This year, Taylor Lewan was one of several 2014 first-round picks to skip mandatory June workouts. Titans GM Jon Robinson has indicated that the two sides are discussing a new deal, but we haven’t heard much lately as the tackle gets set to enter his fifth-year option season. 
For now, Lewan is set to earn $9.341MM and is scheduled to reach free agency in 2019. After that, the Titans have the option of using the franchise tag on him, but that would be a costly move, as CBSSports.com’s Joel Corry recently noted.
Next year’s franchise tag for offensive linemen could be worth nearly $15MM. When factoring in the 20% increase of a second franchise tag, controlling Lewan in 2020 could cost somewhere between $17.5MM and $18MM. Technically, the Titans can kick the can down the road for a while, but it would cost them roughly $32.5MM in the interim. Then, after that, Lewan would hold all the cards as a third straight tag would be completely untenable.
So, all parties involved would like to hammer out a long-term deal this offseason. Unfortunately for the Titans, Lewan’s camp is likely to use Nate Solder’s four-year, $62MM contract ($34.8MM guaranteed) with the Giants as a guiding point in talks. It’s not apples-to-apples since Solder scored his deal on the open market, but Lewan is three years younger and arguably performed better than Solder in 2017.
The Titans aren’t necessarily eager to reset the tackle market here – particularly with Marcus Mariota scheduled for free agency after the 2019 season – but it may be their only choice given the dearth of quality tackles in the NFL. A multi-year extension for Lewan is sure to be costly, but it beats paying big bucks for less appealing free agent tackles, as many teams have been forced to do in recent years.
He will be locked up before the season.