5 bold predictions for the Tennessee Titans 53-man roster after the preseason
By Will Lomas
4 . Kalif Raymond makes the roster as WR6 over Taywan Taylor
I go back and forth on this one, but I am going to go back and use Cameron Batson vs Deontay Burnett as a comparison.
In the preseason, both Batson and Burnett saw a rise in offensive snaps on a week to week basis (except for one dip for Burnett from Week 1 to Week 2). This is their trend and then the trend we are seeing from Taylor and Raymond.
Offensive snaps:
2018 Batson: 18->21->27->36
2018 Burnett: 24->21->29->30
2019 Taylor: 32-34->21
2019 Raymond 29->22->32
Neither is going straight up like Batson was, but Raymond’s largest deficit was smaller and his biggest rise from week to week was larger.
Maybe that is just a coincidence, but what stands out even more was special teams snaps. Look at the total special teams snaps by the four players so far.
2018 Batson: 31
2018 Burnett: 2
2019 Taylor: 5
2019 Raymond: 17
The Titans don’t seem to think that Taylor can help on special and without any sort of great performance to this point on offense, it seems like the coaching staff will lean towards the guy who can get on the field on Sunday’s.
When you see it laid out like that seems easy enough, but after Raymond’s lack of production over the last few weeks people are starting to wonder if the first week was a flash in the pan. While they may be right, the real numbers to watch are his snaps on special teams.