NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Looking for signs out of the Titans' first padded practice, here’s the one I found:
Peter Skoronski and JC Latham were excellent in pass rush one-on-ones, which is great for the two recent first-round offensive linemen. It also comes with the caveat that the pass rushers are a team weak spot.
I watched the period with Nick Suss and Easton Freeze, and we collectively scored wins, losses and washes. The offense won 29 reps, the defense 14 and four amounted to draws.
Skoronski held off Sebastian Joseph-Day three times and Arden Key.
The leaner Latham won against Dre’Mont Jones twice, Jaylen Harrell, Titus Leo and Ali Gaye.
One-on-ones are not the end-all by any means. But such drills favor the aggressor, so success for the reactor side is notable.
“Yeah, I feel like I had some good ones… that’s great stuff, but I took some lumps too in the live third downs,” Skoronski said, being candid and working to keep things level. “So you know there are ups and downs. It’;s just learning and trying to get better. It’s still July, 29, we’ve got a long way to go, just continue to get better and not overreact to either the good or the bad.”
Latham recently watched some of NFL Network’s Top 100 from last year and saw Jacksonville’s Josh Hines-Allen at No. 63 talking about some of his wins against Latham.
“It reminded me, last year I didn’t do a good job of executing my plan,” Latham said. “I was overweight and there were other things I needed to improve on, but one thing was you’ve got to really get yourself mentally to the point where you can know what you’re going to do and execute what you’re going to do, plan on the counters, all that stuff.
The new-look JC Latham. #Titans pic.twitter.com/4NaFO7rHy4
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) July 29, 2025
So even for one-on-one versus teammates on July 29, Latham said he intended to, “Have my plan, counters to my plan, get to the spot, go fight and win.”
The line collectively had a harder time in an early nine-on-seven period, which is built for defense, as everyone knows the ball is being handed off to a back with no receivers or defensive backs on the field.
Consecutive first-rounders in 2023 and 2024, Skoronski and Latham need to be linchpins of the Titans' offensive line is going to turn from a weakness into a strength.
They worked together in March in Dallas with offensive line guru Duke Manyweather, who talks to Bill Callahan. Hugh Thornton assists Manyweather, and played for Callahan in Washington in 2019. The group digging in on O-line technique and training included Dan Moore, Rashawn Slater, Lane Johnson, Aaron Brewer and Hall of Famer Joe Thomas.
Brian Callahan sort of warned against reading too much into pass rush one-on-ones.
“It’s valuable in the sense that it’s an opportunity for guys to work on their craft, I don’t know that it necessarily is a drill 
that is telling of a guy’s ability to pass protect or not,” he said. “It’s a technique drill. It’s a little bit skewed defensively in that regard. It’s good, it’s the right drill for technique, but it’s a drill.”
But Moore, the new left tackle, didn’t want to minimize it, perhaps given that he’s on the disadvantaged side.
“You can pretty much take everything from one-on-ones, honestly,” he said. “I think it is somewhat of an unrealistic drill, right? But at the same time, it is football. Whenever the ball is snapped and it’s two people butting heads, that’s football. I think there are a ton of technical things to take from it. I do think it’s a drill slanted towards the defense. But when you look at how we went in there and competed, and won reps, I thought we had a good day.
How did his reps go?
“I thought they were solid.”
