Thinking Out Loud: Titans Retooling For Future

Much has been made of the Tennessee Titans current roster situation and their lack of plentiful cap space for the 2023 season. What does it mean in 2023?

George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

NASHVILLE - The question has been asked multiple times, are the Tennessee Titans rebuilding or reloading for the 2023 NFL season? That's a great question and one I don't want to call it either. 

So what exactly do I call what we see from the Titans right now?

I'd call it a retooling, where general manager Ran Carthon and head coach Mike Vrabel have a plan in place, where there are signs that they are looking ahead to 2024 while not blowing up the roster this season while adding young, cost-conservative contracts, and retaining one of the leagues best players at the same time. 

All that might sound crazy to those not living in my head, but hear me out. The Titans resigned stud defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons to a new four-year extension on Friday. That move signals that this is not a total rebuild, 

Were it a rebuild, Simmons was one of the Titans' most valuable trade chips. They could have moved him for a haul in draft assets. Instead, he is now the NFL's second-highest-paid defensive tackle and will be in Nashville for the foreseeable future.    

Likewise, despite rumors to the contrary, the Titans appear to be hanging onto Derrick Henry and Kevin Byard for one more season, though that could still change. 

At the same time, Ryan Tannehill's situation is still fluid. What the team can do in the upcoming draft will determine his future here. Still, at the moment, it seems that Tannehill will remain a Titans for one more season as the starter and possible mentor to any rookie they might select later this month.  

If this were a rebuild, we would have seen Henry and Byard shipped away for whatever they could get to add more picks to their draft capital. 

To this point, that hasn't happened, which brings me to the term retooling to describe what's happening on Great Circle Road.      

The Titans are keeping pieces to remain competitive in 2023 while looking forward to 2024 when they are projected to have abundant cap space and money to spend. They will also return to a full slate of draft selections if they don't deal any away later this month. 

As for that projected space in 2024, the Titans will reportedly be sitting on $127.9 million to spend in free agency and the next draft class. 

If Carthon gets this thing right, and he looks to be moving in that direction, the Titans could jump from a middling franchise in '23 to a contender in '24.

One of the biggest things Carthon has to do that his predecessor couldn't do regularly enough is hit on his first-round picks. 

Drafting, building from within, and then adding missing pieces through free agency and being able to sustain that formula is the goal. 

Now it's all about the execution. 

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