Titans take Kenneth Murray in Bleacher Report’s 2020 NFL re-draft
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After the 2020 season, it’s safe to say that the Tennessee Titans would take a re-do on their first-round pick, which of course was offensive tackle Isaiah Wilson out of Georgia.
Wilson wasn’t a popular pick to begin with, at least among Titans fans, and he didn’t help general manager Jon Robinson’s cause with his depressing rookie season.
Wilson had multiple run-ins with the law, multiple COVID-19 list trips, a suspension, and his season ended on the Non-Football Illness list. In total, he played just four snaps, and to say his future is murky at best right now would be an understatement. At this point, the Titans might take anyone other than the guy they drafted if they could do it again.
Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox recently did a 2020 NFL re-draft, and he pegged Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Kenneth Murray to Tennessee at pick No. 29. Here’s some of what he had to say about the pick:
Instead of going with a player they know won’t see the field, Tennessee grabs former Oklahoma linebacker Kenneth Murray Jr. A versatile sideline-to-sideline player, Murray shined for the Los Angeles Chargers, finishing with 107 tackles, a sack and three passes defended.
By adding Murray, Tennessee could have strengthened its 19th-ranked run defense. That unit was gashed for 236 rushing yards in a wild-card loss to the Ravens, ending a promising campaign.
Murray was taken by the Chargers six picks before the Titans took Wilson, but he falls in Knox’s re-draft.
Murray played all 16 games and 93 percent of snaps, finishing with a team-leading 107 tackles, one sack, three passes defensed and five tackles for loss.
At the time of the draft, taking an inside linebacker wouldn’t have made much sense for the Titans, as they had both Jayon Brown and Rashaan Evans locked into the starting spots, with David Long as the backup.
However, as we saw, Brown ended up missing the rest of the 2020 campaign after 10 games, which necessitated Long, who was quite effective, filling his spot. Also, we saw the regression of Evans, who was a penalty machine and didn’t play as good as he did in 2019.
One way or the other, Murray would have seen the field, whether it was in place of an injured Brown or an ineffective Evans.
Furthermore, Murray would have become the future at the position sooner rather than later in Tennessee, with Brown set to hit free agency in 2021 and Evans possibly having just one more year on his contract should the Titans decline his fifth-year option.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but in this instance it’s crystal clear that the Titans would rather have Murray, or really, almost anyone other than Wilson.
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