After turning Peter Skoronski into the NFL's highest-paid guard, Tennessee eyes a similar transformation for Fernando Carmona as the fifth-round rookie seizes the starting right guard role.
The Tennessee Titans just had their best season yet from left guard Peter Skoronski.
Skoronski was drafted out of Northwestern 11th overall in 2023. He came in as a left tackle but converted to a left guard.
He dealt with hardship as a rookie. He needed an emergency appendectomy and missed three games.
He eventually came back and started the rest of the games for the Titans that season.
Fast forward to 2026, and Skoronski is getting his flowers.
He just had a 96% pass-block win rate after being the only bright spot on the Titans' offensive line. Skoronski ranked sixth in overall grade among guards on PFF for his efforts last season.
The Titans made sure they knew how much they appreciated him and made him the highest-paid guard in the NFL. Skoronski started as a rookie and is now a legitimate player for the Titans.
If it hadn't been for appendicitis, Skoronski probably would have started in Week 1 of his rookie season.
Now, the Titans are trying to replicate that with rookie Fernando Carmona.
We already knew this, but Robert Saleh said for the first time on Tuesday that Carmona would be the starting right guard in the regular season.
Carmona wasn't as high a draft pick as Skoronski was. He went in the fifth round out of Arkansas, but also spent time with San Jose State for the first three years of his college career.
He had his work cut out for him.
Carmona stepped into a position battle at right guard with two players who had more experience than he did, Jackson Slater and Cordell Volson.
Slater was a 2025 draft pick who played in 12 games with zero starts. Volson came to the Titans after four years with the Cincinnati Bengals, where he had 48 starts. However, Volson was still working his way back from the shoulder injury that ended his year in 2025 at Bengals training camp.
Carmona took advantage of the opportunity and never looked back. Volson was listed as the starter on the depth chart for the first preseason game with the San Francisco 49ers.
Yet, Carmona got the start over Volson.
Carmona started in multiple preseason games and impressed the coaching staff. It became clear that Carmona had won the job after the Titans announced they were releasing Volson.
For Volson, his quick stint with the Titans didn't work out how he'd hoped. He was brought here to compete for the starting job at right guard and lost it to a rookie. Luckily for the Titans, he was on a one-year deal, so releasing him came with little to no major consequences.
The Titans have turned Skoronski into a reliable guard. Hopefully, Carmona will be the start of a change on the offensive line, which has been awful at protecting quarterbacks in the last few seasons.
If Carmona turns into anything like Skoronski that would be a success.
The Titans are hoping for the same result.
