SANTA CLARA — The Tennessee Titans got tossed around by the San Francisco 49ers in joint training camp practice on Tuesday. One Tennessee player, however, may have just had his best practice in a Titans uniform.

Right tackle JC Latham went out to the Bay Area with bad intentions.

He delivered on them for the better part of two hours, consistently planting 49ers defensive linemen in the ground and telling them to “get off” his field. The offensive line situation for Tennessee remains a huge question mark. One quality player does not make for a five-man quality unit. 

But there are promising signs that at least one question, that of right tackle, may be closer than ever to being answered because of the way Latham is answering the bell.

The Titans offensive line struggled, but Latham stood out

The offensive line as a whole did not acquit itself well against San Francisco. 

Star edge defender Nick Bosa did not practice, still recovering from the ACL injury that cost him the bulk of the 2025 season. Two of the Titans’ likely four rosterable tackles, Austin Deculus and Dan Moore, got tossed from practice for fighting, either instigating or continuing altercations with 49ers players in a way that inhibited the session and did not benefit the team. Quarterback Cam Ward was under duress for the better part of the practice, though in the first-team session the 49ers were not able to generate much of a rush on Tennessee’s offensive line.

That broader context makes Latham’s performance even more noteworthy. At 6-foot-6, 335 pounds, he should be a bona fide ass kicker. On Tuesday, he looked like one.

Latham earned a Pro Football Focus grade of 65.5 last season. As we always say about PFF grades, they are not the end-all be-all and may not reflect exactly how the coaches have him graded. But they are a good approximation of how a player measures up against his peers.

That 65.5 made him the 48th out of 89 qualified tackles. Middling. Middle of the road. He needs to be so much better than that as a former top-10 pick, especially coming from Nick Saban’s last Alabama team. There is a standard, an expectation of the caliber of player you’re getting from that program, and Latham hasn’t lived up to it heading into his third season.

The JC Latham conversation does require context. He has played on bad offensive line units. That is not his fault. He has been heavily penalized in his early career. That is his fault. He dealt with hip injuries last year. That is not his fault. But you need any sign of life from this Titans offensive line, and Tuesday provided one.

The pieces around Latham are starting to take shape

Guard Peter Skoronski is now the highest-paid guard in football at $25 million a year. 

Whether he’s outright the best guard in football or simply one of the best, he is compensated as such. Center Austin Schlottmann remains a huge question mark, though he will be the starting center this fall. Rookie fifth-round pick Fernando Carmona, Jr. out of Arkansas appears on track to be the starting right guard. Carmona, a player with good size and some level of versatility, plays with a nastiness you absolutely need on the interior.

That’s the perfect pairing for Latham. Titans defensive tackle Jeffrey Simmons has spent the better part of two and a half years trying to get that nastiness out of Latham, challenging him at every turn in Jeff’s own way as an All-Pro defensive tackle. Simmons talked on the radio show about Latham absolutely mauling dudes on the practice field. The team has taken note.

Preseason will tell us even more about Latham’s trajectory

Latham will play in Thursday’s preseason game against the 49ers.

San Francisco is not expected to trot out its first-team units, meaning Latham should face reserve and backup defensive linemen in a situation that will not be heavily schemed. That should tell us a lot about the kind of player he should be. He should go out there and cave dudes’ skulls in. There should be no question that you are on the field with a former seventh overall pick in the NFL Draft.

This entire season is about more than Latham, of course.

Many different things on this football team need to be figured out. But a huge solve would be Latham officially holding down that right tackle spot. No more injury excuses, no more penalty flags, no more attitude questions. You’re looking for as mean, as nasty, as physical, and as silent as Latham can be between the whistles. That process has been well underway since Tennessee got into fully padded practices at training camp.

To see arguably his best practice as a Titan against another jersey is a huge step in the right direction. Protecting second-year quarterback Cam Ward is at a premium, and Latham is a massive piece of that puzzle.

If, in fact, he can be a piece to help solve it.

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