Jurrell Casey returns to Nashville to be the Tennessee Titans 12th man

The Tennessee Titans have had six-straight winning seasons, so it is easy to forget just how grim things were before Amy Adams Strunk took over the team and hired GM Jon Robinson.

For comparison’s sake, the ownership changed hands in 2016 and in the six seasons since the Titans have won 59 games. In the six seasons before that, Tennessee only won 33 games and only had one winning season.

One of the things that happens when a team is that bad is that leaders and good players get overlooked by the national media, but they become cherished by a fan base desperate to rally around something.

Titans’ greats ended up not getting the credit they deserved by having some or all of their careers in Nashville covered by these seasons. Guys like Michael Roos, David Stewart, Derrick Morgan, Nate Washington, and Jason McCourty all come to mind.

The two players who really suffered through the bad and barely got to enjoy the good before injuries caught up to them were Delanie Walker and Jurrell Casey.

If you don’t think the league slept on Jurrell Casey, let me remind you how bad it was. In 2013 (his third season) Casey had 10.5 sacks in 15 games. Here is a list of every defensive tackle with 10+ sacks in 15 or fewer games, that didn’t make the Pro Bowl:

-1961: Roger Brown

-2013: Jurrell Casey

-2020: Stephon Tuitt

Luckily, the Titans started winning games while Jurrell Casey was still in his prime and the NFL was forced to pay attention which paved the way for his 5 Pro Bowls.

Rebuilding the relationship between the Tennessee Titans and Jurrell Casey.

Unfortunately, the Tennessee Titans were forced to make a business decision at the end of his career and he was going to make too much money for a team that had positions they needed to address. They traded him to the Denver Broncos for a 7th round pick (which was indicative of his contract and not his talent) and he only played three more NFL games before being placed on I.R.

This season he signed a deal to retire as a Titan, which was as nice for Casey as it was for the Tennessee Titans fans that loved and supported him for all of those years.

Players like Taylor Lewan praise him as a player and as a teammate while Jeffery Simmons says that he and Casey still talk regularly. That is why both fans and former teammates should be thrilled that he is scheduled to be the 12th Titan on Saturday when the Tennessee Titans host the Cincinnati Bengals.

Casey never got a chance to be on a team that hosted a playoff game, but as a Titan for life, he is going to get some small sliver of that experience this weekend. Between the playoff excitement, the return of Derrick Henry, and Jurrell Casey’s homecoming, it is going to be a wild time at Nissan Stadium.