Tennessee Titans: 30 greatest players in franchise history

• 4x Pro Bowl (1997-00)
• First-Team All-Pro (2000)
• 1996 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year
• Second-Team All-Pro (1999)
• 10,009 career rushing yards w/Oilers/Titans

Eddie George is synonymous with greatness in Titans uniform. The 1995 Heisman Trophy winner was drafted No. 14 overall by the Oilers in the 1996 NFL Draft out of The Ohio State University. George spent his first eight NFL seasons in Oilers/Titans uniform. All he did was pound the rock and be a leader for this franchise.

George was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 1996 for Houston. The Oilers were leaving town, but that didn’t matter to George. He rushed for 1,368 yards on 335 carries for eight touchdowns. While he came up short of the Pro Bowl that season, he made it the next four years from 1997 to 2000.

George ended up rushing for over 1,000 yards in seven of his eight seasons with the Oilers/Titans. The lone exception came in 2001, as he was with 100 yards of that benchmark at 939. Reliable as any running back in that era, George never missed a start in his eight years with the team, appearing in the maximum of 128 regular season games over that stretch.

During his prime as a player with the Oilers/Titans, the franchise could count on George to rush for over 1,300 yards on well over 300 carries in a 16-game season. He was the bell-cow back that Tennessee needed to build its most successful roster around in the last quarter century.

Obviously, George was a huge reason the Titans made it all the way to Super Bowl XXXIX in 1999. Though the Titans came up a yard short of beating the then-St. Louis Rams in the old Georgia Dome, George backed up that season with his best year as a professional in 2000.

That fall saw George make his fourth and final Pro Bowl, earning his lone spot on the All-Pro First-Team. George carried the ball a league-best 403 times for a career-high 1,509 yards and a career-high 14 rushing touchdowns. Though he rushed for over 1,000 yards two more times in his final three seasons with the Titans, George was clearly on the back-nine after being overworked in 2000.

After a pair of 1,000-yard rushing seasons in 2002 and 2003, George was released by the Titans after refusing to take a pay cut by then-owner Bud Adams. George played his last NFL season with the 2004 Dallas Cowboys, and a lackluster one at that, before retiring.

Overall, George is the franchise record holder in 28 departments in Oilers/Titans franchise history. These include most career rushing yards (10,009), most career touchdowns (74) and most career yards from scrimmage (12,153). George has been eligible for Canton enshrinement since 2010, but has yet to be named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. While he may never get there, George is a Titans legend and one of the best running backs in the NFL during the late 1990s.