NASHVILLE — Tennessee Titans linebacker Cedric Gray set the franchise’s single-season tackle record last year. He passed Azeez Al-Shaair by one tackle and also passed Stephen Tulloch, who set his mark in a 16-game season. Gray entered 2026 looking like the second-best player on head coach Robert Saleh’s defense, behind only Jeffery Simmons.

Four games into the season, Gray is being soft-benched.

Cedric Gray’s snap count tells the story

Against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, Gray played 28 defensive snaps. That is less than half of Tennessee’s total on defense. Linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. played all 61 defensive snaps (100 percent). Veteran linebacker Cody Barton was second with 50 snaps (82 percent), and Jermaine Johnson played 30.

Gray’s work came on special teams instead, where he played 88.5 percent of the snaps. Barton played only five special teams snaps (19.2 percent).

This is not a one-week blip. The trend has been building for some time, so I asked Saleh about it during his Monday Zoom call with reporters. Here is how the head coach answered:

“As of now, you know, Cedric does a good job in the run game and pass game. Cody is also a very good linebacker, really good communicator. When you look at nickel defense with Cody and Anthony, [it] has been a good combination for us. We’ve been going more dime, so only one linebacker is on the field on third down, so that’s bringing all the snap counts down also. So there’s a combination of different things.

“We’re doing a lot of different things personnel-wise. We’re playing with five D-linemen on the field several times a game. So, there’s certain things that are bringing both our snap counts down, but overall percentage-wise, it’s going to be similar.”

I don’t want to read too much into the stumbling start. It may have been nothing more than Saleh searching for the safest words. Still, it was hard not to notice. If Gray is good against both the run and the pass, why is he playing half the snaps?

Gray is not this regime’s guy

Hill is the starting MIKE linebacker for this regime, and this front office and coaching staff drafted him. Gray, a fourth-round pick in 2024, was drafted by neither of them.

General manager Mike Borgonzi has made it clear that a Ran Carthon pick is fair game. T’Vondre Sweat is gone. Jarvis Brownlee is gone. Will Levis was a different story, but he is gone too. None of these players are sacred cows, especially if Borgonzi didn’t draft them.

Off-ball linebacker is also Saleh’s specialty. Sure, plenty of coaches would succeed with Fred Warner. On the whole, however, Saleh is viewed as a plus defensive coordinator who understands the position at an integral level. If anyone could squeeze more out of Gray, it should be him.

A radio show clip from the NFL Scouting Combine comes to mind. When asked how much better Gray could get, Graham’s answer went something like this:

“Cedric, if he gets any better, he’s going to break the all-time single-season tackle record or something like that.”

I can’t tell you how much better Hill is than Gray in a Saleh defense. Xs and Os aren’t my expertise. What I can tell you is what the snap counts say.

Cody Barton is the strangest part of all this

Soft-benching Gray is one thing. Doing it for the sake of Barton is weird.

The Titans won’t say it publicly. Their actions say they trust Barton more to make the right call, get the other 10 players lined up, and act as an extension of the coaching staff on the field. If I asked Saleh flat out whether he simply trusts Barton more than Gray, I don’t think he would admit it. The snap counts admit it for him.

It isn’t Barton’s fault he ended up covering Zay Flowers on a 51-yard completion against Baltimore. Saleh, the defensive play caller, defended the call afterward and said Baltimore simply made the right play against it. Is it the right call, then? That’s easy to second-guess in retrospect, but the question stands.

Cedric Gray screams trade candidate

Tennessee is 0-4, and there is a very real world in which it leaves Sunday’s home game against the Houston Texans at 0-5. Priorities shift fast at that point. You sell what you can without fundamentally altering the foundation of your football team.

Guard Peter Skoronski is good enough to be part of that foundation. Gray, by the team’s own actions, is not. Gray isn’t extension eligible until the end of his third year, and the Titans are telling him he isn’t that important to what they want to do. That doesn’t sound like a player who will get a second contract under this administration.

I don’t think the Titans would cut him. I think they would move him.

Turnover like this leaves nobody safe. Only Skoronski and running back Tyjae Spears remain from the 2023 draft class. From the 2024 class, Sweat, Brownlee, and Jha’Quan Jackson are already gone. Jaylen Harrell is hurt after looking like a possible rotational piece, and James Williams has factored in only on special teams. Offensive tackle JC Latham is the lone 2024 pick you can definitively call safe.

Coaches get the players they want. At some point, though, you look at Saleh and wonder how there’s no way to use Gray better than Barton. The Titans are telling you no, and Gray’s future in Tennessee may hinge on how the next few weeks go.