With seven games still remaining in the season, the Titans are losing wide receivers at an alarming rate.
Calvin Ridley’s season-ending injury during Sunday’s loss to Houston marked another thinning of the roster at an already shaky spot.
The Titans had previously released veteran Tyler Lockett last month and placed Bryce Oliver — who hadn’t played since Week 2 — on injured reserve last Saturday.
In addition, Titans rookie wide receiver Chimere Dike left Sunday’s game with a chest contusion in the first half and did not return. Rookie wide receiver Elic Ayomanor exited Sunday’s contest in the closing minutes with a hamstring injury.
The only completely healthy receivers on the Titans’ 53-man roster are Van Jefferson and Mason Kinsey. James Proche III, Xavier Restrepo and Hal Presley III are the receivers on the team’s practice squad.
Signed as an undrafted free agent, Restrepo has been a target of fan interest because of his connection with Titans quarterback Cam Ward. The two were teammates at Miami last season, with Restrepo catching 69 passes for 1,127 yards (16.3-yard average) and 11 touchdowns.
But he has remained behind Kinsey and Proche, in part, because those two players have significant special teams experience.
“He’s done a great job of starting to work more in the kicking game [in practice],” Titans interim coach Mike McCoy said of Restrepo. “That was something he didn’t do as much of early on, and 1763419275 he understands the importance of being in the kicking game … But we’ll see what happens throughout the week, to see what our options are going to be moving forward.”
The uncertainty at wide receiver could lead the Titans to focus more of their offensive gameplan on the team’s tight ends.
In the loss to Houston on Sunday, veteran tight end Chig Okonkwo (three catches, 56 yards) and rookie Gunnar Helm (four catches, 29 yards) combined for seven completions and 85 yards.
It was Okonkwo’s 39-yard catch late in the game that set the Titans up at the Texans’ 7-yard line, which led to a game-tying touchdown pass to Jefferson with 1:35 remaining in the contest.
“We’ll work through those things,” McCoy said of the receiver depth. “That goes into game-planning week in and week out, with the personnel you have, because of injuries … Maybe [you use] more multiple personnel groupings, things like that.”
McCoy said he was very disappointed to lose Ridley, a seven-year veteran and first-year captain. Ridley had missed three games prior to Sunday because of a hamstring injury, and then suffered a broken fibula on the Titans’ first offensive play against Houston — after making a 13-yard reception.
“He only knows how to play football one way, and that’s all out,” McCoy said of Ridley. “It’s such an honor for him to be a captain. It meant so much to him … All the guys who’d been out for [several weeks with injuries], and what the game means to them, they’re great examples for the younger players on what it means to play this game. It sucks that Calvin got injured.”