Titans' Jon Robinson: 'We'll be aggressive' with trades during NFL draft

The Titans have a new coaching staff and new uniforms on the way. But the approach and vision of general manager Jon Robinson remain consistent.

Robinson is willing and, based on history, likely to trade picks during the NFL draft, including the 25th overall selection, the franchise’s latest first-round pick since 2009.

“We’ll certainly have a lot more time to just kind of sit back and watch, but we’ll be aggressive as well,” Robinson said Saturday night during an on-stage interview with Titans director of broadcasting Mike Keith at an event for season-ticket holders at Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. “If there is a player that we really, really, maybe we thought he was going to go in the top 10 and for whatever reason he’s slipping down the board, we’ll try and position ourselves to maybe acquire the guy. Or if we get action on our pick at 25, and a team wants to come up to our pick so that we trade back, I think I have proven that I am willing to trade.

“My phone line is always open.”

The scouting process continues this week at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, where Robinson and his staff will get to interview 60 prospects for 15 minutes apiece and review updated medical information.

Free agency begins March 14. The draft is April 26-28.

The Titans have six draft picks – their own – one in each of the first six rounds. They have no picks in the seventh round.

Knowing Robinson, that’s likely to change.

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Robinson has made 10 trades involving players or picks in his first two years as GM, including whoppers like the “king’s ransom” deal to send the No. 1 overall selection to the Rams in 2016, and relatively minor swaps, including three moves on the final day of last year’s draft.

His two drafts have produced perhaps as many as eight projected starters next season.

All but two of his 19 picks remain on the roster.

“It is about getting the right 53 guys on the team, not necessarily the most talented 53 guys on the team,” Robinson said. “So we scout them, whether they are first-round guys or seventh-round guys; it doesn’t matter where you get drafted. It is getting the evaluation right on the player.”

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In free agency, the Titans are projected to have more than $50 million to play with under the salary cap.

Robinson said it’s important to keep a cushion, rather than spend all the money.

“It’d be tough to do,” Robinson said. "You’ve got to be judicious with how you’re going to allocate the funds because you never know if a player may become available via trade. And you might send a pick to a team for a player that you really didn’t know would become available and you have to inherit that salary. There’s players that you’re going to want to re-sign along the way. So you can’t just push all your chips in there on the table; you’ve got to be selective and try and make the right decisions for the football team.”

Scouting reports on college prospects, like those being built this week, are useful years later when considering players in free agency, Robinson said.

“You have to be cautious a little bit, but at the end of the day we’re looking for productive players,” Robinson said. “We’re looking for guys that are going to come in and be about what we’re about, and that’s the approach that we’ve taken the last two offseasons and the same approach we’ll take this year.”

Reach Jason Wolf at jwolf@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @JasonWolf and on Instagram and Snapchat at TitansBeat.