NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Things to feel great about for the Titans in early June:

Austin Hooper: The Titans only went a year thinking they could make things work without a legitimate No. 1 tight end, but somehow it feels like longer since Jonnu Smith left.

Austin Hooper

© George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

You never want to overread anything in OTAs where there is no jamming or contact. But just on size and presence, Hooper can clearly play the part. At 6-foot-4, 254 pounds he’s got a bit of a size edge on Smith (6-3, 248) but he looks longer for sure.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Maybe, inside Titans headquarters, Dillon Radunz gets doses of criticism from the team.

Maybe Mike Vrabel, Todd Downing or Keith Carter have been on him at times on him for his inability to seize the right tackle job. Right now, it’s not job-seizing time.

Publicly, the franchise works hard to say nice things about Radunz, and those have typically been about his versartility.

Keith Carter talks to Dillon Radunz

Titans offensive line coach Keith Carter instructions Dillon Radunz (75).

Not since Jon Robinson’s first second-round pick, Kevin Dodd in 2016, have expectations been lower for the second year of a second rounder.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans’ passing offense disappointed too often last season.

It ranked 23rd in the NFL and had 10 games under 200 yards passing. It regularly started slowly.

Then on draft day, the Titans traded away their one explosive receiver, A.J. Brown, drafting Traylon Burks to help fill the void.

Tim Kelly

© George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

But another big addition is Tim Kelly, who Mike Vrabel coveted as offensive coordinator in 2021 when Arthur Smith left a void at the spot when he became head coach of the Falcons. Kelly was not able to leave his post in Houston and Vrabel promoted Todd Downing, who didn’t have a great debut.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Congratulations on making it to Memorial Day Weekend.

May it be filled with late mornings, full days, no thoughts of work and fitting tributes for those who died protecting and serving our country.

Treylon Burks

Here is the best of the mail that came in.

Adam Alsup Where do you stand on Burks? Do you believe he is out of shape or was just having allergy/pollen issues as stated? It is concerning to me that he is struggling to make it through practice.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Since he counts sixth in cap dollars for the Tennessee Titans next season, the final year of his five-year contract, Taylor Lewan is already looked at as a potential cap casualty after the season.

But I think if he’s solid in his second season back after a 2020 torn ACL he could be in prime position to play out that deal or get a contract extension that would bring his 2023 $14.845 million cap number down.

Taylor Lewan

© George Walker IV / The Tennessean via Imagn Content Services, LLC

At 30, Lewan has no guaranteed money remaining on his deal. His $14.69 million cap number this season is 10th among left tackles in the NFL and next year currently ranks 14th.

Those are reasonable spots if he plays to the level we know he’s capable of.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A line runs through the Titans’ fandom map, tracing back to the Ken Whisenhunt years, a 2-12 season in 2014 and a 3-14 season in 2015.

For some, challenges to the team’s recent playoff failures or to Ryan Tannehill’s performance are rebuffed with these ideas: You forget how far we’ve come, how bad things were. I hear a lot of that from fans.

And even Taylor Lewan falls back on this sort of thinking.

Taylor Lewan

Asked about the tone regarding Ryan Tannehill since the terrible playoff loss to Cincinnati in the divisional round of the playoffs, Lewan said it’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Upset at how comments about he didn't view mentoring the Titans' new rookie quarterback as his job turned into a firestorm, Ryan Tannehill began his Tuesday conference with nearly 3 and a half minutes on how he's a good teammate and was misunderstood.

Ryan Tannehill

He said he wasn't finished when the first questioner jumped in.

"We were communicating the whole time," he said of Tennessee Titans third-round pick Malik Willis."As soon as it blew up I reached out to him and said, 'Hey, I'm going to be a great teammate to you, I'm going to support you, and they are making this out to be something that it's not... it's not what it's made out to be.'

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – When I last saw Malik Willis, all the way back on May 13, the ball was zipping out of his hand at the Titans’ rookie minicamp, but his throwing motion clearly needed some revising.

It has some unneeded swoop to it.

Malik Willis

Tuesday, at the full team’s second OTA practice and the first open to the media, his motion looked cleaner and tighter already.

Even subtle progress in that area in such a short amount of time would be an accomplishment, and this is just a layman’s observation. Others in the media on the sideline shared a similar assessment. [Unlocked]

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