Peter Skoronski had a firm grasp on his role with the Tennessee Titans as soon as the NFL team made the Northwestern offensive tackle the 11th pick in the 2023 draft: Clear the way for Derrick Henry.

“Obviously, Derrick is one of the best to run the ball in the league right now, so it’s going to be an honor to block for him,” Skoronski said. “I know they’re just a really, really physical team – a team that’s always competitive. I know they had a lot of injuries last year and still were a really, really competitive team, so with that mentality as an organization, I think I’m really happy to be a part of it because the Titans are kind of known for that.”

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Since becoming Tennessee’s primary ball-carrier in the 2018 season, Henry has run for 7,101 yards and 68 touchdowns on 1,464 carries in 71 regular-season games. The former Alabama All-American has 760 more rushing yards and 20 more rushing touchdowns than any other NFL player during that span.

Those kind of stats made Tennessee a preferred destination in the draft for Skoronski, a unanimous All-American last season as Northwestern’s left offensive tackle.

“I’m an O-lineman. I love to run the ball,” Skoronski said. “The Titans are obviously huge on that, so was really, really happy with that. That was really a big thing because I thought, ‘Man, the Titans would be awesome just from that aspect alone.’”

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But while Henry finished second in the NFL in rushing yards in 2022, the Titans ranked 13th in rushing yards among the league’s 32 teams last season after placing no worse than sixth over the previous four seasons.

Tennessee’s quarterbacks also got sacked 49 times last season. Only four teams yielded more sacks in 2022.

Injuries in the offensive line last season caused veteran Titans starters Taylor Lewan at left tackle and Ben Jones at center to miss 15 and five games, respectively, and triggered an overhaul of the unit this offseason.

Neither player is on the Titans’ offseason roster. Of the five Tennessee offensive linemen who played the most in 2022, only right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere and left guard Aaron Brewer return, and Brewer could be shifting to center.

The Titans signed offensive linemen Daniel Brunskill and Andre Dillard in free agency last month, but neither was an NFL starter in 2022.

Skoronski isn’t locked into playing tackle for the Titans. As they sort out what their 2023 offensive line will look like, Tennessee also will consider him at guard.

“Really just going to play him at offensive line,” Titans coach Mike Vrabel said, “and see where we go and see where we feel like he can best help the football team, where he can best help himself. We haven’t targeted him anywhere. When we’ve set out to talk about this offseason, we wanted to identify speed, violence and versatility, and he checks those boxes, so we’ll kind of let that materialize as we work through the offseason and training camp. That’s when the offensive line is going to come together.”

Skoronski will get to work with the Titans on May 13, when Tennessee starts rookie minicamp.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.