Breece Hall, who played for Robert Saleh with the New York Jets, could be an attractive free agent option for the Titans at running back. ANGIE FLATT

Late in the 2025 season, long after the Titans had fallen to the bottom of the league again, a decision was made by interim coach Mike McCoy to try and run the football effectively and take some pressure off rookie quarterback Cam Ward in the process.

That line of thinking first showed up in the Cleveland game where the Titans ran for a season high 184 yards on the ground, and continued with 100-yard team rushing efforts in four of the final five games, including two wins. That, after the Titans had only topped the century mark as a team running the ball twice in the first 12 games.

With Robert Saleh coming in as head coach and Brian Daboll being named offensive coordinator, expect some tweaks, but also expect that run-first mentality to continue as the Titans continue to try and pick themselves up from the bottom of the league and get back to respectability.

At the very least, the Titans running the ball more effectively over the final part of the season allowed Ward to play some of his best football down the stretch of his rookie year.

The off-season questions for the run game involved, exactly who will carry the load. Tony Pollard is still under contract, and his late-season rally got him over 1,000 yards for the second straight year in Tennessee.

Pollard is scheduled to count $9.25 million against the cap, according to spotrac.com, in the final year of his three-year contract. That’s not an unreasonable amount for a Titans team that has $100 million in cap space. And given a roster so full of holes already, it makes more sense to add at the position and provide Pollard with a complement than to start over.

That said, the Titans still need to begin the transition to finding another lead back – either in free agency or the draft. Tyjae Spears, also entering the final year of his deal, is not the answer to carry the majority of the load, but he does offer playmaking ability as a checkdown pass catcher and someone running outside the tackle box.

Beyond those two, who carried most of the load last year for the Titans, there is special teams mainstay Julius Chestnut and second-year back Kalel Mullings, who missed a good chunk of last year with injury, but was used in short-yardage situations late in the year with some success.

There are some solid options to be had, who are still relatively young on the free agent market. There is Breece Hall, who played for Saleh with the New York Jets, as well as Carolina’s Rico Dowdle and Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker, who is a Memphis native.

Other options are older and maybe less attractive, except in a supplementary role, which ideally would be where Pollard would be better slotted at this juncture of his career.

The Titans could decide to get a brand new running back somewhere in the draft, and there have been calls in some corners for them to consider Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love, who is regarded as one of the top players available this year.

The Titans desperately need playmakers for Ward, and they desperately need to bank on the run game to help build a foundation around their young quarterback. The question becomes, can they ignore other, bigger needs at primary positions like edge rusher, receiver and cornerback to go all in on Love with the fourth pick. If they covet Love and regard him as a true difference maker, then it should be a consideration in the draft room. However, if they could find a trade partner and move down a few spots to gain more draft capital and still grab Love a few picks lower than four, that might be ideal.

The running back position will be vital to Saleh and Daboll beginning the rebuild of the Titans. What direction they go this off-season with Pollard, with free agents or draft picks, will be a big part of how that rebuild begins to take shape.