The Titans picked up an important piece for their offense under new head coach Brian Callahan on Thursday by selecting offensive tackle JC Latham.
The No. 7 overall pick out of Alabama, Latham is expected to play left tackle for Tennessee, General Manager Ran Carthon said after making the pick.
“I have all the confidence in the world in the kid that he’s going to figure it out just because of his makeup, who he is as a human, who he is as an athlete, who he is as a football player,” Carthon said, via Turron Davenport of ESPN.
Callahan, whose father Bill is Tennessee’s new offensive line coach, noted Latham’s size as an asset for his skillset. Latham checked in at the scouting combine at 6-foot-5 and 342 pounds.
“There’s not many people that walk the earth that are his height and weight and can move at his fluidity,” Callahan said, via Jim Wyatt of the team’s website. “He’s a really unique player which is why he gets picked in the top seven picks of the draft. I’m just — I can’t wait to get him out there. He makes us a physically imposing, really left side of our offensive line when you put him with Peter [Skoronski] and ‘Cush’ [Lloyd Cushenberry] and those guys. We’ve kind of taken some nice steps into really improving that unit.”
For his part, Latham said he can “absolutely” play left tackle in the league, despite playing on the right side for the last two years at Alabama.
“I was trained at left all my life, and I get to Bama and Evan Neal, a top 10 pick, he was at left so I went to right,” Latham said, via Wyatt. “Going back to left, I’ve been training all this offseason, so I’m ready to go.”