It was kind of superseded for us night owls by events in Massachusetts, but Thursday evening saw a big hullabaloo with the announcement of the regular season schedule for every NFL team. Here's who the Titans will be playing and when,

Week 1, Sept. 8: at Pittsburgh, noon
Week 2, Sept. 15: at Houston, noon
Week 3, Sept. 22: vs. San Diego, noon
Week 4, Sept. 29: vs. New York Jets, 3:05
Week 5, Oct. 6: vs. Kansas City, noon
Week 6, Oct. 13: at Seattle, 3:05
Week 7, Oct. 20: vs. San Francisco, 3:05
Week 8: BYE
Week 9, Nov. 3: at St. Louis, noon
Week 10, Nov. 10: vs. Jacksonville, noon
Week 11, Nov. 14: vs. Indianapolis, 7:25 (Thursday Night Football)
Week 12, Nov. 24: at Oakland, 3:05
Week 13, Dec. 1: at Indianapolis, noon
Week 14, Dec. 8: at Denver, 3:05
Week 15, Dec. 15: vs. Arizona, noon
Week 16, Dec. 22: at Jacksonville, noon
Week 17, Dec. 29: vs. Houston, noon

Given the opponents are known when the season ends, it's hard for me to care too much about the release of the schedule. The Titans are scheduled for only one primetime game, the mandatory NFL Network game November 14 against Indianapolis. Flex scheduling could also result in the Weeks 12-17 games being shifted to Sunday night, though records and matchups will dictate that. Three straight road games late in the season is unfortunate, though balanced out by the three-game homestand earlier in the season. The Jeff Fisher reunion is after the bye week; the Rams are one of two teams the Titans play who will be coming off a short week after playing on Monday Night Football the week before, with the Texans (at San Diego in the nightcap of the opening doubleheader) are the other one. The game against the Jaguars in November is the only one the Titans play against a team coming off their bye week. Every other foe has the standard seven (or four, in the case of the Thursday game) days between games.

Beyond that trivia, the opponents are the opponents, and you have to play them whenever you have to play them. Playing the Colts twice in three weeks annoys me from an aesthetics standpoint, but it could be beneficial, detrimental, a mix of both, or neither to both teams. As far as schedules go, I'd say it's a pretty benign one, neither particularly beneficial nor particularly malevolent. Go ahead and start booking your travel plans based on your preferred opponent and destination.

There are three basic directions the Titans could choose to go with the tenth overall pick in this month's draft. These three directions are at an offensive guard to fill the vacant starting right guard spot, for a defensive lineman to throw into the defensive line mix, or, less likely than either of the first two in my opinion, some other direction. I covered the top guards available in this post and the defensive linemen in this post, which means it's time to turn my attention to the other positions the Titans could draft.

First, let's see if we can reduce the ground we have to cover a little bit. The Titans are not drafting a punter or kicker at #10. The Titans are not drafting a running back at #10. The Titans are not drafting an offensive tackle at #10.  The Titans are not drafting a quarterback at #10. If the Titans draft a linebacker at #10, it'll be one of those pass rusher-type guys I listed in the defensive linemen post.

The Titans are very highly unlikely to draft a wide receiver. Unless the what and the way they value the position is highly divergent from what I think it is, the current offensive scheme does not highly value Tavon Austin, by most accounts the draft's top-rated receiver; heck, I'm not even sure they'd take him at #40. Corrdarrelle Patterson has interesting physical potential, but if the reports he hasn't interviewed well are anything close to accurate, there is no way he's a candidate at #10. Given the often modest impact of rookie wide receivers, I doubt the Titans would see even a better prospect than the guys available this year as a good choice for them.

The Titans are highly unlikely to draft a tight end. My belief is they are relatively satisfied with their current grouping of tight ends at the top end and any additions are likely to be for the purpose of adding depth. The top tight end in the draft, and the only one possible to be in their thinking at #10 would be Tyler Eifert. A guy who spent plenty of time flexed out wide at Notre Dame, he's certainly a more experienced receiving option, relatively speaking, than any of the players the Titans have on their roster. Athletically, he reminds me of Owen Daniels of the Texans-more potential than Daniels (a fourth-round pick out of Wisconsin), granted, but a quality overall athlete who nonetheless doesn't blow you away in any single area. The tight ends who have gone that high (at least recently) have all been athletic mismatches on a different level than Eifert. I know some people like him, but I don't see him as a Titans option.

There are three basic directions the Titans could choose to go with the tenth overall pick in the draft. These three directions are at an offensive guard to fill the vacant starting right guard spot, for a defensive lineman to throw into the defensive line mix, or, less likely than either of the first two in my opinion, another direction. I covered the top guards available yesterday and will cover the defensive linemen in this post before turning my attention to the other options tomorrow.

What exactly do the Titans think of their current group of defensive linemen? Do the Titans think their defensive line corps is good enough? If not, what kind of player are they looking to add? I tried puzzling my way through that when I wrote about the Ropati Pitoitua signing. When I wrote about drafting to win the AFC South, one thing that really stood out to me was how much importance I assigned to the Sammie Lee Hill signing and what a player with his size and ability meant to what I thought the Titans think about the defensive line. Hill played about 40% of the defensive snaps for the Lions last year; is that really the type of player who can be counted on to make that much of a difference by himself?

If I'm running the Titans, I'm thinking about two specific defensive line roles in the draft, a quick penetrating 3-tech defensive tackle and a defensive end who can contribute as a rookie and take over for Kamerion Wimbley as a pass-rushing starter in 2014 if the Titans make him one of the cuts they'll be making. Another type of player I would not target but think they might target would be a player who could more of a run-stopping end in a base situation who also has some pass rushing ability inside in sub packages-think what Gray wanted Jason Jones to be in 2011 or what appears in a different flavor in J.J. Watt and Antonio Smith in Houston.

With that in mind, and keeping in mind I'm not better at evaluating hand use and the finer points of technique with defensive linemen than I am with offensive linemen, let's take a look at the defensive linemen-type people who are candidates to go in the top half of the draft.

As I've tried to make very clear here, I strongly believe the Titans will be spending a high pick, possibly as early as the 10th pick in the first round but in any event no later than the third round, on a player they intend to compete for and win the starting right job position. Among other things, that player will have to be able to block J.J. Watt.

There are three offensive guards that are generally considered to be selected in the first or second rounds: Jonathan Cooper from North Carolina, a first-round prospect; Larry Warford from Kentucky, a second-round prospect; and Chance Warmack from Alabama, a first-round prospect. To get a better feel for what the Titans might do, I watched the available videos of those players and tried to assess how I think the Titans might view them as possible fits.

I should stress that this is decidedly an amateur evaluation. The finer points of offensive line play and hand technique are beyond my ability to competently evaluate. Other people are good at evaluating these things, and you should listen to them. If, for instance, my Football Outsiders colleague Ben Muth says something that contradicts something I write in this post, he is right and I am wrong. Further, in evaluating these players I was looking for a right guard. Warford is a right guard. Cooper and Warmack are left guards. Right guards do not necessarily have the same responsibilities as left guards. To some extent, I'll feel more comfortable in my evaluation of Warford's potential for the Titans than I will for my evaluation of Cooper or Warmack, simply because he plays the position they're looking to fill and does a lot of the same things.

I write little about general mock drafts on here, simply because I don't find it a useful way for me to spend my time. Doing a really good mock draft is a pain in the butt, since it requires intimate knowledge of the depth chart, priorities, and organizational philosophies of 32 different teams, probably at least a quarter of which have general managers in their first or second draft and thus a highly limited track record on which to make predictions. Perhaps I'm just exceptionally dense, but I didn't predict the Titans to take either Kendall Wright last year or Jake Locker the year before, even when the Titans were on the clock, and I spend a heck of a lot more time thinking about and analyzing the Titans, their needs, and their philosophies than anybody whose job it is to cover the league as a whole.

At the same time, the process of thinking about the draft includes the fact that the Titans are not operating in a vacuum but are competing, more or less, with the other 31 NFL teams, which means we have to spend time thinking about what other teams will do, how they might value prospects, and to get differing opinions on how an actual draft might play out and see how different evaluators rank different prospects.

Keeping all that in mind, I read the various mock drafts out there and generally pass most over without a second thought. There's one prospect in particular I see being mocked to the Titans with their first-round pick that I simply cannot see them taking at all, and that's safety Kenny Vaccaro. Forget what you think of adding another University of Texas player after the Titans' extensive and mixed record of players from there. Forget what you think about the idea of taking a safety with the tenth pick. Forget what you think of Vaccaro as a player, whether that's as the consensus best player in the draft at a position of increasing importance or as a player whose inconsistent collegiate tape made him more of a borderline first-round selection.

Ask yourself, instead, the first question the Tennessee Titans will be asking of any player they take in the 2013 draft, especially early: will this player improve us in 2013? The Titans have a starting free safety, Michael Griffin. If they didn't like Michael Griffin enough to play him a lot, he wouldn't be on the team right now because they had a chance to cut him. The Titans this offseason signed two starting-caliber strong safeties, George Wilson and Bernard Pollard. While my preference is for interchangeable safeties and I don't like Wilson or Pollard that much in coverage, I don't run the team or call the defense. Jerry Gray does, and that's what he likes. Barring injury, I can't see Vaccaro on the field ahead of any of those three players. In that case, his value to the Titans in 2013 is minimal, and that's enough to eliminate him in my mind from first-round consideration.

Beyond safety/Vaccaro, there aren't many popular picks for the Titans I absolutely cannot see happening. I strongly doubt they take a wide receiver, but (a) I thought that last year and (b) outside of some affection for Cordarrelle Patterson I suspect is Vol-related, I don't see a lot of enthusiasm or support for any quarter from spending the tenth pick on a wide receiver. I can't see the Titans taking a quarterback there, but I haven't seen anybody suggesting that lately. I don't think they want to or will take Dee Milliner if he's available there, but I think they need a corner and could see it happening. My attention is the same place it's been, on one of the interior offensive linemen or the best available defensive lineman, any one of whom at least theoretically could fit into what I think they may want to do on defense.

Each April, Football Outsiders reviews the draft that was six years ago, and I follow suit over here with a look at what the Titans did. There's a more complicated backstory involved than that (the first draft of the first draft review I did, for 1999, was written between the 2001 and 2002 seasons), but that's the way things work these days.

In 2007, the Titans were coming off an 8-8 season where they weren't really that close to 8-8-type good. Vince Young had done some nice things as a rookie, but clearly still had a long way to go to become a good NFL quarterback. Even with LenDale White and Chris Brown, the Titans were still clearly looking for at least more, if not an answer, at running back. Wide receiver was nowhere near a strength. The offensive line seemed set, but a right guard for 2008 was still a possible need. Defensively, cornerback seemed like a big need with Pacman Jones suspended even after the signing of Nick Harper. I also thought defensive tackle and end were both needs.

The Titans went into the 2007 draft with plenty of picks. They had all their original selections, beginning with #19 overall, plus an extra fourth round pick (#128) from the Ravens for Steve McNair, and two extra sixth round picks, #204 from the Chargers for Billy Volek and #206 from the Colts for their seventh-round pick in 2006. Unlike the previous couple seasons, though, they did not make any draft-day moves.

After the jump, the picks and my analysis.

I discussed this in my Levitre-Watt post, but winning the division can drive a lot of what teams do. This isn't anything specific to the Titans-the Ravens apparently look for tough players because they know they'll need to beat the Steelers and the Steelers had a well-developed culture of toughness. Since the Ruston Webster and Mike Munchak are in something at least very close to a win-or-you're-out situation in 2013, a greater focus than normal will be on winning immediately. With that in mind, let's look at the other AFC South teams and how they might affect how the Titans draft. Note this will be sort of "what I think they're thinking" more than "what I think they should be thinking"; undoubtedly it'll be influenced by my biases, but I'm trying to limit just how much.

Jacksonville Jaguars: We can't believe we lost to this team last year. We had no business losing to this team. They have nothing at the quarterback position, and they'll still have nothing after this month's draft, at least from a 2013 perspective. They'll have to rely on the run game, and MJD is getting up there, and a defense that was as bad as or worse than ours was last year. Sure, new head coach Gus Bradley may have them playing hard and we can't just assume we'll win beat them twice. Still, if we're not a lot better than them in 2013, we have no shot of being here in 2014.

Indianapolis Colts: We can't believe this team made the playoffs last year. They hardly had any more business going 11-5 than we did, winning a lot of close games against bad teams. Yeah, that Andrew Luck kid is going to be a real headache for the next 10 years. He'll probably be awesome in 2018, but he made a ton of rookie mistakes in 2012 and will probably make plenty more mistakes in 2013. He's good, but he's not Peyton Manning or Tom Brady yet. Reggie Wayne was the guy who gave us the most problems last year, especially when they moved him into the slot. He didn't burn us, but he was consistently productive. Jerry Gray moved Alterraun Verner out of the slot when he got here; is he really comfortable putting him there again? We hope so, because we're either depending on Coty Sensabaugh improving a lot this offseason or a rookie.