Titans 53-Man Roster Projection 2025: Turning Special Teams nightmare into a strength, returner job will determine WR depth chart

No more special teams disasters (please)

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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Before diving into the defensive side of the ball, I want to empty the notebook on some special teams thoughts. Don’t touch that dial: remember how devastating this group was last season? Well, a lot is going into fixing it.

This is the special teams installment of an ongoing article series, breaking down the Titans projected 53-man roster one position at a time. Here's what we've covered so far, in case you've missed it:

In this installment, we’ll cover a brand new room of legs for this team and what the impending returner competition will mean.

Specialists

  1. P Johnny Hekker
  2. K Joey Slye
  3. LS Morgan Cox

Bones Cleaning House

When Brian Callahan dismissed Colt Anderson and hired John “Bones” Fassel to be his new Special Teams Coordinator, the level of experience at that position flipped on its head. Bones is revered as one of the best coaches in this specialty in the league, and brings with him many more years of knowledge than what Anderson offered.

The Titans had actually, quietly, reversed their disastrous special teams fortunes down the stretch of last season. But by then, everybody had tuned the team out and the damage from that unit had already been deeply felt. So it’s not a surprise there’s a lot of turnover on this unit. It was a bit of a surprise, though, to see both K Nick Folk and P Ryan Stonehouse dismissed with ease in the spring. The Titans went in different directions on both fronts, bringing in K Joey Slye and P Johnny Hecker, both veterans in their own right. I don’t have much analysis to offer on either at the moment; they appear to be perfectly average options you won’t be worried too much about.

Moving on from Folk made some sense considering his age, but why was a young punter like Stonehouse replaced? Well, I think the coaching staff put more blame for last year’s punt team woes on his shoulders than the fans did. They weren’t particularly happy with the way that he outkicked his coverage at times, something that could be debated in and of itself. But the bottom line is that they wanted somebody who was a directional, hangtime punter. And Stoney is a bombs-away guy. So the change was made.

The Returner Competition

The Titans haven’t had a consistent answer at any returner position in some time. They hope to have fixed that this year with a couple of options, chief amongst them being 4th round rookie Chimere Dike. He’s going to get a lot of run in training camp on both kick and punt return, and in an ideal world, I think the coaching staff would have him doing both. But he has to prove that he can handle it.

Other contenders include Tyjae Spears on kick return, something we’ve already seen him do just fine with. And James Proche is the WR to keep an eye on for if one of these younger options doesn’t quite pan out. He’s a proven return specialist and will make the roster if they need him in that role.

Core Special Teamers

Something you have to keep in mind during roster cutdown season is the impact depth players have on special teams. If you don’t bring anything to the table on teams, you probably won’t cut it as the last guy in your room. And something that should get your ears perked up is when you hear somebody described as a core special teamer. A roster has 3-4 of these guys on it at any given time, typically the last RB, TE, LB, WR, or S in their respective rooms. These are players who can play a role in every phase of special teams, and the good ones are worth their weight in gold to a coaching staff. This is why I’m higher on certain depth players’ odds of making the roster, such as WR Bryce Oliver or TE David Martin-Robinson, than you might otherwise expect.

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