Blake Beddingfield scouted for the Titans for 19 years, the final six as director of college scouting. The team parted ways with him after the draft in 2017, the second of Jon Robinson’s term as general manager.
When Derrick Henry was heading into what was presumed to be his final game with the Titans at the end of the 2023 season, Joe Rexrode did a piece at The Athletic that revealed Beddingfield as instrumental in the Titans' drafting the running back.
On a recent episode of my podcast, Beddingfield told the story of how the pick of Corey Davis at No. 5 went down in 2017.
While the scout certainly had his hand in unsuccessful picks during his tenure, the Henry and Davis stories prompted me to ask him to write a few pieces recalling the origin stories of a few other Titans from his perspective.
Here’s his recollection of the Titans’ 2016 selection of Kevin Byard in the third round in 2016.
I talked with a few people involved – MTSU’s coach at the time, Rick Stockstill, the Blue Raiders' cornerback coach at the time, Steve Ellis, and Byard’s agent, Hadley Englehardt – for their thoughts and have interspersed quotes from them. B
By BLAKE BEDDINGFIELD, special correspondent
When drafting players, there is always a wish list among scouts that you hope to acquire. Rarely do you get the opportunity to select them. So many different factors come into play: The player isn’t as highly thought of by the GM or coaching staff as he is by the scouts, the player isn't an ideal scheme fit, even though he's a potential high-level NFL talent or the one that usually has the most effect -- other teams value him as well.
One of my favorite stories and how the Tennessee Titans acquired a franchise-changing player was the selection of Kevin Byard in the 2016 draft from just down the road at MTSU in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Kevin Byard, Third, 64th overall, 2016 Draft
5’11¼, 212 pounds, Middle Tennessee State University
Byard was a non-combine player, which meant he was not one of the top 333 players that the NFL chose to send to the combine based on teams’ requests. With MTSU only 45 minutes from the Titans' facility, I organized a trip to Murfreesboro with our general manager, head coach, defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach.
