The Tennessee Titans are almost at camp, and the roster math is about to get real.
Rookies report on July 23, veterans come in five days later, and then the real grind begins. Tennessee has to go from 90 players down to 53 before its Week 1 matchup with the New York Jets, and there’s enough depth on this roster to create a few honest battles.
Some spots look settled. Others are going to be fought over every day once the pads come on.
At quarterback, the projection keeps two names. Ward is the clear face of the offense, and with a real offensive coordinator now in place, the expectation is that he could be in line for a breakout season.
Trubisky was added by Brian Daboll to back him up and help him get comfortable in the system. Will Levis is the wild card in the room; if he shows he’s healthy, he could complicate things for Tennessee if a trade partner doesn’t emerge before the regular season.
Hendon Hooker was also brought in during the offseason and could end up on the practice squad.
The backfield looks much more straightforward. Pollard is the top option, though Spears could still take some of the workload as head coach Robert Saleh tries to keep both backs fresh over the course of the season.
Mullings and Singleton are the names to watch for the final spots, and in this projection the Titans keep both. Pollard and Spears are both on the final year of their contracts, which only adds another layer to that room.
Wide receiver is where the roster gets especially interesting. Tennessee has overhauled the group by bringing in Robinson and Tate to join Ridley, while Ayomanor and Dike are coming off solid rookie campaigns.
That leaves a crowded fight near the bottom of the depth chart, and Oliver earns the last spot here because of his special teams value. This could be one of the most competitive positions in camp.
Tight end is cleaner. Helm is the projected starter, Bellinger arrives with Daboll as experienced depth, and the Titans used a seventh-round pick on Kanak, a utility piece who can help on special teams while he develops as a receiver.
Up front, the offensive line still has some sorting to do. Latham, Moore, and Skoronski are locked in, but the other starting jobs are still up for grabs.
Slater is in the mix with Volson, while Schlottmann will have to hold off Coogan and late addition Andre James. Tennessee also drafted Coogan and Carmona this year, and both could push their way into the lineup sooner than expected.
The projected 10 includes Volson, Coogan, Carmona, Crenshaw-Dickson, and Wagner as reserves.
On the defensive line, Saleh’s rotation plan makes a bigger group easy to justify. The projection keeps 10, with the expectation that he’ll want to be around nine deep on game day.
Simmons, Franklin-Myers, Johnson, and Elliott headline the unit, while the edge and defensive end spots should produce some of the most heated competition in camp. Oladejo, Faulk, Thomas, Martin, Marshall, and Holmes round out the group.
Linebacker is still a work in progress under Saleh and defensive coordinator Gus Bradley. Barton, Gray, and Hill Jr. are the projected starters, with Williams and Diabate backing them up. Even in this projection, the group feels like it still needs more time before anyone can make a firm call.
The secondary has been reshaped too. At corner, Flott, Taylor, and Williams are the projected starters and reserves, but Tennessee could still add another veteran before camp.
If the group stays as is, the real competition comes from Calligan, Robinson, Latrell McCutchin Sr., and Jalen McMurray, with more names possibly sliding into the mix. At safety, Hooker and Winston are the clear starters, Adams is the dependable third man, and Fitzgerald gets the final spot after going undrafted and landing in Nashville.
Special teams is the least dramatic part of the roster. Slye is set at kicker, Townsend takes over punting duties from Johnny Hekker under John Fassel, and Cox remains the long snapper. Unless injury changes the picture, that trio is locked in.
In Other News...
Former Titans Star Just Became Another Painful Football Reminder
The latest reminder of footballs health toll does not come with a game recap or a roster move, but with the kind of news that forces old conversations back to the surface. For Titans fans, it lands especially hard because Chris Johnson once represented so much of the franchises recent past, and now his announcement adds another painful chapter to the sports long-running reckoning with neurological and degenerative disease.
What makes these stories sting is not only the human loss, but how quickly public attention tends to move on once the headlines fade. ALS and CTE still hover over football as unresolved problems, even as the conversation around them grows quieter, and the NFL has often been able to benefit from that fatigue while offering more polish than lasting commitment to research, prevention and care. [Read more 🡒]
Titans May Have Just Found Their Next Offensive Line Cornerstone
With rookies reporting soon, the Titans are starting to look hard at the next layer of their roster-building under general manager Mike Borgonzi, and Peter Skoronski sits near the center of that conversation. The former first-round pick has improved across his first three seasons, enough to draw national recognition from ESPNs interior offensive line rankings and to put him in the conversation as one of the more important pieces on Tennessees offense.
For a team trying to stabilize its front, Skoronskis rise matters because it changes the long-term picture at guard. The Titans already have one major investment on the books in Jeffery Simmons, and with Skoronskis fifth-year option already picked up, the question is no longer whether he belongs in the plans. It is how soon Tennessee decides to lock him in for the next phase of the rebuild. [Read more 🡒]