The Titans will cut some good players this year

 

The Tennessee Titans will open training camp in just 4½ weeks and there won’t be many, if any, starting jobs to be won. You can pencil in the Opening Day starters, either returning starters or veteran free agents, at each position.

 

The jobs that will be competed for will be for depth behind those starters and the Titans have a lot of good players vying for roster spots. One good problem the Titans have is that there are more good players than roster spots available. Some difficult decisions will have to be made and some players good enough to be in the league won’t be good enough to earn one of 53 positions.

 

We’ll look closely at those players and roster spots in the coming weeks but for now I’d like to just take a very broad view. Following are the number of players at each position for the season opener last year.

Offense: 25 — QB 2, RB 4, FB 1, WR 6, TE 4, OL 8
Defense: 25 — DE 5, DT 4, LB 7, CB 5, S 4
Special teams: 3 — K, P, LS

It’s pretty safe to say there won’t be any drastic changes to that and that the 53 roster spots will be divvied up about the same this year. Let’s look now at the players who have the best chances to make this year’s roster.

 

QB 3 – Collins, Young, Ramsey
RB 6 – Johnson, White, Ganther, Henry, Little, Ringer
FB 1 – Hall
WR 8 – Gage, Washington, Williams, Davis, Hawkins, Britt, Edison, Jones
TE 4 – Crumpler, Scaife, Stevens, Cook
OL 9 – Roos, Amano, Mawae, Scott, Stewart, Harris, Otto, Kropog, Durand
S/T 31

 

DE 5 – Kearse, KVB, Ford, Ball, Hayes
DT 5 – Brown, Haye, Jones, Marks, Vickerson
LB 8 – Bulluck, Thornton, Tulloch, Fowler, Keglar, Allred, Stamer, McGrath

CB 6 – Harper, Finnegan, Faggins, Williams, Mouton, McCourty
S 6 – Hope, Griffin, Fuller, Nickey, Schommer, Harris
S/T  30

 

K 1 – Bironas
P 1 – Hentrich
LS 1 – Amato

S/T 3

 

That’s a total of 64 players on my list of possibles, so 11 won’t make the final cutdown. Some of those 11 could then be signed by other teams. There will be room for 8 players on the practice squad. But no matter how it all shakes out, some decent players won’t be around for the season’s kickoff.

 

Most hardcore fans can list 40 or 45 players who are virtual locks to make the team and will have a good idea which players will fill out the roster. Those 40 or 45 players will be consistently the same from one fan’s list to another’s. We know those names. The other names will be determined in training camp.

 

I believe 44 players are almost certain to make the team. Yeah, probably about the same as those on your list. That leaves nine spots available for the other 20 players: Ramsey, Ganther, Henry, Little, Paul Williams, Davis, Hawkins, Edison, Jones, Otto, Durand, Hayes, Vickerson, Allred, Stamer, Cary Williams, McCourty, Nickey, Schommer and Tuff Harris.

 

Will the Titans carry three quarterbacks this year instead of two? If so, where will they carry one less player? How many receivers will be kept? D-linemen? Linebackers? Decisions made concerning one position group will affect others.