The Tennessee Titans thought so highly of Georgia tackle Isaiah Wilson before last year’s NFL draft that at one point they reportedly considered moving up from the No. 29 position to land him. But they were able to stand pat and still got a player they thought could compete for a starting job right away.
“He’s got excellent power to move the line of scrimmage in the run game, and he’s tough to get around in the pass game,” General Manager Jon Robinson told The Tennessean of the 6-foot-6, 350-pound Wilson on draft night. “I thought I saw some blocks at the highest level in the SEC where he gets up to level two, and he forces linebackers – if he gets his paws on him, they’re usually done for.”
Fast-forward to Monday night, when Wilson was tweeting and deleting a social media message that said he was “done with football as a Titan.”
Wilson had a messy rookie season. During training camp, he received a trespass warning from police after they broke up an off-campus party at Tennessee State University, with Wilson reportedly considering a jump from a second-story balcony to avoid being caught. He was twice placed on Tennessee’s coronavirus reserve list (once before training camp began). Then, three days before Tennessee’s first regular season game, he was charged with DUI after losing control of his car and hitting a concrete wall, allegedly while doing doughnuts in the middle of the street.
By December, the Titans had placed Wilson on the season-ending nonfootball reserve list, citing “personal issues, which will take some time for him to work through.” He had played four plays, three in victory-formation offense and one on special teams.
Of the 32 players selected in the first round of last year’s draft, only Packers quarterback Jordan Love – who spent the season as a healthy scratch while backing up a future Hall of Famer in Aaron Rodgers – played less.
During a video conference with reporters last week, Robinson said Wilson’s future was entirely up to him.
“We put him on the reserve/nonfootball injury list and haven’t spoken to him since. He’s going to have to make a determination on whether he wants to do what it takes to play pro football. That will be on him,” Robinson said. “I know what the expectation level is here, and it’s no different than any other player on the football team. We have a certain standard that we want players to prepare and perform at professionally, and as people, and there’s a lot of work to be done there.”
Wilson started 24 games at Georgia in 2018 and 2019 and allowed only nine total pressures in the latter year, tied for ninth among right tackles in the FBS. On draft night, Coach Mike Vrabel said Bulldogs Coach Kirby Smart “couldn’t say enough great things” about Wilson, and Robinson said he would compete with veteran Dennis Kelly for the starting right tackle job.
Kelly started all 16 regular season games for the Titans.
MIKE IUPATI, a four-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman, says he’s retiring after 11 seasons in the NFL with three NFC West teams.
Iupati told The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington that his body told him it was time to step away. Iupati made four straight Pro Bowls from 2012-15, the first three with San Francisco and the final one with Arizona. He was also a first-team All-Pro selection in 2012 with the 49ers.
Iupati spent five seasons in San Francisco after the 49ers selected him in the first round of the 2010 draft out of Idaho. He played for Arizona for four seasons and spent his final two years with the Seattle Seahawks. Iupati started 139 of 140 regular-season games in his career. But he was limited to just 10 games this past season for Seattle.
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