Titans sign former Chiefs defensive lineman Bennie Logan

The Titans have signed former Chiefs defensive lineman Bennie Logan to a 1 year, $4 million contract with incentives that could make the deal worth a maximum of $5 million.

Logan started his career in Philadelphia as a 3rd round pick out of LSU in the 2013 NFL Draft. He became a starter for the Eagles midway through his first season and spent the rest of his rookie contract as a regular starter. Last offseason he signed a one year deal in Kansas City where he served as the Chiefs starting nose tackle for the 2017 season.

Logan is a pure run stuffer. He only has 7 career sacks in 5 NFL seasons, but he regularly grades out as one of the best run stoppers in the league as evidenced by this stat from Jim Wyatt.

Pro Football Focus measures “run stop percentage” by taking the number of tackles a player makes that constitute a “loss” for the offense and dividing it by the number of run snaps he played. A loss in this case isn’t a loss in yards, but a failure to gain enough yards to stay on schedule based on down and distance. Logan has consistently ranked near the top of the league in this statistic over his entire career. Here are his ranks by season:

2013: 9.2% (15th out of 80 qualifying DTs)

2014: 9.9% (10th out of 82 qualifying DTs)

2015: 14.8% (2nd out of 71 qualifying DTs)

2016: 9.0% (17th out of 75 qualifying DTs)

2017: 9.8% (13th out of 83 qualifying DTs)

That’s a consistent track record of being a very stout run defender. Sylvester Williams — the player whose roster spot he’s effectively taking — had a 6.7% stop percentage, ranking 47th in the league among defensive tackles in 2017.

Logan is going to offer very little as a pass rusher, and therefore is likely to only be an early down contributor in Nashville and that’s OK considering what he’s getting paid.

He also fits the Jon Robinson mold when it comes to personality and work ethic. While at LSU, he was given the honor of wearing the number 18 which is traditionally given to players who “demonstrate success both on and off the field – as well as a selfless attitude that has become the epitome of being an LSU football player.”

That attitude has followed him to the NFL as well as Chiefs coach Andy Reid attested to last summer.

“I like what I’ve seen [from Logan],” Reid said after Thursday’s minicamp practice. “Tough guy, good leader. He’s got a good personality, works his tail off.”

It will be interesting to see how Dean Pees deploys his defensive linemen this season. Logan is probably the most natural nose tackle on the team, but DaQuan Jones and Austin Johnson can both credibly play the position. I would count Logan as an upgrade over Sylvester Williams, and he also gives the team quality depth with four starter level defensive linemen on the roster.

This means that the Titans are almost certainly not pursuing Johnathan Hankins despite the link between Hankins and Mike Vrabel. I’d be interested to know why they chose to pursue Logan over Hankins, but there are several possible reasons including money, fit, and opportunity.

The Titans are probably still in the market to add a defensive lineman — particularly one with some pass rush skills — during the draft. Logan replaces Williams, but they could still use another plus pass rusher to fit inside next to Casey on passing downs.