The Titans CB Group is Officially a Glaring Problem
Buck Reising describes why recent trends from the Titans CB room show that it is a big problem for the team heading into the season.
Video Transcript
The Tennessee Titans are in the midst of joint training camp practices with the Seattle Seahawks, or very soon will be.
When the Seahawks come to town, one position group is going to be questioned almost as much as any other that's out on the field, and that is the Titans cornerback group.
We're gonna talk about it tonight.
Welcome into the Prime Time video.
We're happy to have you.
As always, looking forward to those joint training camp practices with Seattle this week, and then of course, a preseason game here in Nashville on Sunday night.
The cornerback group is a problem.
The two starting corners that were paid to come in here in free agency, have so far been very, very disappointing.
You're gonna hear from Robert Sala on them tonight, on Cordell Flott in particular, and also on Alontae Taylor, two players who have come in here to try and solidify things on the outside for the Titans, but thus far the results have been shaky at best.
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So Cordell Flott and Alontae Taylor are two players who came in here on pretty substantive contracts in free agency because the Titans just desperately needed cornerback help.
We did this exercise today on the radio show where Robert asked me if I could name the starting cornerbacks for the Tennessee Titans week one, 2025.
And I had to think about it, because I could name L'Jarius Sneed, who played very little during his time here in Tennessee, but was available at the start of the season.
Then I really struggled to name who the other two players were that were starting corners for this football team in week one last year at Denver when this team started its year on the road in Cam Ward's rook- rookie season.
I had forgotten all about Roger McCreary, who got traded to the Los Al- Angeles Rams ahead of the deadline, and who has done very little since then.
Played basically special teams, got hurt in LA, and was playing into the fourth quarter of a preseason game this past weekend.
Pretty surprising stuff as a former second round pick who played solid football here, but was never great.
And then Jarvis Brownlee, who was also traded well ahead of the deadline, right?
He went to the New York Jets for essentially them, them just trying to dump a player that they weren't interested in keeping on the roster, despite some reason to believe that he might be a player of some quality, right?
Whether he was a starter or whether he was decent depth, Titans very quickly moved on from him.
So they had glaring holes in this secondary.
They basically remade the entire room, not named Marcus Harris, the, sixth round pick out of Cal, sixth or seventh round, sixth round pick out of Cal last year, who is right now the starting nickel.
Alontae Taylor signed a three-year, $60 million contract to come here from New Orleans.
He played both on the outside and in the nickel at New Orleans, but was far better as a slot nickel player, and that's where he did the majority of his work.
566 snaps in the slot last year.
He played 170 in the box.
They had him on the line of scrimmage 24 times.
Then he played outside just shy of 300 snaps last year out of necessity.
New Orleans moved him around more than they would probably have liked to.
If you go back and look at the rest of his career, the it's kind of varied.
He had far more sna- snaps on the outside in 2024, over 600, and played 358 in the slot in 2024.
And then if you go to 2023, that number shifts widely again.
718 slot corner snaps in 2023 for the Saints, 122 on the out- outside.
Almost by consensus, he seems to be a better player in the nickel/sl- slot, and yet this team needs him to play on the outside, where it's not been a disaster all the way through, but it's not been good either.
And, it's much more extreme when we talk about Cordell Flott.
But the Alontae Taylor experience, he just feels like a player who's being asked to play out of position.
Something else that's worth noting as well is how much off coverage the Titans were playing in that preseason game.
How much will they play once they get into the regular season?
Will they be pressing more in a press man coverage type of situation?
I think they wanna play more zone under Robert Sala, but that does not seem to suit the skill set of their players right now.
We'll see.
Obviously, there will be mixes in coverage.
They're not gonna be one kind of a team exclusively the whole way through, but it's gonna be interesting to see how that kinda coalesces.
You would say that there's still time for them to kinda get their stuff together, but there's really only, only two more weeks of training camp left, and then this is game planning type of stuff.
And you have JSN, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the reigning offensive player of the year, coming in here on Friday.
Don't know how much he's gonna play in the preseason, if at all, but I imagine in the one day of practice that they do have with Seattle, that he's gonna give these corners a work.
Alontae Taylor has been disappointing so far, but not as much as Cordell Flott, who came to the Titans in free agency by way of the Giants.
And the Taylor deal was the bigger deal, but Flott is a player who was thought to be ascending Has a three-year deal as well, $45 million.
Started 14 games for the Giants last season.
Did have one interception.
He had 11 pass deflections.
It was a career high.
So he'll immediately, and was immediately, brought in here to be a starting corner for the Titans, who just desperately needed the help.
So he's capable of also giving them snaps in the slot, but again, out of necessity, they have to play this guy on the outside.
He, this, he's a s- he was a solid player for the Giants.
There's reason to believe that he can be a solid to average, slightly above average corner here in Tennessee.
27 solo tackles, three tackles for loss last year.
They're just, they were simply looking for stability in doing these two deals, and right now, these two deals look objectively terrible.
You're also trying to get a decent measure of what Cam Ward and the offense are, are doing against this secondary right now, and you thought, "Okay, well, Carnell Tate is a, is definitely a plus player," and I still think he's the best wide receiver on the team, but he's catching stuff all over the place, and these corners aren't really putting up much of a fight.
And then you see how much these corners just got waxed by Deshaun Stribling, who's the rookie wide receiver, second round pick out of Ole Miss, who played for the San Francisco 49ers, who had six catches, who was tracking well on his way to 100 yards if he'd played the entirety of that game.
They pulled him, obviously because he expects to be a starting caliber player.
And Cordell Flott was around the ball in coverage, but just simply could not make any plays against a rookie wide receiver.
Cordell Flott's got good size.
He's 6'1".
Well, he's got good length, but his, his weight, he's 175.
He's paper thin.
Out there as a former third round pick out of LSU, he is somebody who this team is gonna lean on heavily, and right now, leaning on Cordell Flott does not seem like an effective exercise.
Marcus Harris is, is a mixed bag right now.
Eric Hallett is somebody who's worth keeping an eye on.
But the Titans just continue to churn their cornerback depth.
They obviously don't feel good about what is behind these top line guys and, and they can't feel great about these top line guys in general.
We, we asked Robert Saleh, 'cause it wasn't just the preseason game.
They came back here on Saturday, and the offense had the passing offense with Cam Ward had a significantly better day.
El- Alec Ihleman are wide receiver, Calvin Ridley, wide receiver, out there just really putting it on him in this secondary.
And again, you came away from the press conference being like, "Okay, that's good to see," or you came away from the practice saying, "That's good.
That's a good rebound opportunity for Cam Ward and the passing offense, who just didn't show themselves well."
Well, really Cam simply didn't show himself well in that preseason game.
Just so to see him come back and, and kinda light it up a little bit, that was important.
But then you're just looking at these starting corners and being like, "Man, you guys aren't stopping anything right now."
And Robert Saleh was asked about a higher level of urgency around the cornerback situation on Saturday after practice.
Well, everything matters, whether it's, You know, that Stribling kid's gonna be pretty damn good.
And, and, he, he, big strong receiver.
Quarterback did a good job giving him a chance, and he, and he, and he won, he won some one-on-ones.
But, you know, I'd love to tell you no concern, but it's definitely there's, there's a sense of urgency with the, with, with regards to making sure that we get it fixed, and we continue to put our guys in those situations in practice so that we can continue to get that work.
But, we'll never panic, but, but urgency will always be high.
So not a glowing endorsement there from Robert Saleh.
And again, Robert Saleh was giving them coaching points, specifically the corners.
Today, it wasn't a, a terrible day for them, but again, you just, you watch Cordell Flott, and while he is around the ball regularly, he's just, he's not making any plays.
He's not breaking up any passes.
He's not contesting catches really the way that you need him to.
So that's just immediately a red flag situation around the Titans cornerback room.
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