Let's talk Jon Robinson

[deeluxx3]

Let me start by saying...it's obvious that Robinson is a GOOD gm. He took us from a terrible team to a consistent playoff contender rather quickly. He made some very savvy moves early on...from DeMarco Murray to Tannehill to Saffold to as recently as Autry...to bring in great talent outside of the draft. He hired Mike Vrabel, who is a top-tier head coach.

But ever since the AFCCG run...we've really struggled to consistently draft/sign legit talent and difference makers. For every Kelly, Long, Hooker, and Autry, there's a Bud Dupree, Jamarco Jones, Kendall Lamm, Julio Jones, etc.

His MASSIVE and (now) obvious errors in the Wilson draft pick, Radunz draft pick, Farley draft pick, and the death blow of the AJ Brown trade have resulted in an extremely top heavy roster and a scramble for depth pieces.

This team went into the offseason penciling in two UDFAs..Brewer and NWI..into starter roles. That should never, ever have been the case. (No disrespect to either, both "belong" in the NFL).

The bread and butter of this team...the OL...is in shambles and it's unclear where the light at the end of the tunnel is. IF we're able to extend Davis...I think we should feel OK about the right side. The left side is a massive question mark. While Ben Jones is a stud, he is indeed 33.

Defensively, he's struggled to establish consistent starters at corner and bringing in adequate edge depth. He broke the bank for Dupree who, even tho I like him a lot when he plays, never plays. The risky draft pick of Farley is looking worse and worse by the week. The guy lacks confidence, and being in-and-out of the lineup, while getting toasted every time he plays, makes me feel nervous about his future here.

 

I'm ranting at this point. But I think we're seeing a team that's getting by on great coaching...ie seeing the evolution of Tart (though JRob deserves kudos for snagging him)...versus a team that's getting by on talent.

Realistically, I don't see a scenario in which JRob isn't our GM 4 years from now. I think he, like Vrabel, is a lifer. But man...Jon is killing this team. He's killing this team.

 

[Daniel]

8 minutes ago, deeluxx3 said:

Let me start by saying...it's obvious that Robinson is a GOOD gm. He took us from a terrible team to a consistent playoff contender rather quickly. He made some very savvy moves early on...from DeMarco Murray to Tannehill to Saffold to as recently as Autry...to bring in great talent outside of the draft. He hired Mike Vrabel, who is a top-tier head coach.

But ever since the AFCCG run...we've really struggled to consistently draft/sign legit talent and difference makers. For every Kelly, Long, Hooker, and Autry, there's a Bud Dupree, Jamarco Jones, Kendall Lamm, Julio Jones, etc.

His MASSIVE and (now) obvious errors in the Wilson draft pick, Radunz draft pick, Farley draft pick, and the death blow of the AJ Brown trade have resulted in an extremely top heavy roster and a scramble for depth pieces.

This team went into the offseason penciling in two UDFAs..Brewer and NWI..into starter roles. That should never, ever have been the case. (No disrespect to either, both "belong" in the NFL).

The bread and butter of this team...the OL...is in shambles and it's unclear where the light at the end of the tunnel is. IF we're able to extend Davis...I think we should feel OK about the right side. The left side is a massive question mark. While Ben Jones is a stud, he is indeed 33.

Defensively, he's struggled to establish consistent starters at corner and bringing in adequate edge depth. He broke the bank for Dupree who, even tho I like him a lot when he plays, never plays. The risky draft pick of Farley is looking worse and worse by the week. The guy lacks confidence, and being in-and-out of the lineup, while getting toasted every time he plays, makes me feel nervous about his future here.

 

I'm ranting at this point. But I think we're seeing a team that's getting by on great coaching...ie seeing the evolution of Tart (though JRob deserves kudos for snagging him)...versus a team that's getting by on talent.

Realistically, I don't see a scenario in which JRob isn't our GM 4 years from now. I think he, like Vrabel, is a lifer. But man...Jon is killing this team. He's killing this team.

 

My take on JRob's misses in the early draft is that he overplayed his hand with big risk/reward players:

In 2019, Titans had a magical playoff run.  The draft had produced an early superstar in AJ Brown, someone who looked like they'd be dominant in Simmons, and players that showed promise in Davis, Hooker, and Long.  I think this, along with having a strong overall team, led the FO to take riskier picks, knowing they could tank a few misses, and if they hit big, could really take the team over the top.

So, they go into 2020 targeting high risk/high reward players.  I'm willing to give him a mulligan on Wilson.  No one saw those mental/behavior issues coming and Covid hampered the team's ability to research.  Rest of the draft is OK at best though.  Fulton is a quality pick, but the others didn't pan out.  Evans was too small, Murchison never developed, and McDonald was a weird one even at the time.

Where he really ****ed up, IMO, was pursuing the same strategy in 2021.  Wilson's quick and immediate bust should have been a red flag to try something different, but they pursued the same strategy with Farley.  Elite physical tools, big injury history, and raw, and it hasn't panned out.  Even that would be OK if the rest of the draft weren't so bad.  Radunz was a risk because of the missing season and low competition level.

Picks got "safer" after that with Rice, Molden, and Weaver, and those are by a wide margin the best picks of the draft.  McMath was a fine selection, since risk with a sixth rounder is no big deal.  The Dez pick will forever confuse me.  I will never understand why he was selected.

Realistically, if he doesn't take the big swings on the biggest two picks in 2021, we're not having this conversation.  The next few CBs drafted all have been either pretty good or at least alright.  Darrisaw would also have been a great pick.  As would any of the three pass rushers taken at the end of the draft.

You get the same thing after Radunz.  Most of the next OL picks have panned out.  As have "safe" players at other positions of need that followed.  Even if you replace just one of those big risk picks with "safer" picks from the same range, you get a whole different conversation.

Trying to be glass half-full, 2022's draft doesn't have that.  The trade is what the trade is, but you can see that taking big swing risky picks is out: Burks was the consensus top receiver, and a similar player to Brown.  McCreary was a pro-ready corner.  NPF came from a program and coaching staff that Vrabel knows well, and had experience on both tackle spots.  Haskins was a meat-and-potatoes RB.  You do see a big risk in Willis and Okonkwo, but in later draft picks.  Then they went right back to safe picks with Philips.

That does show me that at least they've changed their strategy, they just did it too late to not hamper the team.

[ttitansfan4life]

Fire his ***

 

However, AAS will never fire him.

Edited October 10, 2022 by ttitansfan4life

[Mesa_Titan]

I wouldn’t fire him. He’s had some misses, sure, but he’s also had some insane great picks. I think he’s earned another two years. 

[TitanLegend]

Think anyone claiming we need to fire him is over reacting.

But he does need to reevaluate his draft strategy.

[TitanSlim]

On 9/20/2022 at 5:32 AM, TitanSlim said:

If for whatever reason it doesn’t work out with Jon Robinson, just look back 2020 + 2021 draft classes and the AJ Brown decision that led to his demise.

You’re really setting yourself up to fail when you completely whiff on, not one, but two draft classes back to back. 14 picks between the two classes and only 1 starter to show (Fulton) and even he has questions and concerns. The 2021 class still has a chance to turn it around but it doesn’t look promising.

This is what I said after the Bills game.

With our record and success we’ve had during his tenure, he deserves to see lead us into our next phase. He’s earn that right. However the pressure is on him the most since becoming our GM.

[twotonebluenation]

Not ready for him to be fired, but the seat is extremely hot.

If this last draft doesn't remedy that AJ situation in some sort of way. Or if he finds in a nightmare way to not sign 98. We got serious, SERIOUS problems.

[-Hope-]

7 minutes ago, twotonebluenation said:

Not ready for him to be fired, but the seat is extremely hot.

If this last draft doesn't remedy that AJ situation in some sort of way. Or if he finds in a nightmare way to not sign 98. We got serious, SERIOUS problems.

if we let jeffery simmons walk i am going to toss jon robinson out of the facility myself. what an abject disaster that would be

and i'd say "there's no way" but that's what i thought about AJ, so. no benefit of the doubt here, jon, sorry

Edited October 10, 2022 by -Hope-

[titans0021]

He won’t be fired as long as we keep making the playoffs. He probably doesn’t deserve to be fired anyways.

But man, he sure has followed up the AFCCG run with some really bad to mediocre offseasons. You can certainly argue he took big, risky swings. But for a team that didn’t really need desperate swings at huge growth, just reasonable improvement, it’s tough to get any sort of read on what philosophy he was chasing.

From Wilson to Farley to Dupree to Radunz to Julio, we’ve spent many of our best assets chasing pure high-end talent with huge risks. But it’s not what we needed. All that was ever required after 2019 was to supplement the already talented roster with a few more above average starters. Shore up the weaknesses, build on the strengths. Instead we swung for the fences, sacrificed depth, and ended up with more holes than ever.

[TitanSS]

2020 draft class, 2021 draft class, 2022 traded away AJB.

Fire him. 

If we weren't still winning despite the terrible roster no one would even be questioning if he should be fired.

He's done a horrendous job since 2019 and traded away part of the reason 2019 was so good. 

I don't think a problem repeating itself for 3 consecutive years is overreacting.

 

 

[TitanSS]

Marcus Mariota looked like the 30th best QB in the NFL and we still had like 70% of our fan base that didn't want to move on from him.

He's the Marcus Mariota of GMs.

[twotonebluenation]

5 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

Marcus Mariota looked like the 30th best QB in the NFL and we still had like 70% of our fan base that didn't want to move on from him.

He's the Marcus Mariota of GMs.

I still will never understand the constant infatuation with Mariota.

[deeluxx3]

6 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

Marcus Mariota looked like the 30th best QB in the NFL and we still had like 70% of our fan base that didn't want to move on from him.

He's the Marcus Mariota of GMs.

No way

there is no way there are 29 GMs better than JRob

[TitanSS]

2 minutes ago, deeluxx3 said:

No way

there is no way there are 29 GMs better than JRob

The exact number is hyperbole.

The point is he's bad and people don't want to give up on their previous beliefs despite the fact that the only good draft he's ever had was in 2019 and he already lost a star 25 year old player from that class that defined his career.

[titans0021]

The allocation of resources in 2021 is so rough. He’s really lucky the Colts didn’t value Autry properly, because a team with limited cap space spending big on Dupree and Julio and dropping their first two picks on Farley and Radunz could not have possibly worked out worse.