“We got one” — Chimere Dike becoming a revelation for Titans special teams something even his coaches didn’t expect from rookie

The Tennessee Titans have wandered the Special Teams desert for many years. For a long while it has felt like a cartoon ship that’s begun to sink. Each leak that’s plugged by a finger or toe has led to another springing forth, and there haven’t been enough limbs to keep the vessel afloat. The kicker situation was a rollercoaster for years, punting was recently shaky, protection and tackling have fluctuated and seen some extreme lows (see: 2024). And through most all of it, the Titans have floundered at returner.

But two additions in 2025 seem to have already turned this phase of the franchise around, and they’ve done it shockingly quickly. Let’s talk about rookie WR Chimere Dike and Special Teams Coordinator John “Bones” Fassel.

Chimere Dike Ending Titans Special Teams Drought

Who was the last truly reliable returner in Tennessee? Or more than that, the last one that had real juice? The expectation had been beaten down beyond looking for real talent, instead merely searching for serviceable. Thinking back, journeyman Kalif Raymond from 2019-2020 was a brief bright spot. And they you go all the way back to… Marc Mariani in 2010-2011? Needless to say, there’s not a rich tapestry of recent Titans returners.

But now Chimere Dike already seems to be the answer to their prayers just two games into the season. Is it too early be crown him a dude yet? Perhaps. But that isn’t stopping his coaches from doing it anyways.

“He has been excellent” John Fassel told me emphatically this week. “I’m trying to think of a way to say it… there’s still obviously a lot of things to learn from, but two games in, the decision-making, the ball handling, big kick returns, a big punt return that got called back. I was hopeful for good decision making, first downs on punt return, good drive starts on kick return, but he’s provided two big sparks in the return game. And I’m not surprised, but for a young guy to have that poise has been really good.”

Through two starts as both the punt and kick returner, Dike has decided to run back 12 balls. He’s returned 3 punts for 49 yards, averaging 16.3 yards a return. And he’s fielded 9 kicks that he’s returned 227 yards, good for a 25.2 yard average. His long was a big fat 71 yard return in Week 1 at Denver. Here’s the clip of the punt return touchdown that was taken off the board for him because of an inconsequential illegal block behind the play:

It would have been this franchises first punt return touchdown since 2012. As frustrating as it is to get that close to ending such a brutal streak, the way Dike is playing makes it seem like an inevitability for him as long as he stays healthy. His Coordinator also praised him on Tuesday for the way he handed a new trend on kickoffs in the Rams game:

“And credit the Rams, they hit some great dirty ball kickoffs, which are going to become a thing. And there’s not many people at all that could handle those kicks, even if I had two or three or four returners back there, like those are tough balls. So his poise was very good and all this stuff is really good learning for him. But we told the guys in the meeting room Monday, we got one.”

We got one. What a relief for this franchise, what a credit to Brian Callahan and John Fassel, and what a white-hot way for Dike to start his NFL career.

Dike’s Hot Start Surprised Everybody

Part of what makes this turn of events so surprising is the Titans miserable history with the position, of course. But the other part of it is just how uncertain we were about the handling of this role in training camp.

I was openly questioning Callahan and Fassel’s process with this, and was preparing to have to be very critical of a bungled competition in August. I wrote all about it linked here. Dike simply didn’t see the field much at all as a returner during August, and what we saw in the preseason games made it seem like he wouldn’t begin the year as the starter. Fassel himself told in the middle of the month that he probably wasn’t comfortable with Dike having the job yet.

But then cutdown day came, he was named the starter at both return spots, and the pressure was on for him to deliver. Now here I am eating my questioning words, because deliver is all he has done. In fairness, though, Fassel told me this week that even the coaching staff didn’t see such a smooth start coming for the rookie:

“No, I can’t say that we did in practices or even preseason scrimmages or preseason games because we didn’t have the opportunities. So a little bit was projection to be honest, for sure. Like you could see the ball skills, you could see the tracking, you could see poise, you could tell decision-making, but when the bullets are live, it’s kind of hard to know exactly what a guy’s going to do. So to say, ‘oh yeah for sure’ is not, I can’t say that at all, but through two weeks of a lot of opportunities and a lot of different things that have been kicked at him, I think he’s handled it really good. And I don’t see any reason why that’s going to be any different than what’s going to happen in the future. I think it’s just going to get better and better and better. And he probably has exceeded my expectations through two weeks for sure.”

Here’s to a long, healthy tenure as a returner for the Titans latest rookie hit. Right now, he’s the face of a completely revitalized unit. Now the other two phases of the game need to get their acts together.