Randy Moss made an appearance in the Nashville area over the past weekend supporting his NASCAR Truck Series team at the Nashville Superspeedway. Luckily for Moss, Kenny Britt doesn't own a Truck Series team so Moss' guys were allowed on the track. Wyatt takes a look at Tracy Rocker, and the kind of input he will have on one of the draft's most enigmatic, and easy to misunderstand, prospects:
(suprise!) Nick Fairley. PFF takes a look at the Titans' talent currently on the roster, and come away with a view of the LBs that, quite frankly, shocked me (past the first sentence):
A lot of reports coming out of Tennessee suggested the Titans were not happy with the performance (make that lack of big plays) from Stephen Tulloch and Gerald McRath. You can see where that is coming from, but it shouldn’t really take away from both players having solid seasons. Tulloch was a tackling machine (and earned a +13.6 grade from us), while McRath did well as a two down linebacker (+5.0 on the year.) But if the Titans aren’t sold on either, and with Tulloch a would-be free agent, there is a need there. A need made even worse when you consider the poor play of Will Witherspoon.
Only five players finished with lower grades in our 4-3 outside linebacker stakes than Witherspoon, who may have picked up three sacks (a good number from a 4-3 OLB) but very rarely delivered on a consistent basis. Looking at his pressure numbers, it took him 103 attempts to pick up 11 quarterback disruptions, a low rate for a guy finding a path of least resistance way to the quarterback as a blitzer. Worse than this, he missed a high number of tackles (16) and wasn’t particularly adept in coverage, giving up an incredible five touchdowns.
Glennon writes about the boom or bust track record of the Titans' first round picks. Unless you're crazy enough to call Britt or Morgan a bust at this point, you have to divide this group into Reinfeldt-era picks and Reese-era picks. Reese was one of the masters of finding later-round talent, while Reinfeldt has done a great job so far of mixing some of that success with stellar picks in the late first round. Nick Fairley is barely old enough to drink, yet he has already been diagnosed as suffering from sleep apnea. Luckily, he's taken significant efforts to curb the effects of the dangerous condition. Bruce Matthews makes the list of the All-Time draft picks by slot, according to Yahoo! Peter King takes a look at why teams who are beyond set at QB are still working out Andy Dalton. Over the past few weeks the MCM favorite has been brought in for visits with the Patriots, Colts and Saints. NFP breaksdown Jake Locker. Same treatment here for Christian Ponder. Don Banks takes a look at what a mess the season will become if the CBA negotiations end up causing a loss of games. Sad news from FO, as key contributor Bill Barnwell is headed out the door to join Bill Simmons' new ESPN-affiliated website. No slight to anyone else at FO, but Barnwell is one of the best pure writers of this talented group, and hopefully that aspect will be highlighted at his new home.Email me mcmaugustwest@gmail.com and be sure to follow me on Twitter @AugustWest_MCM