The Tennessee Titans finally said the quiet part out loud about linebacker Cedric Gray this week.

Gray’s snap count has slowly started to climb. Gus Bradley used his time at the podium in Week 7 to explain why it was held down in the first place. In short, the coaching staff wanted to see better communication from him.

Bradley was strikingly open about the game of musical chairs Tennessee is playing at right now with Gray, Alontae Taylor, Cody Barton, and Josh Williams. Who plays where (and how much) is a bit of a guessing game right now. Gray’s role has been the biggest question mark of the group this season.

Here’s how Bradley explained Gray’s path to more playing time:

“As far as like getting in the mix with more snaps, you saw his count last week was… A little bit more. Yeah, that’s what we’re seeing from him. I think his communication has improved. I told him, I said, you know, to get more snaps on the field, there may be a perception. Say there’s a perception of, you know, this skill set or the communication thing. You know, it’s not that coaches don’t believe in him, we believe in him, but just wipe away that perception. That’s what I think he’s done the last couple weeks. He said, hey, you don’t think I’m where I need to be in this area? Then I’m going to knock that one out. And he’s gone really intently about doing that and has done it the last couple weeks. And that’s why I think there’s more and more playing time. We always love said, said is awesome. Thirty three is what we needed to see him do these things. And that’s why I think, you know, we talked about him last week or after the game, had conversations about just how he’s handled things and how he’s competed. And the benefits are starting to come from with the more playing time.”

Why the communication concern isn’t new

This is the first time the staff has admitted to everyone that it was throttling Gray’s playing time for a reason. Functionally, he’s been in the doghouse. In hindsight, the reason isn’t that shocking.

Last year, the Dennard Wilson and Brian Callahan defense toyed around in the early summer with Gray as the Mike linebacker with Barton at Will. They ultimately scrapped it because they did not believe Gray could hang from a communication standpoint. Clearly this new coaching staff, which has a lengthy pedigree of success at linebacker, felt the same way for the first couple of weeks here.

So communication has been a work in progress for Gray his entire time in the NFL. That isn’t some giant knock on him. Plenty of players aren’t natural communicators. If the staff says he has improved in that area, that’s a very good sign. And if that’s his ticket to getting on the field more consistently and becoming the starter he should be, all of this makes more sense.

When does Cedric Gray become the guy?

I still don’t know!

I’m curious to see what the snap count split looks like this weekend after a comment like that. Do we see steady, linear growth in playing time? Do we see a sudden jump where, in a week or two, he’s the guy we thought he would be from the jump? Or does Tennessee come back from the bye in about a month and hand him the job then?

The admission itself is telling. You don’t say that out loud at the podium in Week 7 unless a player is on his way over the hump. There’s a reason the staff kept quiet while he was in the thick of it. The fact that they’re saying it now means real progress is underway. Either Gray is out of the doghouse, or he’s at least standing in the entryway.