Titans Prepared To Handle Roster Cutdown In A Surprising And Confusing Way: What you need to know before buying into the hype

The NFL deadline for roster cutdowns is Tuesday, Aug. 26, at 3:00 p.m. CST. That’s one week from the day this article is published. And the Tennessee Titans have a handful of mid-to-back-of-the-roster decisions to make between now and then to form their initial 53-man roster.

A handful of questions stick out, and as I put together my latest roster projection (which may have just come out, depending on when you’re reading this), I don’t have all the answers. I have over a month of practice insights and high-level intel that’s baked into my educated guess, but some of it is still just a guess.

There is one thing, however, that I’m certain of. If I know nothing else about how this final roster transformation is going to go, I can at least tell you this:

Cutdown Day And Opening Day Will Be Very Different

The Titans will be doing some serious roster gymnastics in the nearly two weeks between cutdown day and opening day. So much initial reaction will probably be surprise and confusion over things that might seem a little off. “They kept who? They cut him? They kept how many guys at that position?”

The Titans have already made over a dozen transactions in camp. A few of those were utilizing their first pick on the waiver order, but most of them have been replacing depth players with guys off the street. We’re talking about guys who weren’t already on one of the 90-man rosters across the league.

Next Tuesday, roughly 1,200 players will suddenly become available before practice squads are put together. The Titans get first dibs, and I’ve spoken at length with multiple members of the front office recently: the Borgonzi/Brinker operation is grinding the preseason tape and intel on the rest of the league. They’ve been working hard to prepare to churn the bottom of this roster.

Tennessee’s Depth Demands Churning

Speaking of the bottom of the roster, have you seen it this preseason? The harsh reality of this roster right now is that it’s top-heavy in a lot of spots. I’ve written and spoken for weeks about how much the backups on defense, in particular, leave to be desired. In fairness to a lot of these players, there’s a ton of youth with developmental potential on this team. So things are actively evolving, and the front office is watching closely up to the buzzer this week to determine who needs to stay and who needs to go.

But if the fact that no backup on this team is safe hasn’t been made apparent by all the roster moves so far in camp, it will be once the Titans work the wire next week. It’s impossible to say just how much they’ll utilize it, but there are important people in this front office who have experience claiming seven or eight guys. I wouldn’t be totally shocked to see a sixth of this roster “make the team” on the initial cutdown, then promptly get swapped out for a waiver claim or new signing.

Roster Investment And Public Patience

This does beg the question, though, how much is too much? It’s understandable that this roster needs a lot of work, and you want to make improvements when they’re available. Still, is there a point of diminishing returns? Can it be harmful to replace a bunch of players who know the system and have been here all summer with a bunch of new guys who might be marginally better? Guys who don’t know the system or the culture, with your first game of the season less than two weeks away?

I asked coach Brian Callahan for his thoughts on this at practice Tuesday morning, and here’s what he said:

“That’s part of the balance of when you have that opportunity to claim players. You don’t just claim a player to claim one. You’ve got to feel like it’s a real talent upgrade for an opportunity to help your team. And you don’t just dismiss guys because we’ve also poured a lot of work into these players that have been here for the better part of six months. So there’s a balance. Can you find better players, and can they help your team improve from even a depth perspective? Great. But there’s also some benefit to having guys that have been in and around your system and know what you want from them too. So that’s the fine line you walk at this time of year. And again, having the number one waiver claim allows us to be aggressive if we choose to be. And if there’s players that we think can help us, I think that’s certainly going to be the case. So I think it is. There’s a fine line to that, and there is a balance to how much you do in that period of time. But if there’s players that can help us, great.”

The ultimate point here is that you shouldn’t put too much weight on the initial 53. There will absolutely be some guys “kept” who are just placeholders for claims and signings. There’s also a decent chance some guys we’re surprised to see cut end up rejoining the roster before opening day. They’re going to fiddle with it for a couple of days. Don’t get totally swept up in the initial overreactions until we see how it looks once opening day rolls around.