I’m sure Tennessee fans will miss one of their most charismatic sons. The Tennessee Titans have proven their ruthless resolve by freeing up over $35M in salary cap space by cutting longtime captain tackle Taylor Lewan, WR Robert Woods, K Randy Bullock, and others.
In order to win consistently in this league, you have to make tough decisions that are bound to break relationships, regardless of how long and cordial they might have been.
When one thought of the Tennessee Titans prior to today, you’d picture a tough, hard, physical, and aggressive team that made no qualms about bashing in opposing team’s faces in order to win football games. And, in doing so, players like Taylor Lewan came to your mind first as he was the living embodiment of what it meant to be a Tennessee Titans player under Mike Vrabel.
The 3X Pro-Bowl left tackle was one of the most physical, tough, strong, and determined football players in the league, while he also possessed the charm and charisma to back it up as he’s hosted the widely successful Bussin’ With The Boys podcast for a number of years. Simply put, he was one of the “heartbeat” players on the team, which made him an easy choice for one of the captaincies.
Yet, when you also think of the Tennesse Titans, it’s hard to get around the fact that they had one of the all-time worst collapses in recent NFL memory by losing their last 7 games of the season to lose the AFC South Division title race and miss the playoffs for the first time in three years.
Moreover, a big reason as to why said collapse happened was due to important players, such as Taylor Lewan, getting old, hurt, or both during that 7-game losing stretch. Thus, cutting Lewan, Robert Woods, Randy Bullock, and Zach Cunningham was the only reasonable move the Titans could have made to stay relevant in the NFL next season.
Even though Lewan is one of the longest serving Titans, he’s suffered two knee injuries in the last three seasons (2020, 2022), Robert Woods was relatively unproductive this season after coming off an ACL tear in 2021 as he finished the campaign with 53 REC, 527 yards, and 2 TDs, Randy Bullock is a 33-year-old kicker, and Zach Cunningham has never panned out since being picked up off waivers by the Titans as he had just 24 tackles and 1 PD in the 6 games he played this year.
If the Titans didn’t cut these players, they’d be $25M+ OVER the cap. That’s horrible for a team that missed the playoffs and had the worst regular season record collapse in 2022.
Being a good team that has yet to achieve outstanding success (i.e.: making it to the Super Bowl) comes at a hefty cost as the wears and tears on the veteran bodies of the team will come up and bite them eventually, forcing said good team to either stick with them at a high cap-hit or move on with a younger, cheaper option.
All of these guys should be picked up by other franchises relatively early in the free agent market, so I’m not too worried about their futures in the NFL.
The only thing I’m disappointed about is that they were unable to get the Titans franchise back to the Super Bowl (which has been 23 years now) in their time with the team.
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