Titans bail on veteran cornerback Chidobe Awuzie after one disappointing season
Sweeping changes are coming to Tennessee
NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Titans released cornerback Chidobe Awuzie on Saturday. Awuzie, 29, lasted only one season into a three-year, $36 million deal with the club.
It is the latest admission of fault from Tennessee for personnel gaffes made just over one year ago by former general manager Ran Carthon.
Titans cutting Chidobe Awuzie is their latest "My Bad"
Carthon spent $228.2 million in free agency last March, and now are absorbing a $12.51 million cap hit with this latest release.
Awuzie's contract was one of five substantive deals that accounted for the bulk of that spend. Only one of those player, receiver Calvin Ridley, remotely paid dividends for his new team. Awuzie (8 gms), fellow corner L'Jarius Sneed (5 gms) and center Lloyd Cushenberry III (8 gms) all finished the season or experienced a lengthy stint on Injured Reserve after having some of their worst career individual seasons.
Linebacker Kenneth Murray so underperformed that new Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi shipped him off to the Dallas Cowboys with a 2025 seventh-round pick in return for a sixth-round pick this year and Murray's salary dump.
Carthon's plan to build around 2023 second-round pick quarterback Will Levis was a failure of epic proportions.
Levis' epic collapse and benching by first-year coach Brian Callahan was the biggest source of Tennessee's 3-14 finish as the worst team in the NFL last year. Carthon's sugar rush approach to free agency with Ridley (4 yrs, $92M), Cushenberry (4 yrs, $50M), Sneed (acquired for 2025 3rd, 2024 7th-round pick, 4 yrs, $76.4M), Murray (2 yrs, $15.5M), and Awuzie helped cost him his job. Borgonzi is tasked with not only recalibrating one of the league's worst rosters, but also digging them out of his predecessor's mess.
Add starting cornerback to the ever-growing list of needs on the Titans roster…again.
Featured Image: USA TODAY Sports.
