NASHVILLE, Tenn. – At what point in the draft equation does a high-quality player destined to miss a big chunk of his rookie season, if not all of it, become worth selecting?

That’s a question facing the Titans at No. 19 where Mississippi State interior defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons may well be available, and would likely bring them a skill set of which they are in dire need. He’d also bring a repaired left ACL he tore in February.

That could see him return during the course of the 2019 NFL season, but he’s won’t be making an impact on opening day or anywhere close to it. And it’s possible his first year could be a wash.

BY BLAKE BEDDINGFIELD, special contributor

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- In every draft room, there is a draft board with 1,000-plus names that are not draftable and won’t get a chance as a free agent and a second draft board that contains 300+ names that will get drafted or sign free agent contracts. 

There are also other boards in the draft room. A Top 100 player board ranked in order. A board with all seven rounds with each pick in order. There is a board with all 32 team’s draft choices that they own by number under the name. And last, in Nashville, there is a Titans’ team needs board to fill out the remaining roster spots.

The most important of these boards is the Titans’ positional grade board. It will be used the most during the draft.

The board is set up by position starting with C, G, T, TE, QB, RB, WR, DE, DT, ILB, OLB, CB, S, Spec. Every team uses their own specific numerical grading system to determine the value of the player. The most popular grading system is the “old” national football scouting grading system.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Draft excitement is about to boil over. I've worked hard on this mailbag to help us work our way to Thursday night.

Here's some schedule talk from earlier this week.

Titans’ schedule chat https://t.co/H6Y8TDdSNQ

— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) April 18, 2019

On to your fine questions, which I appreciate.

In your years of covering the Titans and in honor of the nfl draft, who is the biggest bust and biggest overachieving draft pick made by Titans???

— Robert White Stuard (@Robertdeerfish) April 20, 2019

PK: It’d be hard to find anyone who did better than Cortland Finnegan, a seventh-rounder who was a first-team All-Pro

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- NFL owners tend to be eccentric and somewhat mysterious, operating behind the scenes.

Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk interact with fans more than most, and Thursday night she made the sort of appearance that few of her peers would consider.

In front of an audience of 300 people in downtown Nashville at an event to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Tennessee, she spoke for over an hour with John McClain of the Houston Chronicle. It was an off-the-record conversation -- no reporting, no recording. [Unlocked]

By BLAKE BEDDINGFIELD, special correspondent 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Paul asked me for a look at the pre-draft process through the eyes of someone who's been involved. So here we go.

Draft Meetings: The pre-draft meeting process for most NFL teams start two weeks before the draft. Depending on who runs the draft (GM, HC or owner) the pre-draft meetings could range anywhere from a month long to just a few days. The process can be a long one for all involved. Most meeting times will start at 7 am and run until 9 pm in the evening.

Photo: Outside linebacker Sharif Finch got $42,000 guaranteed as an undrafted free agent from the Titans last year.

The pre-draft meetings and the process that the teams go through are vital to stacking the board and properly categorizing players into groups. Ranking players within position groups and also in tiers. A draft board is stacked by position vertically with players in groups based on their final “team grade.” Grades are given by multiple scouts/coaches in an organization, but the final team grade is determined by the decision-maker.

The vertical stacking is important to rank players at each position, but the tier group stacking is also important to rank players at each level or round. The vertical stacking makes it easy for the GM to decide on players when it is the team's

NASHVILLE, Tenn. The cries of disrespect are flowing from Titans’ fans as they typically do at scheduling time.

They want a bigger presence on primetime TV. They want to head to Nissan Stadium for a big game under the lights.

And in 2019, barring a flex into Sunday Night Football, they’ll get Week 3 Thursday Night Football in Jacksonville and that’s it.

The Titans should have a home Monday or Thursday night game.

But beyond that, I don’t think there is a giant complaint and I don’t think it’s some giant sign of NFL disrespect. On four Sundays they will play in the late afternoon slot, though two of those are dictated by geography – games in Denver and Oakland are always later. [Unlocked]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans’ real culture change started in 2016, when Jon Robinson took over as general manager and Mike Mularkey shifted from interim head coach to head coach.

Mike Vrabel replaced Mularkey in 2018 and the push continued, and the team’s carefully built locker room and belief in the ethos – team first, accountability, know what to do – continued to grow. It was seeded with predominantly nice guys.

“I love coming to work, I love coaching these guys, I love watching them succeed individually,” Vrabel said Monday as the Titans kicked off their offseason program, which he pointed out totals 176 hours. “I love even more so watching them succeed collectively. We don’t have a whole lot of bad guys.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Since he got past the basic rookie learning phase, Marcus Mariota been asked to do everything a team could ask of an NFL quarterback, at least to hear the Titans tell it.

But even as I’ve considered his lousy protection, his poor weapons and his long list of injuries, I’ve also often wondered, does what the Titans have really asked of him tell us what they really think of him? How much do they really trust him?

As the Titans gather in Nashville for the start of their offseason program Monday, he’s the biggest question for the fifth year running. They’ve made moves to address what’s around him with a replacement coordinator in Arthur Smith, a new left guard in Rodger Saffold and a true slot receiver in Adam Humphries. The upcoming draft will surely provide more.

But it’s incumbent on Mariota to show the Titans enough this season to warrant a second-contract commitment, and there isn’t really such a thing as middle ground. It’s a 2020 franchise tag that will build on this year’s number of $24.865 million or a long-term contract built starting with that number.

Who among us expects them to be a quarterback-dependent team, like most of the league is?