ESPN gives Titans’ offensive line an astonishing ranking in latest NFL best, worst positional groups list ahead of 2025 season

The Tennessee Titans’ offensive line has undergone significant renovations for three seasons now, and entering 2025, it finally feels ready to be a reliable force for good. The more I evaluate this team throughout training camp, frankly, it’s a group I continue to come back to to spark optimism in the face of worries elsewhere. […]

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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The Tennessee Titans’ offensive line has undergone significant renovations for three seasons now, and entering 2025, it finally feels ready to be a reliable force for good. The more I evaluate this team throughout training camp, frankly, it’s a group I continue to come back to to spark optimism in the face of worries elsewhere. If it plays up to its potential, it could become a part of this team’s identity for the foreseeable future.

But all of that hope is yet to come to fruition in a real game, and three years of wandering in the awful o-line desert has fans wary to buy in lest they be hurt again. But ESPN Senior NFL Writer Mike Clay’s latest positional rankings are here to tell you that even your most optimistic expectations are too low.

Belief In The Trenches

Clay took the Titans to the woodshed on some of these positional rankings. I won’t spoil the whole list because you should go check out the actual article, but here are a couple of teasers:

This EDGE group is 30th, according to Clay, which, frankly, might be generous. Cam Ward is already 28th in the NFL before taking a snap. And he ranked the CB room 18th, which feels appropriate given the razor-thin margin for injury they have in that room. Every other position group is ranked in there, too, and let’s just say his “overall” roster ranking for the Titans isn’t in the top half of the league.

But the sole bright spot on this team today — relative to the rest of the league — is the Titans’ largest players in his mind. And while I don’t disagree with him on that (outside of Ward optimism), I’m blown away by Clay’s willingness to rank these groups as highly as he did.

The Titans’ offensive line came in at fifth behind only Philadelphia, Denver, Chicago, and Minnesota. And the interior defensive line came in at fourth behind only Seattle, Arizona, and Indianapolis.

First, the OL: that’s saying it with your chest, man! I’ve written and spoken about how we shouldn’t be afraid of holding this group to the high standard their talent on paper warrants, but even I don’t anticipate them being a top-five unit in the league this year. That time could come eventually with a core of LG Peter Skoronski, RT JC Latham, and potential LT Dan Moore proving himself to be a long-term tackle solution.

But in 2025? That would be as dramatic a rise to power as I can remember any offensive line making. If it truly makes this kind of leap in Ward’s rookie season, it will go a very, very long way. It’s hard to overstate what it would mean for his development.

The interior defensive line being ranked fourth is less of a surprise. Jeffery Simmons is widely considered one of the best in the game, T’Vondre Sweat’s rookie season was very promising, and Sebastian Joseph-Day is a really nice third player in that room. The thing that remains to be seen is whether they (primarily Simmons and Sweat) can live up to this billing. Simmons needs to have a year similar to how he looked in 2021 and 2022, not a somewhat disappointing one like in 2023 and 2024. And Sweat needs to add to his pass rush profile to prove he’s more than a high-level run defender.

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