Treylon Burks injury makes bad day worse for Titans' starting offense
EAGAN — A bad day at the office turned into a total disaster for the Tennessee Titans' starting offense on Wednesday. During joint practices with the Minnesota Vikings, the Titans' starting offense struggled to get anything going early on. Throwing against severe wind, there were not many wins or completions in 1-on-1 reps for Tennessee's pass catchers. […]
EAGAN — A bad day at the office turned into a total disaster for the Tennessee Titans' starting offense on Wednesday.
During joint practices with the Minnesota Vikings, the Titans' starting offense struggled to get anything going early on. Throwing against severe wind, there were not many wins or completions in 1-on-1 reps for Tennessee's pass catchers. Despite the drill heavily favoring the offense, majority of the throws went incomplete. Minnesota also did an excellent job of bottling up the run game during full team period.
Tennessee's first big offensive win from the starting group came on the very last snap for Tannehill during the first 11-on-11 period. But ironically, that's when the day went from bad to worse.
Second-year wide receiver Treylon Burks ran up the seam and caught a deep touchdown pass from Tannehill, but got up grabbing his left leg around the knee. After being consoled by Tannehill, Derrick Henry, and DeAndre Hopkins, Burks was carted off the field holding the back of his leg.
"I just went over and checked on him. You hate seeing that," said Ryan Tannehill after practice on Wednesday. "We'll find out more information and see what's really going on, but hopefully he's going to be alright. He seemed obviously upset and understandably so. My thoughts and prayers are with him right now and hopefully it's not too bad."
There is no diagnosis on Burks at the moment and the possibilities are vast. It's hard to say when we can expect to hear about the injury's severity. What we do know, however, is that the Titans need Burks to get back as quickly as possible.
Adding DeAndre Hopkins to this offense is huge because it gives Tannehill another reliable receiver to target while opening up opportunities for Burks to win against man coverage downfield. Having two big-play weapons make an offense more versatile and explosive. If Burks is to miss a significant amount of time, that advantage goes away.
In many ways, losing Burks would put the Titans right back where they were prior to the Hopkins signing. That's not somewhere this team can afford to be if they want to push for an AFC South title.
This impending diagnosis on Burks could not be more important for Tennessee's 2023 outlook.
