TicketsBarNASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first-round is Thursday and my thinking on the Titans at No. 25 has not changed.

While a talent could drop to them and prompt them to take an offensive lineman (James Daniels is the one for me), a safety or a receiver, linebacker is the position at which they most need new blood.

An edge guy who can be a piece of the pass rush right away and fully replace Brian Orakpo or Derrick Morgan in a year would be big. There is also plenty of room for an inside guy who could be on the field all the time.

I’m presuming Harold Landry will be gone. But these guys have a chance at being on the board when the Titans draft, and I stack them in the order that I like them based on what I know.

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pickers vodka 847x63NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Thanks for stopping by the mailbag less than a week before the draft.

It’s a big week ahead, and we will learn a great deal about the organization and have all sorts of new angles soon.

In the meantime, the best questions of the week.

PK: Draft day falls come mostly from us believing too much about what is pieced together before the draft, and the circumstances of a draft that may change the course of a couple teams.

SwordFieldWe can’t help ourselves, but the whole process from a media and fan perspective is weird and doesn’t, frankly, make a lot of sense.

Without knowing the degree of influence of the people who actually grade and draft players, we create a consensus scenario of what should happen. And then we measure teams and prospects against that scenario, which may not have had much basis to it in the first place.

So maybe we regard a guy too highly when he doesn’t get drafted as early as we expect. Or maybe two teams right in the range of where we expected him to go

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Josh Sweat could be this year’s Adoree’ Jackson.

No, Sweat isn’t a pesky cover corner. He’s likely a 3-4 outside linebacker and edge pass rusher.

The similarity could be that the Titans see Sweat as a bit more valuable than the draft analyst consortium does. Jon Robinson didn’t hesitate to grab Jackson 18th overall last year, pulling a bit of a surprise that addressed one of the Titans’ big needs.

Perhaps Robinson won’t hesitate to grab Sweat 25th overall a week from tonight, pulling a bit of a surprise that addresses one of the Titans’ biggest needs.

Josh Sweat Syracuse Mitch White

(Photo courtesy FSU Sports Information/Mitch White.)

At 6-foot-4, 261 pounds with 4.53 speed he’s got the requisite size and speed. The model for a pass rusher in a Titans system probably looks a lot like Sweat, though it would come with better instincts, more polish and without the left knee that endured a dislocation and a torn ACL back in his senior year in high school.

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TicketsBar2NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans 2018 regular season schedule seems to be reasonably balanced and fair.

Tennessee didn’t break through to an appearance on Sunday Night Football, but will play twice on the road on Monday Night Football (Nov. 5 at Dallas and Nov. 16 at Houston) and once at home on Thursday Night Football (against Jacksonville on Dec. 6).Schedule2018

That game at the Cowboys extends the Titans’ bye as their first game after their Oct. 21 matchup in London against the Chargers.

It’s impossible to effectively judge what will turn out to be good and what will turn out to be bad.

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TicketsBar2NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The biggest logistical decision the Titans made last season was to stay in Arizona for a week between road games against the Cardinals and 49ers.

On the front end, it seemed to make sense. But it backfired.

The Titans blew the Arizona game 12-7 and then sat and stewed it in for a week at a hotel, commuting to practices at Arizona State and then producing another dud in Santa Clara, Calif., 25-23.

They were 8-4 when they went West and they were 8-6 when they returned, en route to 8-7 with a home loss to the Rams.

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TitansWallLightNASHVILLE, Tenn. – The NFL schedule is probably going to come out this week. It’s an April deal and the league won’t want it to bleed into draft week.

So I pulled up the opponents and was thinking about trying something I did last year, when I wrote out what I thought would’ve been an ideal schedule.

But that’s more than we need as we contemplate what’s good and bad for the Titans.

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By John Glennon, guest columnist

NASHVILLE – Nobody expected the Predators to win 16 straight playoff games en route to capturing their first Stanley Cup this year.

Even the modern-era NHL dynasties – the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders of the 1980s – stumbled at least two or three times during each of their postseason runs.

So it's not the fact the Predators lost Monday night in Colorado, falling 5-3 in Game 3 to the Avs, that should be of concern to Preds fans.

What's more problematic is the continuation of some troubling trends, ones that didn't stand out as much when the Preds captured Games 1 and 2 of this series in Nashvillle.

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