NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Titans have seen an unbelievable amount of injuries during the past two seasons. In 2021, they set the record for most players used on a roster with 91 and in 2022 they put a league-leading 34 players on injured reserve. You would think that would cause a change to the approach to conditioning for the team, but has it?
It is a fair question to wonder after some of the answers we heard from new Titans' players at Tuesday's press event. Free-agent signings Azeez Al-Shaair, Sean Murphy-Bunting and Daniel Brunskill all spoke at length about the Titans' unique approach to condition at this stage in the offseason.
Here is what Brunskill had to say and it leaves you to wonder whether this is the new approach or whether this is a continuance of what the Titans have been doing.
"Every team has a different philosophy," Brunskill explained. "Some teams, make sure guys aren't getting injured. They're kind of just doing enough to like where, guys are in shape and able to do the things that they can. There are some teams, you heard Azeez talk about callous. There's definitely a philosophy of, sometimes doing not enough, just to stay healthy, is good to a certain point, but then you start to get going and you see injuries happen that way."
Brunskill went on to explain what the Titans' approach has been.
"There's another philosophy where, you work super hard and you kind of build that callous, so then those things don't hurt as bad and then, you don't get those same injuries that you would because you weren't doing enough. At the end of the day it's just different philosophies."
Brunskill also talked about how he thinks the philosophy the Titans are using is what fits their play style the best.
"This team is a run-the-ball team. A play-hard-defense team and we are going to take our shots downfield. We got playmakers at the receiver position that if we can get them in some space and use the run game to do that a little bit, we can make big plays. So, this is probably more of a team that needs that callous because we're going to be playing grind-it-out football." Brunskill finished, "I think with the team that we are, it's a really good thing to have the conditioning, that callous, to be able to go longer than any other team."
So, is this the approach the Titans have been taking the past two years? If so, no wonder the team gets worn down and beat to a pulp by midseason each year. If this is a new philosophy, then the hope has to be different results on the injury front. Sounds like a good question for Mike Vrabel. Let's see if it gets answered.
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