NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The best thing I saw at Tuesday’s OTA Titans practice was an open-field one-on-one tackling drill that produced some great competition and some energy I felt carried over into the next couple parts of the session.
In a grid that was roughly 15 yards wide, an offensive player with the ball and a defender stood in the center side by side facing in opposite directions. They ran away from each other to a cone, then changed directions.
The ball-carriers job was to get beyond the defender. The defender was supposed to leverage the sideline and square up for a non-contact win.
I’ve been at a high percentage of open Titans practices dating back to 1997, and I’ve not seen it or anything like it before.
It struck me as a smart, practical way to break the game down into a small important element. I saw Tajae Sharpe beat Jeremy Boykins and Dion Lewis
get past Malcolm Butler, while corner Rico Gadford has a nice win over receiver Cameron Batson.
“It’s just a new way to spice it up,” Sharpe said, “another way to compete against the defense.”
Logan Ryan was great, I thought, with textbook use of the sideline to stop receiver Devin Ross.
He also had a very nice return of his own as DBs, expected to be making some interception returns, got a few snaps with the ball. Adoree’ Jackson also did well, as we’d expect. Johnathan Cyprien did too, which is more of a surprise, but his defender got tangled up and fell down.
I asked Mike Vrabel about the drill and he was very good on it.
Here’s hoping they’ll do it at open training camp practices. I’d love for some of you to have a chance to see it.
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