The Tennessee Titans are on their bye in Week 9, but they still got some good news.

The NFL named wide receiver Carnell Tate its Offensive Rookie of the Month for October after the 4th overall pick took over as the Titans’ top target. General manager Mike Borgonzi brought Tate in to be Tennessee’s WR1, and October was his breakout.

In the first game of the month on Oct. 4, Tate caught 9 of his 12 targets for 145 yards against the Ravens. He kept producing from there and finished the four October games with 21 catches for 290 yards and a touchdown. That production made him the clear No. 1 option in this passing game, and the league took notice.

Carnell Tate’s shoulder injury and the Week 10 return

The one damper on Tate’s month came at the end of it. He missed last week’s game with a shoulder injury, and the Titans are using the bye to give him two full weeks of recovery. As Paul Kuharsky has reported, Tate is expected to be back for Week 10 once Tennessee returns from the bye after missing just one game.

Sitting him for one game and pairing it with the bye week buys a rookie receiver a real chunk of rest without costing much time on the field. It gives the Titans a cleaner path to getting their best young pass catcher back at full speed for the second half of the season.

Titans rookies make franchise history in a 1-7 season

Tate’s award doesn’t stand alone: LB Anthony Hill was the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Month for September, which gives Tennessee two rookies with league-wide recognition already this season. That speaks well of the early returns Borgonzi has gotten with this draft class.

Tate and Hill are now the first Titans tandem to earn Rookie of the Month honors in the same season in franchise history. Tennessee also became the seventh team in the league to have offensive and defensive teammates win Rookie of the Month in consecutive months since the award’s inception in 1996.

What’s most impressive about that to me is that it’s happening in a season where nobody is watching. The Titans are 1-7 and have largely been a footnote in the NFL season so far. For two rookies to break through in a year that very few people nationally are paying attention to makes this run even more impressive. These honors aren’t the product of hype or a big-market spotlight. They’re the product of production that was impossible to ignore.

Tate also joins an exclusive club within the franchise. He’s the seventh player in Titans history to earn Rookie of the Month, and he’s the first Tennessee receiver to win the award since AJ Brown took home the honor for December in 2019.

What Tate’s return means for the stretch run

It’s exciting that Tate is on track to return, because the most important thing for this team over the final nine games is development. The record isn’t going to flip in a hurry. What can change is how the young core looks heading into the offseason, and Tate getting his stride back with his quarterback is a big part of that.

I certainly hope that’s the case for the Titans’ sake. October made it clear that Tate is capable of being a true No. 1 receiver in this league. Now he just needs to get healthy, get back on the field, and get back on the same page with his quarterback down the stretch.