Waiver Claim Helps Reinforce Defensive Line

Freedom wasn’t free for long.

The Tennessee Titans claimed Freedom Akinmoladun off waivers Monday. The Cincinnati Bengals released the 25-year-old defensive lineman a day earlier.

The move helps restock the defensive line, which lost a member earlier in the day when Anthony Rush was placed on the Reserve-COVID 19 list. Rush was one of two defensive linemen who played at least 30 snaps in Saturday’s 34-3 preseason victory at Tampa Bay.

Two others, Larrell Murchison and Kyle Peko, were not available for the day’s practice. Murchison did not play against the Buccaneers, and Peko played sparingly before he went to the sideline with an apparent injury.

The addition of Akinmoladun gives Tennessee 82 players on the active roster. The limit drops to 80 on Tuesday afternoon, which means two players must be released or otherwise moved by that time.

Akinmoladun (6-foot-3, 284 pounds), an undrafted free agent out of Nebraska in 2019, appeared in two games each of the last two years for Cincinnati. He has been credited with two tackles for his career.

He broke in with the New York Giants and spent time on the Giants’ and Bengals’ practice squads in 2019 before he made his NFL debut in the next-to-last week of that year’s regular season. In 2020, he saw action in two of Cincinnati’s first four games but spent the rest of the campaign on the practice squad.

The Titans have one preseason game remaining, Saturday at home against the Chicago Bears, before it settles on its 53-man roster for the regular season. Defensive line has been one of the more competitive position groups to date, and it won’t be easy for Akinmoldun to do enough to stick around given that he won’t have much time to showcase himself.