Newly drafted Tennessee Titans defensive lineman T'Vondre Sweat has some new bulletin board material. Frequently, athletes search high and low for perceived slights as motivation. Sweat won't have to look further than a recent Sports Illustrated article.
Matt Verderame ranked Sweat as the second-most likely player to be a bust in the 2024 NFL Draft.
"Sweat is powerful as a defensive tackle who can get up the field and destroy blockers at times," Verderame wrote. "The problem? He wasn’t always that guy. At Texas, Sweat played in 51 games and totaled just 17.5 tackles for loss and five sacks.
"Additionally, there are questions about Sweat away from the field. In early April, he was arrested on suspicion of DWI. Tennessee took a chance on him anyway as a second-round pick despite some believing he shouldn’t come off the board until Day 3. It’s a risky move at a position that wasn’t a huge need, considering Tennessee already has Jeffrey Simmons inside."
Sweat was awarded the 2023 Outland Trophy, which is given to the best college football interior offensive or defensive lineman. Additionally, he was named the Big 12 Conference's best defensive player by the Associated Press and a unanimous All-American. Titans general manager Ran Carthon expressed confidence in Sweat as a three-down lineman.
"Yes, that's why we think he's a three-down style player is because he can and has pressured the quarterback because he's got tremendous strength and power in the middle of the pocket," Carthon said. And so when you're able to do that, like I said, it's a problem for quarterbacks. Quarterbacks don't like the pocket in their face. They like lanes. They like places to slide and escape. When you constrict it and push it, and there's nowhere to go, you can't step up, it makes it challenging. So we think that he's got the capability to be a really dynamic player on all three downs and has the ability to pass rush. I don't think he is strictly just a first and second down run stopper. I think he has real ability to affect the quarterback."
Sweat will have the opportunity to prove doubters wrong starting with rookie OTA's next weekend.
I"'m going to bring everything to the team. I'm going to bring—give it my all. But me personally, I really don't care about other people's opinions. I'm just going to put my head down and work and keep going."
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