ESPN says Titans’ 2020 NFL Draft class was league’s worst

Titans 2020 NFL draft grade

The Tennessee Titans have enjoyed back-to-back successful seasons thanks mostly to the duo of running back Derrick Henry and quarterback Ryan Tannehill, but in order to sustain that success, general manager Jon Robinson has to stack quality draft classes year over year.

That wasn’t the case in 2020. According to ESPN’s recent ranking of every team’s 2020 NFL Draft haul, the Titans came in dead last.

Here’s who Tennessee picked last April: OT Isaiah Wilson (Round 1), CB Kristian Fulton (Round 2), RB Darrynton Evans (Round 3), DT Larrell Murchison (Round 5), QB Cole McDonald (Round 7), SAF Chris Jackson (Round 7).

Wilson appeared in just one game during his rookie season and is already toeing that fine line of washing out of the league because of questions surrounding his desire and commitment to the game.

Tennessee’s Day 2 returns didn’t fare much better. Fulton missed 10 games with injuries; Evans missed 11. Essentially, the Titans lost an entire season of evaluation and assessment for their first three selections. Not great.

“Long story short: Wilson’s debut season went about as poorly as possible. Meanwhile, Fulton missed 10 games due to injuries and a trip to the reserve/COVID-19 list,” wrote ESPN’s  Gennaro Filice and Nick Shook.Evans missed 11 games with groin and hamstring ailments. Jackson, the latter of Tennessee’s two seventh-round picks, probably provided the best ROI just by participating in 11 games. The future is a beautiful mystery for all NFL players, of course, but the task in this exercise is to grade each rookie class’ Year 1 performance. And in that sense, there’s just no denying that this group failed.”

Bryan Perez

Bryan is the founder of Pro Football Draft. His work has been featured on The Draft Network, NBC Sports and USA Today. Former CFL scout.

Follow him on Twitter: @BryanPerezNFL