In the first practice since the preseason finale on Friday, the Tennessee Titans had several injured players return to the practice field on Monday.
By far the most surprising news of the day was the return of Dillon Radunz.
After suffering an ACL injury late in the season against the L.A. Chargers, the expectation was that Radunz would stay on the PUP list until the time came for him to be activated after the first month of the season.
However, Radunz was activated today and practiced with the team as they started their very early preparation for their Week 1 matchup against the New Orleans Saints. While Mike Vrabel said it was still a little early for him to get reps in the "team" portion of practice, there were several clips of Radunz practicing in the individual portion, including making contact and drive blocking.
Unfortunately he probably isn't healthy enough to take over the starting right tackle job yet, but it does give the Tennessee Titans a veteran player who can bring starter-quality play to either guard or tackle if he has to step in.
Who knows, maybe this will be the year where the Tennessee Titans coaching staff finally rights their wrongs and actually lets him play right tackle like they should have done in his rookie season and last year.
While Radunz was the biggest surprise, the most impactful return was wide receiver, Treylon Burks. It has been two weeks since the doom and gloom of the initial injury, but even after getting good news about the severity of his injury, not many people expected to see him back for this practice.
Burks is much further along than anticipated, and as long as there are no setbacks, it means that the Tennessee Titans will have Burks and DeAndre Hopkins together for the season opener.
But wait, there is more good news for the Tennessee Titans
Two other noteable returns were TE Chig Okonkwo and LB Monty Rice.
Okonkwo let practice late in the week and didn't suit up for the game against the New England Patriots, which was concerning considering that the Tennessee Titans played 15 of their 22 starters on Friday.
However, it all seems precautionary since he was at practice today, and again, that is crucial. After that scare, there was a slight possibility that the Tennessee Titans could have been without Treylon Burks, Chig Okonkwo, and Kyle Philips for Week 1, which would have been catastrophic for this offense.
Monty Rice's return is interesting because he has missed the majority of the preseason and there is a lot of speculation that he won't make the 53-man roster because of his struggles with injuries.
Rice said on Monday that it wasn't injuries that kept him out of practice during training camp, it was personal issues. It was good to see him back out on the field and we will see where it goes from here, but hopefully, he has gotten those issues resolved and he is on a positive path from now on.