The Titans may have running back Tyjae Spears and wide receiver Calvin Ridley available for Sunday\u2019s game at Arizona.<\/p>\n
Both players are officially listed as questionable.<\/p>\n
Tennessee coach Brian Callahan did rule out four players for the contest \u2014 right tackle JC Latham (hip), wide receiver Bryce Oliver (knee), offensive lineman Blake Hance (shoulder) and safety Mike Brown (ankle).<\/p>\n
Spears missed the first four weeks of the season on injured reserve due to an ankle injury.<\/p>\n
But the Titans (0-4) opened Spears\u2019 practice window earlier this week, and the team could activate him from IR to play against the Cardinals (2-2).<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re just always mindful of how much you’re putting on him right out the gate after being on IR,\u201d Callahan said. \u201cBut he’s worked really well the last couple weeks [on his own] leading up to it, and he had a good week of practice, so I’m excited to see what he can bring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Spears: \u201cSuper excited [about the possibility of playing]. Just the emotion building up through the week, taking it day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spears had a disappointing 2024 season overall, as he missed five games due to injury and saw his yards per carry average drop to 3.7, from 4.5 when he was a rookie in 2023.<\/p>\n
But Spears did flash toward the end of the 2024 season: He caught six passes for 87 yards and a touchdown against Cincinnati in Week 15; accounted for 66 yards of offense and scored two touchdowns against Indianapolis in Week 16; and ran 20 times for 95 yards against Jacksonville in Week 17 before sitting out the season finale with his second concussion of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ended the year pretty consistently,\u201d Spears said. \u201cOf course you want to build off that, but it\u2019s like last year is last year. What can I do now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Assuming he\u2019s activated, Spears should provide a significant third-down option out of the backfield after averaging almost three catches per contest in the first 29 games of his career.<\/p>\n
For context, starting running back Tony Pollard has just six receptions in four games this season.<\/p>\n
Ridley, meanwhile, returned to the practice field Friday after missing practice Wednesday and Thursday due to knee and elbow injuries. He was limited to 27 snaps in last Sunday\u2019s loss to Houston.<\/p>\n
Ridley has struggled through four contests this year, catching just 10 of 24 targets for 141 yards and zero touchdowns.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not unlike his start in 2024, when Ridley caught just 12 of 36 targets for 183 yards and one touchdown in his first six contests. He totaled 52 receptions for 834 yards and three touchdowns in his final 11 games.<\/p>\n
Is it possible he presses too much early in seasons?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t see any parallels. I think two very different years,\u201d Callahan said. \u201cLike to see more production from him. Part of that’s [on me] to get the ball to him more.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s had his struggles … over the first couple weeks, so those numbers could be better than they were. But at the moment, I think he\u2019s just trying to find his way in and settle in helping us, and we’ll keep finding ways getting him the ball. He’s going to be a big part of us getting going on offense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Titans may have running back Tyjae Spears and wide receiver Calvin Ridley available for Sunday\u2019s game at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[6920,1811,26426,4048,7,6,526,394,71447,2411,527,10562,10555],"class_list":{"0":"post-418775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-blake-hance","9":"tag-brian-callahan","10":"tag-bryce-oliver","11":"tag-calvin-ridley","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-tennessee","15":"tag-tennessee-titans","16":"tag-tennessee-titans-season","17":"tag-tennesseetitans","18":"tag-titans","19":"tag-tony-pollard","20":"tag-tyjae-spears"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115314500780700558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}