The Titans wanted someone who could be nasty in the trenches. So naturally, they drafted a guy who used to live with a pig.
Jim Wyatt of the Tennesseean dropped that little porcine nugget on us from tackle Taylor Lewan’s introductory press conference in Nashville, and Lewan said “I feel like my professionalism is going out the window.”
Oh goodness, no, Taylor. You just got a lot more popular around here.
We simply had to know more, so we found this ESPN.com story from his Michigan days, which tells us about Dr. Hamlet III, the pig in question.
“It was fun for about two weeks,” Lewan said. “Then the pig got kind of mean. We weren’t neglecting it or anything. We were being sweet to it.
“I thought it was going to be a good deal, but I didn’t realize the hooves of a pig struggle so hard with the tile. It got in the kitchen one time, and it was like watching Bambi on the ice, if you’ve ever seen that movie. It was so comical.”
Realizing a college apartment wasn’t the appropriate place to raise swine, Lewan and his teammates eventually did the right thing.
“So we decided that the best thing for the pig was to give it away, and now he’s a happy pig,” Lewan said. “We sent it to a farm where it could do pig things.”
One of these days, Lewan will root out veteran Michael Roos for the left tackle job. Until then, we’ll be looking for a personalized Titans jersey with “Ziffel” on the back.