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- Mar 20, 2019
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J.J. Watt has been a thorn in the side of the Titans for a decade, registering 18.0 sacks against the the club — the most of any divisional opponent.
But now, there’s a decent chance Watt could join them.
Titans General Manager Jon Robinson said his club has had some preliminary discussions with Watt, who was released from the division-rival Texans last week.
“We’ve had some contact,” Robinson said in his Tuesday video conference. “It’s early in the stages. We obviously know his skillset and what he’s meant to the Texans, having played against him twice [a year] and the type of player he is. So we’ll just kind of see how it goes like a lot of these guys that are becoming available over the next few weeks, see kind of where their interest is and make a determination if it’s an avenue that we went to go down and are we a fit, potentially, for some of these guys that become available.”
Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was the Texans’ linebackers coach from 2014-2016 and the club’s defensive coordinator in 2017, giving him some day-to-day familiarity with Watt.
It’s not at the same level, but Robinson has some experience with Watt, too. The G.M. noted he worked out the three-time defensive player of the year when he was with the Patriots and Watt was coming out of Wisconsin in 2011.
“He pushed me around on the field pretty good for about two hours,” Robinson said.
Though they won the AFC South, the Titans need to improve on defense, having finished 24th in points allowed and 28th in yards allowed in 2020. Tennessee had the worst third-down defense in the league, allowing a 51.9 percent conversion rate.