Titans OL Far From Set

According to ESPN’s Turron Davenport, former Bengals starter Cordell Volson and last year’s fifth-round pick Jackson Slater will battle for the starting right guard job. Volson presumably has the inside track on the job after spending nearly three years as a starter on the left side in Cincinnati. He shouldn’t have any issue switching sides since he started games at left tackle, right tackle, and right guard in his college years at North Dakota State.

Slater’s collegiate experience at Sacramento State came all on the left side, as did his only snaps on offense for the Titans in his rookie year, which all came in a meaningless Week 18 matchup. Davenport believes that Day 3 additions from this year’s draft — fifth-round Arkansas guard Fernando Carmona and sixth-round Indiana center Pat Coogan — could also factor into the competition of this battle. Carmona started three years at left tackle in Fayetteville before making the move to left guard for the Razorbacks, and Coogan started a year at left guard for Notre Dame two years before transferring to the Hoosiers.

Tennessee also signed interior swingman Austin Schlottmann back in early March, but he appears to be the favorite to win the starting center job, though he has never held a role in the NFL as a full-time starter. Over his eight years in the NFL, Schlottmann has only started 18 of 85 game appearances. He started six games at right guard and one at center over three years in Denver, seven games at center over the next two in Minnesota, and four games at center for the Giants last year after only appearing in one game in 2024.

Schlottmann’s competition for the job is currently former Bengal Trey Hill and Coogan. Hill, originally a sixth-round pick himself, hasn’t started an NFL game since his rookie year in 2021 and has only appeared in one game in the past three seasons — a three-snap special teams appearance in 2024. Coogan joins his third team in as many years after transferring from Notre Dame to Indiana for a championship run last year. Following his season at left guard, Coogan started a season at center for the Fighting Irish before snapping the ball for a year to the Heisman-winning No. 1 overall pick, Fernando Mendoza.

Despite Coogan’s success on paper, he was a Day 3 pick for a reason. He’s got the size and strength to look the part at the next level, but he projects as a backup early until he can be a bit more disciplined with his pad-level. Hill has been relegated to a practice squad role in recent years, and it’s hard to picture him making Week 1 his first start in five years. The job appears to be Schlottmann’s at the moment.

The inside tracks for Volson and Schlottmann could be altered if the roster continues to change, and it doesn’t sound like the team is done making adjustments. Following the draft, Titans assistant general manager Dave Ziegler told the press, “There’s a level of competition that’s still going to be taking place there…we’ll continue to look to improve. Free agency is over and the draft is over, but there’s still an element of different areas of the team we will continue to add competition to. Offensive line will be one of those positions.”

Having seen so little of a new group that has such limited experience, head coach Brian Daboll is far from making any decisions. While he claims to like what he’s seeing from the guys that have come in and gotten to work, he knows they’re far away from playing meaningful football in pads, and they’ll learn more when those days come along. For now, they’ll continue to develop and compete, but as for figuring out the starting five, “all that will play itself out come training camp,” as Daboll puts it.