Ferd Lewis: Despite short stay with Titans, Cole McDonald made the right call

The swift, knee-jerk, Thursday-morning quarterback reaction today is to say that Cole McDonald should have just stayed put at the University of Hawaii.

After being waived by the Tennessee Titans on Wednesday, there is no shortage of people saying that he should have returned to Manoa as a fifth-year senior instead of declaring for the NFL Draft.

But however this ultimately unfolds — and with openings on an expanded practice squad yet to be filled there may still be chapters to be played out — it is hard to fault McDonald’s decision to roll the dice.

It was bold, calculated and confident and it fit McDonald.

As it turns out, the choice to forego his senior season that McDonald announced in January provided what would have likely turned out to be his best shot at the NFL in any event, especially given all that has transpired in these intervening seven months.

We know now, thanks to the impact of COVID-19 and Mountain West Conference rulings, that had McDonald chosen to return for 2020 there would have been no fall season for UH, no platform for him to improve or enhance his standing.

Maybe not a full or even partial one in winter or spring 2021, either when who knows how he might have fared in the new offensive system and cast embraced by head coach Todd Graham.

Even then it would have been a more crowded, competitive quarterback field.

It is also hard to see how he could have topped the 2019 season in which he helped UH to that 10-5 finish including a West Division championship and SoFi Hawaii Bowl victory.

It was that resume-building that eventually earned him an invitation to the NFL Combine and, through it, prompted the Titans to invest a seventh-round pick in him as a development project.

When McDonald signed on with the Titans it was just the returning starter, Ryan Tannehill, and two-season practice squad veteran Logan Woodside ahead of him on the depth chart at quarterback.

But if McDonald avoided the curse of COVID-19 in college, he quickly felt its reverberations in the NFL. Due to shutdowns he went without the organized team activities and mini camps where rookies get their feet wet prior to the opening of camp. Nor would there be a four-game preseason in which to show his wares.

In a season in the shadow of the pandemic and neither Woodside or McDonald distinguishing themselves early in camp and the Titans felt an urgency to get an experienced, game-ready backup on the premises, pronto.

McDonald’s fate might have been sealed when two of his passes were picked off in Monday’s practice by free-agent cornerback Kenneth Durden.

Former Bronco Trevor Siemian, who has appeared in 27 NFL games, 25 as a starter, was impressive in tryouts, got the call and, as it turned out Wednesday, McDonald’s roster spot.

With practice squad rosters raised from 12 to 16 this year due to the pandemic, the Titans — or another team — could still pick up McDonald for a longer look and more work.

What is known is that before the end of the 2019 season McDonald, who has seen how fast fortunes can ascend or wither, had put his heart and soul into deciding to take his NFL shot. It was something that would have been boldly unimaginable coming out of high school in California when UH was his only Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship offer and an 11th-hour one at that.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.