Titans 53-Man Roster 2025: The most concerning story nobody is giving enough attention, and glaring proof for OL optimism

Before you decide that offensive line talk is boring and click away, what if I told you the most important questions for the Tennessee Titans in 2025 pertain to just a handful of these big boys?

This is the interior offensive line portion of an ongoing article series, breaking down the Titans projected 53-man roster one position at a time. So far we've covered quarterbacks, Kalel Mullings' role, Tyjae Spears' most important season ever, and Tony Pollard's potential ceiling.

In this installment, we have to ask the question that most are ignoring about Lloyd Cushenberry. Then, I want to explain why you should be higher on the Titans OL depth, a very important thing, than you are. Let's dive in:

Offensive Tackles

1. JC Latham
2. Dan Moore
3. John Ojukwu
4.   Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson

Cut: Jaelyn Duncan, Olisaemeka Udoh

Guards

1. Peter Skoronski
2. Kevin Zeitler
3. Jackson Slater
4. Blake Hance

Cut: Andrew Rupcich, Chandler Brewer

Centers

1. Lloyd Cushenberry 
2. Corey Levin

Cut: Sam Mustipher, Brenden Jaimes

The Cushenberry Question

We may look back in a couple of months on C Lloyd Cushenberry as the most under-discussed story of the offseason. The highly-paid 2024 free agent acquisition went down in Week 9 against the Patriots with a torn Achilles. That ended his season on November 3rd.

Week 1 of the 2025 season is September 7th in Denver, which will be just over 10 months post-injury. And while that’s within the predictive range for return to play, an Achilles injury is amongst the most finicky. So much of the concern we used to have for major injuries has been minimized or erased completely by the miracles of modern sports medicine. When a guy tore his ACL 40 years ago, there was a decent chance it could end his career. Today, we say “see ya next season”.

But the Achilles is one we still haven’t quite mastered. Some studies indicate as few as 1/3 of athletes return to the level of play they achieved before tearing an Achilles. And as many as 1/3 end up retiring. Those aren’t great odds!

So is it time to panic over Cushenberry? Well, there’s some important context here to consider. Achilles injuries are most common in older players, so a good number of those who end up retiring are sometimes nearing the twilight of their career already. Cushenberry is a spritely 27 years old, so he’s a bit of a different case than, say, 40 year old Aaron Rodgers tearing his. He is also, by all accounts, progressing well on schedule to try to play in Week 1. So maybe he’ll be one of the success stories!

I just think everybody needs to brace themselves for a couple of uncomfortable outcomes. There’s a decent chance he’s not ready for Week 1, and perhaps beyond. There’s also a decent chance that whenever he does come back, he takes time to return to a high level of play. Perhaps it’s a couple weeks. But it could easily be a couple months. How often do we point to “the year after the year” with injuries, especially in hindsight?

Depth… A Sneaky Bright Spot?

So what happens if Cushenberry can’t be your guy for a while? What happens if any of these starters on the line go down, for that matter? Well, it’s not great news. But in the NFL these days, it never is.

The Titans have legitimately serviceable interior OL depth if Cushenberry needs time, or 35 year old Kevin Zeitler gets banged up, or even if Peter Skoronski suffers an untimely injury. They have the bodies to weather the storm. C Corey Levin is the change I made in this depth chart projection, and it’s because of the way his coaches talked about him. Listen to this from Coach Callahan at the podium:

“The guy that I really think deserves some public praise is, Corey Levin, with Lloyd (Cushenberry III) being out, we brought Corey back to be able to run the show and Corey's a veteran player. He is a savvy, scrappy, intelligent interior guy that's really helped us run our offense over the course of the offseason without Lloyd. Really, really pleased with what he's done for us. Really happy that we have him because he's very capable and he started games for us at the end of the year last year and he started the games in his past. I've been very pleased with his performance. Again, if that guy is a depth piece, then that's fantastic for us.”

Well, that’s about as clear cut as it gets. Hand up, I was an idiot for leaving him off my initial projection. Should’ve known better.

He’s not the only guy that elicits confidence, though. The other change I made on this projection was moving Blake Hance to the list of guards. It’s hard to say what Hance will be for Tennessee yet. I thought he was being brought in to compete for the primary swing tackle position. But the last time he played significant tackle snaps was a while ago. When we asked his coaches about him, they indicated they’re working him in at every position on the line. So maybe he’ll just be their 6th lineman, no matter the position? August will clarify that for us. But they’re happy to have him in the fold too.

Then there’s rookie Jackson Slater, who I’m high on to develop into a starting guard in 2026. If he needs to be tapped before then in a backup role, I think he’ll be able to handle that.

At tackle, the picture is much murkier. Hance could be that guy. So could John Ojukwu, who I wrote more about in the tackle edition of this series. And then there’s rookie Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson, who I’m intrigued to see in pads. He ran the SEC gauntlet of pass rushers pretty cleanly last year, that’s all I’m saying!

All told, I’m pretty pleased with where the depth of this unit is as compared to last year. I remember when we were discussing guys like Ojukwu and Duncan as OL6/7. Now, we’re talking about them as fringe roster guys at OL9/10. That just about sums up the progress I think they’ve made here.