The Tennessee Titans made their first salary cap move today.
Some cuts are inevitable when a team is in the position that the Tennessee Titans are in, which is one reason why the team said goodbye to running back Dion Lewis today.
This was a move that everyone saw coming and many people thought that it made sense for the Titans to cut the veteran before the 2019 season. Something that is interesting about all this is that Dion Lewis was believed to be a good signing prior to this season.
After racking up some yards in 2018 with the Titans, people who didn’t watch a lot of Tennessee football expected him to bounce back in 2019. While I didn’t see that happening, there was something to the idea that in New England he had been better than what he showed in his first season with the Titans.
Whether we chalk it up to confidence issues or overthinking things, Lewis didn’t necessarily look slower or weaker, but in the open field he was just less decisive. In fact, in 2018 there was a time where the 5’8 Dion Lewis was the better of the two RBs between the tackles, while the 6’3 Derrick Henry was the better of the two in the open field, which defies logic and explains how rough that season was for a while,
Meanwhile… the #Titans are officially releasing RB Dion Lewis, source said. Not a surprise, as his playing time fell off dramatically this year and they plan to bring back Derrick Henry at a big number.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 12, 2020
This is a cautionary tale that:
1. Just because a player fits with another team, doesn’t mean that you can just plug that player in to any offense and expect him to work the same.
2. Running back’s drop off hard when they drop off and if you are investing a lot of money in one, you need to give yourself an out like this.
Maybe the most important thing to take away from this is that the Titans have just two running backs under contract for 2020: Dalyn Dawkins and someone named Shaun Wilson?
Oh yea, and now the Titans have $53.7 million in cap space instead of $50 million and this could be the first in a series of cuts that end up with a new deal for big name, impending free agents before the start of the new league year.