With the beginning of training camp only a short while away, most every NFL team has their 2015 draft class signed and ready to go to work. But the Tennessee Titans find themselves embroiled in a foolish battle with No. 2 overall pick Marcus Mariota over offset language in his contract that’s keeping their most important prospect sidelined. Regardless of whatever moral stand they think they’re making, the Titans are shooting themselves in the foot and need to back off of this.

Offset language means that if the Titans decide to cut Mariota after three years, they won’t be on the hook for his cap hit in that final year. Without that language, they would owe Mariota that money even if he signs with another team. In essence Mariota could double-dip by both getting that money from the Titans as well as whatever his new contract gives him.

So what you’re seeing from the Titans right now is them fighting to save $5 million in a purely hypothetical situation. That’s just great. With the guy they took second overall to be the face of their franchise, they want to be able to cut ties with him quick and easy? If they’re that worried about another Jake Locker situation, maybe they shouldn’t have drafted Mariota at all. Or maybe they should have accepted the Philadelphia Eagles’ boatload offer of players and picks for him. Chip Kelly made that offer — of course he wouldn’t admit to it after he tried and failed.

It just looks bad for the team, all around. $5 million isn’t going to (or shouldn’t) mess with their cap that badly. Show a little confidence in the kid and cave in on what amounts to be a relatively small deal. The Titans are already getting a young, potentially elite quarterback at a bargain thanks to the rookie wage scale. Even though it might be in the best interest of the club to keep that language in the deal, it’s overkill at this point.  It’s especially true when you consider that the cap may go up by $5 million anyway by the time that language affects anything.

Meanwhile for Mariota, it’s not like he’s losing out too much in all of this. He was going to struggle this season no matter what — he’s got a ways to go in becoming a pure pro-style passer. Riding the bench in 2015 may be the best thing for him anyway. He’s in a position where, for the immediate future, he’s got nothing to lose and $5 million to gain by standing his ground. And trust me, if things ever escalated to the point where Mariota was being shopped, there’d be a number of teams on the horn for him. They’d have trade packages ready, and they’d be remarkably smaller than what the Eagles offered.

Bottom line is this is just bad business on the Titans’ part. They took Mariota that high for a reason and to serve a very important purpose for the team. If they believed in him that much, they need to believe in him a tiny bit more and cave on these language demands. It’s just not worth what they’re missing out on and what they could continue to miss out on.

Doug Green is a Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com covering the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL.  Follow him on Twitter @DGreenNFL.