a starting guard or a starting center. At receiver, you do have A.J. Brown. You do have Robert Woods.

So I think you can get away with a slot receiver coming in the third round and then, you know, possibly looking at tight end in the fourth round where I think the depth there is really, really good this year. Yeah, I agree with you. And one thing that I've been looking at too is a the fourth round where I think the depth there is really, really good this year. Yeah, I agree with you. And one thing that I've been looking at, too, is a lot of the offensive linemen that will be there in that mid-round, the interior guys, some of them are just pure centers. Think about like a Tyler Linderbaum, like we're talking about Luke Fortner, guys like that, Cam Juergens and Cole Strange.

A lot of these guys are probably B center and the Titans locked up Ben Jones. So they need more of a pure guard. The next position that I want to ask you about though, is kind of similar to interior offensive line where, you know, there's depth at different places, but tight end. I guess my question to you is there's so many tight ends and you talk, you tweeted about it today, actually. And it brought up a good question for you.

So I guess I'm asking for your evaluation on the players yourself uh do you think that there was more value in getting a Jelani Woods a Jeremy Ruckert maybe an Isaiah Likely um around that pick 90 or do you think that it would be better served like you said maybe get wide receiver right there and then go for more of a Cade Otten uh a Conquo uh bellinger go for one of those guys maybe in the 130 to 143 range yeah i would this year specifically i would go wide receiver at 90 and then look at the tight ends in in the fourth round because i do think i i just today completed a seven round mock draft and the tight ends fell because a lot of it is like what

i'm hearing from teams is like, okay, no tight ends going to go to the first round. It's fairly obvious. There's also a lot of talk right now that no tight ends might go in the second round unless someone like Tampa Bay or Cincinnati drafts one late round two. So we could be looking at round three before Trey McBride and great Dolchage and players like that come off the board. So you mentioned Jelani Woods. If that dude's there in the third round, he's the exception. Go ahead and draft him because I love the way he plays and his athletic measurables are off the charts. So I think it does matter.

Like, okay, if we're looking at Jelani Woods is my number two tight end. If he's on the board versus the number 15 receiver, I think that changes the conversation a little bit just because of how good he is. But if we're looking at tight end five or six, well, I don't think that it's between tight end five and tight end eight this year is that great. If I can get Daniel Bellinger in the fourth round, OK, then I like where I'm at with David Bell and Daniel Bellinger. That's going to make my passing game quite a bit better. So I think like we talked about, you know, with your round one versus round three strategy, you got to kind of see how the stacking of the board is.

You want to look at that horizontal big board and see, OK, like where which positions are starting to get thin and which guys are still on the board is you want to look at that horizontal big board and see, okay, like where, which positions are starting to get thin and which guys are still on the board. And man, I would, I would kill to be in a war room this draft because I think it would be so much fun to, just to look at it that way of like, not even just our like, you know, vertical board of like one, three, one 25 or whatever, but that horizontal stack to just watch, like to watch eight receivers come off the board in the first round is going to be wild just to see what kind of domino effects that sets up. And I think, you know, maybe because some of the values are all over the board here that we'll see some significant runs on certain positions because your value for a guy may be a little bit lower than what, but Hey, three tight ends just went off the board between 70 and 90. We got to go,

you know, get the tight end. So that'll be really interesting to watch. The last question that I really have for you here, I know that there's some discussion around the Titans about taking a quarterback at 26. And if the top five wide receivers are off the board and the top three interior linemen are off the board and the top four offensive tackles are all off the board, then maybe they go that route. If the Titans did decide to go with a quarterback at 26,

who do you think is the best fit for the Titans that could realistically be there? Yeah, I guess Malik Willis. It's tough though, because, you know, okay, what's going to happen? If Kenny Pickett, let's say Kenny Pickett doesn't go till 20, right? And he's the first quarterback off the board. It would be a surprise based on that. We expect these teams to like mess up and overdraft one, but it wouldn't be a surprise based on value. If that happens, if Malik Wills is there at 26, then that's about the only way that I could advocate for doing that because there is a good situation where he could truly sit and learn for a year. There's going to be zero pressure to get him on the field, and you can really coach him up because I'm a fan of his, his arm strength,

his athleticism, his running ability, his vision and toughness in the open field, his character. There's a lot to like, but he needs work from the ground up as a passer. And so it truly needs to be a situation where he doesn't have to play as a rookie. I think that's the only way. If he's off the board and it's like, oh, let's draft Desmond Ritter. That's just not really moving the needle for me. I would rather roll with Ryan Tannehill, who's taking you to the AFC championship game.

I'd rather roll Ryan Tannehill and start to look at 2023 as a year to potentially get that next quarterback. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense for the Titans, and it makes a lot of sense for Titans fans to pay attention to Matt Miller's work. The entire draft world does, and obviously he does a great job paying attention to the Titans. Matt, I appreciate you coming on. Hopefully, maybe because Titans fans do trust your analysis,

and this is the number one Titans podcast in the world, we can maybe make this an annual thing. Absolutely, Matt, and I love the number one Titans podcast in the world, we can maybe make this an annual thing. Absolutely, man. And I love the city of Nashville. I was just there about a month ago, maybe five weeks ago, and y'all are amazing. I can't wait to get back there myself. So we'll have to do this again.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Matt. Have a great night and enjoy the draft, man. Christmas is here. Yeah, you bet. Thank you. Yep. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that

excellent interview with ESPN's Matt Miller. Thought he had some excellent insight in there about where there's going to be value at tight end, at offensive line, what kind of sequence the Titans should use for positions with their picks. I mean, just some excellent stuff.

I hope you guys enjoyed. Make sure that you subscribe to the Locked On Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream. I am going to be putting out daily Monday through Friday Tennessee Titans content all year round, free and available on all platforms. Going to have live draft coverage for you guys on the Locked On NFL Draft YouTube channel.

I'm going to be on there breaking down all the Titans picks. Catch me on Twitter at TicTacTitans where I'll be giving instant analysis on every selection, talking about the way that the draft is going and how it pertains to the Titans and their needs. I'm going to be having an instant reaction video to every single pick, recapping the draft

every single night. So make sure that you stay locked in to the Locked On Titans podcast, but that's going to do it for me in this Locked On Titans podcast, but that's going to do it for me in this Locked On Titans podcast special interview with ESPN's Matt Miller. Thank you guys for tuning in.