Boom or bust season for Titans running back in 2025 who has one last shot to insert himself into Tennessee's future plans

2025 is the biggest year of Tyjae Spears' football career.

This is the 2nd running back portion of an ongoing article series, breaking down the Titans projected 53-man roster one position at a time. If you missed the Quarterback edition, you can read that here. And the first RB installment on what Kalel Mullings will actually be is out too.

But in this one, I want to talk about one of the more polarizing players on the Titans roster. Tyjae Spears is going to make this team no doubt, but what he makes of this season will potentially chart the course for the rest of his career. He has the next 17 games to convince the Titans he should be in their plans. Let's talk about it:

Running Backs

1. Tony Pollard
2. Tyjae Spears
3. Kalel Mullings

Cut: Julius Chestnut, Tyrion Davis-Price

Do-Or-Die Season For Spears

Tyjae Spears is entering his third NFL season, and though it’s not the final year of his cost-controlled rookie contract, in a lot of ways it feels like his chance to put-up or shut-up.

I like Tyjae a lot. I became an instant fan of his when the Senior Bowl put him on my radar pre-draft, and have been tantalized by his flashes since joining the Titans. His professional highlight reel has some explosive, electric tape on it already. The problem, of course, is consistency and availability.

Last year he dealt with an ankle, a hamstring, and two concussions that kept him from ever hitting any kind of a stride. With Tony Pollard’s future in Tennessee completely up in the air after this year—the last $3M of his guaranteed money hits in 2025 and the team has an out this spring that will cost them nothing—this is the time for Spears to force his team to keep him in their plans going forward.

When we asked his coaches about him this spring, they had particularly positive things to say. Here’s what Brian Callahan left us with in Minicamp:

“I'm glad you asked that question because one of the things about Tyjae (Spears) is I heard a lot about Tyjae when I got here, about the type of person and the player that he was. And we've had conversations, but he did have a challenging year, both personally and professionally and there was some things that we've had to sit and visit about on different occasions.

I give a lot of credit to him because he's had an unbelievable offseason in terms of his energy, his effort, his clarity and what he wants to get done. So I've been really pleased with where Tyjae is at. He's a great example and it's not something that maybe is easy for you guys to see but his personal growth I think has been outstanding. And I'm really excited to see what he can bring to us this year because he's been in a great place and he's had a really nice offseason.”

It's good news for Spears that his coaches are this optimistic about him still, as he'll be given ample opportunity to show out on Sundays. If he can stay healthy (a big "if"), he could rewrite his story in a big way in 2025.