Tennessee Titans veteran wide receiver Calvin Ridley is going to be a fascinating experiment to watch in real time during the 2026 NFL season. The legend, the aura, the reputation he carries from his career all precede him, but what he hasn’t been able to accomplish in quite some time with the Titans on the big contract he signed (now restructured) makes his role a legitimate talking point heading into camp.

Figuring out where Ridley fits in this Titans wide receiver room requires understanding the layers. You have the big investments for the now and the future: 4th overall pick Carnell Tate, the rookie out of Ohio State, and big-money free agent addition Wandale Robinson, fresh off a career year and a 1,000-yard season with the Giants playing for current Titans offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. That’s the big investment bucket. Then you have the developmental bucket, where Elic Ayomanor and fellow second-year receiver Chim Dike sit. Those two guys, drafted in the fourth round, had to play far more snaps as rookies last year because of what Calvin Ridley wasn’t able to do.

Ridley’s 2025 was a rollercoaster of bad luck

Ridley had a rocky start when it came to catching the football and being consistent with Cam Ward in the first few weeks. He broke out in the fourth quarter of the season opener against the Cardinals, then pulled his hamstring early in Week 6 against the Raiders, the game after which Brian Callahan was fired as head coach. The fourth-round rookies were forced into the fold. Ridley nursed the hamstring, came back, and on the first play after returning against the Texans, he caught a pass for a first down, but the hit broke his leg, knocking him out for the rest of the season.

Now you have a Calvin Ridley on the north side of 30 trying to figure out where he belongs. He took a significant pay cut to remain with Tennessee, making roughly $13 million this season, $8 million less than he was originally slated to earn. Everyone understands that if the Titans had decided to cut him, he would have made less money elsewhere than the restructured deal provided.

Steve Smith’s take caught me completely off guard

All of that context is fair. Ridley’s fit is going to be a fun thing to watch. But then I was watching former All-Pro wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. on his podcast with co-host James Palmer, and something Smith said threw me off. An All-Everything NFL wide receiver said something that went against everything I thought I knew about Calvin Ridley’s reputation in the wide receiver community.

I’ve always heard that Calvin Ridley is a great route runner. I’ve watched young receivers come into the NFL and reference studying Ridley’s routes as kids. There are guys who have worked out with Ridley in the offseason, who train with him, who watch his cut-ups because of how impressive his routes are.

Smith made it clear how he sees Ridley.

“My point is, he’s a speed merchant, but he’s not a route technician…” Smith begins. “He’s not a great route runner. It showed. I had a lot of film. I had a great opportunity to watch him when he became the guy in Jacksonville. When Christian Kirk went down, when Zay Jones went down a little bit, they started moving Calvin Ridley around and they started to realize he can’t run every route on the route tree.”

“Yeah, he struggled to get around where the dependence on Calvin Ridley beating his man and being at the spot, getting the depth and having that separation. He didn’t do it on a consistent level. And that led to— they wanted to re-sign him in Jacksonville, but not for the price tag that the Tennessee Titans signed him for. Tennessee Titans said, oh, who was it, uh, Brian Callahan? Brian Callahan said, we need a speed guy. And Jacksonville said, this is what we’re gonna offer you, this is what we think you are worth to us. And Tennessee Titans, just like anybody else that are paying for free agents, they have to overpay.”

That surprised me. I wasn’t expecting Steve Smith to flat out say Ridley isn’t a good route runner. Calling him a “speed merchant” is wild, because usually when you hear “merchant” attached to any adjective, it’s not a compliment. When a basketball player gets called a foul merchant, you feel like they’re cheating the system, hunting fouls instead of hunting buckets. “Speed merchant” carries that same disrespectful energy.

Smith went on to say Ridley is in a favorable situation with the Titans’ new offense, which I agree with. Daboll and Ridley have history together. Ridley’s final year at Alabama was the one season Daboll served as the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator. But Smith kept going, doubling down on Ridley’s limitations.

“It’s a favorable situation for the Tennessee Titans and Calvin Ridley because you don’t have to do anything. All you gotta do is just run. Now that may sound stupid, and some people say, man, really, bro? Sometimes a speed guy, all you gotta do is just run. Just run. Yeah, just run. Like, just run.”

That was wild to me. “Just run” is one way to minimize a guy who has at least one 1,000 yard season for three different NFL franchises. 

So I went and asked Ridley about it

I can’t just go toe-to-toe with an All-Pro NFL receiver who’s done media his entire retired life and say he’s flat wrong. That sounds arrogant and idiotic on my part. So I went to Titans practice and asked Calvin Ridley about his routes at the podium on Saturday.

“I’ve always run all the routes,” Ridley said when asked about the choice routes in the new offense. “I like deep routes, but, uh, whatever they want me to run.”

I asked Ridley about Carnell Tate saying Ridley was a WR he watched coming up, which is something I’ve heard many times over the last few years since Ridley signed in Tennessee.

“Yeah, man, I definitely heard a lot of young guys say my name. That’s because I used to kick ass for sure, and I still can. But man, I know that I used to really whoop whoop, especially in one-on-one situations. But Tate is a very, very special kid, man. I love watching him, and I appreciate that he said that.”

Calvin Ridley: “Tate is a really special kid”

Asked him about how the young WRs across the league mention “Calvin Ridley” when asked about guys they watched growing up.

Carnell Tate is one of those pic.twitter.com/rI4Sypk1nH

— AtoZ Sports Nashville (@AtoZSports) August 1, 2026

Steve Smith is on his own on this one

To me, Calvin Ridley is not a speed merchant. Calvin Ridley has speed. He’s joking about it. He could still kick their ass, even at his age. I don’t understand where Steve Smith is getting that from.

“Yeah, I’m faster than most of them,” Ridley said when asked if the 31 year old still has it.

“Faster than most of them. Hell yeah. I still can beat all of them, still fast as all of them.”

Ridley runs good routes. The reason he’s been inconsistent in Tennessee, which is true, isn’t because he can’t run routes. I think it’s because he hasn’t been able to consistently catch the ball, hasn’t been able to consistently have a quarterback situation that gets him the ball, and the whole offense has been a disaster in the two seasons Ridley has played. He went for 1,000 yards with Will Levis and Mason Rudolph throwing the ball in 2024. A speed merchant doesn’t do that.

“Speed merchant” is just disrespectful. I disagree with Smith on this one, but I’m glad Ridley believes in himself. We’ll see what it looks like in 2026, because it’s going to be a fun thing to watch.