One eye-opening Titans stat that raises a crucial question about what they’ll be in the Robert Saleh, Brian Daboll, Cam Ward era
Some NFL teams just are who they are! But just because the Titans have always had a fundamental identity on the ground doesn’t mean that the new era coming in 2026 won’t finally take them to the air…
There are some things in the NFL you just can’t quite explain. Certain teams have such deeply rooted identities that no matter who the coaching staff or players on the roster are, they seem to somehow always circle back to what we’ve long known them to be.
The Tennessee Titans have one of the strongest such identities. For them, it’s simple: the Titans run the football. And one surprising stat from the past couple of years shows us two pretty interesting things ahead of the Robert Saleh era.
Titans identity as running team could finally be changing
Perhaps it’s the brand of football that playing in the AFC south breeds. Or perhaps it’s because the Tennessee Titans have just happened to have some of the most productive running backs in recent NFL history. Or perhaps it’s some third, much more mysterious explanation for who the Tennessee Titans are destined in the stars to always be.
Whatever the case, the Titans have been the team for two of the most consistent running backs in the NFL in the past half decade. Only two players have eclipse 1,000 yards on the ground in each of the past four seasons: former Titan Derrick Henry, and current Titan Tony Pollard.
On this run, Henry’s first two 1k seasons were with the Titans before becoming a Raven. And Pollard‘s first two were with the Cowboys before becoming a Titan.
Focusing in on just the Titans for a moment, Tennessee has had a 1000+ yard rusher in 8 of the past 10 seasons. And any astute fan of the team will know that that number really should be nine, as Henry was well on his way to becoming the league’s first back-to-back 2000 rushing yard season in 2021 before breaking his foot. In just half a season, he came up less than 70 yards shy of the 1000 yard mark.
So that’s the first thing that this tells us about the Titans: for the entirety of their existence so far, they have not been able to escape their identity as a running team, no matter who was around.
But here’s the second thing this brings up: could Cam Ward and Bryan Daboll be the ones to change that? Put a different way, has the Titans long march through the desert to find their next franchise quarterback been the leading factor in this running identity?
And if so, can Cam Ward in Brian Daboll’s specific brand of offense be what changes that?
In eight years with the Bills and Giants, Daboll has had a 1,000 yard rusher just once: Saquon Barkley in 2022. He’s been a heavy passing coordinator who leans pretty heavily on his QBs running the ball too. I gave my two cents on how Cam Ward will influence Daboll’s historical inclination to run his quarterback right here.
The Titans still have Tony Pollard, who is clearly still capable of reaching that 1k mark. But they built out this WR room and the RB room is deeper now too. So I won’t be surprised to see this streak come to an end as the Titans move into a new era.