How the Tennessee Titans should feel about Rishard Matthews

The curious end of Rishard Matthews and the Tennessee Titans.

So, this is weird but I am sure that you have all seen by now that the Tennessee Titans and Rishard Matthews have parted ways.

I know it seems strange, but this isn’t out of nowhere. Reportedly Matthews has been frustrated with the Titans before and he has kind of had an enigmatic career.

Tennessee signed Matthews from the Miami Dolphins, despite the fact that he was productive there in minimal reps. He had a good reputations with fans and it wasn’t like that team was stacked at wide receiver.

It seemed like an underrated signing and it paid great dividends. In his first season he was nearly a 1,000 yard receiver and he looked like a steal.

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Then it started getting weird.

Last year I thought it was strange that Matthews missed time with personal reasons, but who knows right? Stuff happens like this all the time and it gets resolved.

I remember talking to Luke Worsham and Matias Wodner before a Titans Sized podcast. I brought up how it was strange and I wondered if the Titans were going to think about moving him after the addition of Corey Davis and Taywan Taylor in the draft that year.

They dismissed it as a conspiracy theory and rightfully so. It was all conjecture and me trying to piece things together to make them fit. The Titans also had Harry Douglas, Tajae Sharpe and Eric Weems. So 6 WRs seemed like a lot and maybe they would make a move to sure up the pass rush or get a new linebacker.

Anyway, that came and went and nothing happened. Then this offseason it happened again. Well, not exactly the same, but he was down with an undisclosed injury that none of us really know the deal with to this day. All I know is that by all accounts he looked fine, but couldn’t practice day after day.

So when he came back and was with the team to start the season, I was a little surprised but it seemed like he would quickly adjust and be back to the same old Rishard Matthews. Except, then he wasn’t.

He didn’t look like the same sure-handed receiver, that was a reliable safety blanket for Marcus Mariota. Instead he just looked like another guy.

Looking back now, maybe he just didn’t but in this year or he didn’t want to play coming off the bench or if he wasn’t going to be WR1. I don’t know, but when you look at it in retrospect it seems like even though he was productive in Tennessee, maybe he was never really happy.

It all comes down to this: Do you buy into your role with the Titans?

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The answer for Rishard Matthews was no, and that was the end of his time with the Tennessee Titans.

I respect everything Matthews did for the Titans and you should two. He was one of the key pieces of the Titans offense at a time where Marcus Mariota was developing and this team was transforming from a bottom-feeder into a team that won 19 games in the past two seasons.

He was that rebuilding era’s Nate Washington, an underrated wide receiver who always popped on film and he was the one receiver that the announcers actually knew.

However, it is alright for you to be upset with how he left. It was his decision and that is fine, the NFL is a business. But this wasn’t really a business decision.

Not wanting to come off of the bench or be a role player for the team despite being paid the same amount that he was going to get paid as a starter, is not business.

Even long term, I think if he had changed his role into a dedicated 3rd down target or an outlet receiver this year and next year, he would be a 31 year old FA WR and would have made something like $14 million in that span.

There is a role for that sort of player in the NFL. Now he has thrown a (small) wrench into the Titans plans and they are now out rotational receiver.

So if I were the Titans I would be mad that he couldn’t stick it out for the rest of the season even though I assume the coaches made it clear what they thought his role would be. It might have cost someone like Deontay Burnett hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You can respect everything that he helped Tennessee become and also think that this is a bad decision at the same time. If i were the Titans, that would be my thought process right now.