Titans OT Praised After Rookie Year

The Tennessee Titans needed an offensive lineman a year ago during the NFL Draft, and they may have reached for one when they took JC Latham out of Alabama with the number seven overall pick.

The Athletic's Nick Baumgardner completed a 2024 redraft exercise where Latham went number 18 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals instead of fellow offensive tackle Amarius Mims out of Georgia.

"Latham, a former Alabama standout, played every offensive snap of his rookie year for a bad Tennessee team, lining up at left tackle after playing only on the right side in college. Tennessee plans to move Latham back to RT this year, and he could make a serious leap as a result," Baumgardner writes.

In the original draft, Latham was the second offensive tackle taken off the board after Joe Alt went to the Los Angeles Chargers with the number five overall pick.

In the redraft, Latham was the fifth offensive lineman selected after Alt, Taliese Fuaga, Dominick Puni and Zach Frazier. Fuaga was originally taken by the New Orleans Saints at number 14 while Puni and Frazier were both Day 2 picks by the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively.

This isn't to say that the Titans picked the wrong guy at number seven because Latham still had a very good rookie year. He had to learn a whole new position on the left side protecting the blindside of Will Levis while adjusting to the speed of the NFL game and still looked like Tennessee's best offensive lineman for most of the season.

Now that the team signed Dan Moore Jr. and added Kevin Zeitler to be the team's right guard, Latham can move back to his more natural position on the right side and continue to blossom for the Titans.