Titans Guard Daniel Brunskill 'Feels Great,' Ready to Go With Improving Offensive Line

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Titans learned the hard way last year how quickly injuries along the offensive line — and the subsequent atrocious play that followed — can derail a season. The Titans' 7-10 season that included a seven-game losing streak to end the season had a lot to with the poor play up front.

During the offseason, the Titans did a complete rebuild across the front, and there are now new starters at all five positions.

The goal is for that group to be much improved this year, and we've already seen some good things during the preseason.

Now, they just need to stay healthy.

That's why there was a bit of a concern last Friday night when starting right guard Daniel Brunskill injured a knee during the preseason game and went to the locker room early, never to return. 

Brunskill brushed off the injury though, saying Monday that it's not serious. He didn't practice on Monday, but only as a precaution. He said he's confident that he will be ready to go when the Titans open the regular season on Sept 10 with a road game in New Orleans against the Saints.

"I feel good. I'll be all right,'' Brunskill said in the Titans' locker room before practice. "It's the coach's decision for when I get back out there, but it's all about being ready for Week 1. It was a preseason game, so it was just all about taking care of myself and going in and getting ice. There was nothing, just normal routine.''

That's a good sign for the 29-year-old Brunskill, who played in San Francisco the past four years and also spent two years with the Atlanta Falcons at the beginning of his career. He was a key addition, and he's played well so far, especially the past few weeks after some early struggles in practice against the Titans' vaunted defensive front.

"I think it's gone good. There's definitely some growing pains as you go through it because you've got five brand new guys,'' Brunskill said. "At the end of the day, how many reps can you get in? You want to get as many reps together as you can. 

"I've never been on a line with all new guys, and when we start running plays, we'll continue to tweak this as you go along. We're growing every day, and getting better and communicating. We're getting more and more comfortable.''

Brunskill said that everyone is adapting well to first-year offensive coordinator Tim Kelly's offense. It helps that his line mates — outside of first-round pick Peter Skoronski — have some NFL experience. Left tackle Andre Dillard — a former first-round pick — spent four years with the Philadelphia Eagles, and right tackle Chris Hubbard has been in the league with Pittsburgh and Cleveland since 2013. Aaron Brewer, who's sliding over from guard to center, has been with the Titans since 2020.

"Most offenses are pretty complex and it does help that we've all been through different schemes before,''Brunskill said. "We'll run a play, and when defenses might react a certain way, one of us can say 'we've done this before.' We talk about that a lot. We have a lot of great communication in that room.''

Brunskill also likes that they've improved every week of training camp. They scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the Chicago game against the Bears' first team defense, they rushed for 281 yards against the Vikings and had three long drives Friday night in the 23-7 win over the Patriots.

"I think we've done a good job of responding well as things go on. You've seen a lot of good things the past couple of weeks,'' Brunskill said. "At Minnesota, they were throwing everything at us, and the second day we responded really well. Same with New England, they were playing nickel a lot, more than we expected. But we made adjustments and responded really well.

"Now we can capitalize on the mistakes we've made and fix the kinks in the armor, as we say. This week it's all about continuing to build on what we have, and now that we're game-planning, we can factor all that in to Week 1. 

Brunskill has played against the Saints before, and he knows how coach Dennis Allen and his staff like to do things. 

'The Saints don't change too much, but they'll always try to get at you some way,'' he said. "I remember when we played them in 2020, they came at us nickel most of the time and we had to adjust to that. I'm sure they'll bring something new in Week 1, and we'll had have to make adjustments on the fly and figure it all out.

"I'm confident that we'll run our plays. Defenses aren't giving you the same exact looks all the time, and they'll use different techniques. The first drive, we might have a great drive, or we might have a crappy drive. That's the biggest thing about an NFL game, being able to adjust on the fly. We do need to lock in on some of our base plays and fix those, but once we're game-planning and we can see the looks we're preparing for, we'll be ready.''

Continuity is key with offensive lines, and Brunskill and his mates are getting more and more comfortable every day.

 "As we've gone on (through training camp), we've figured out what the guy next to you likes to do, and I think we've had good cohesion with each other,'' Brunskill said. "We're all working as a unit, and that's what offensive line play is all about, doing things together.''

First-round pick Peter Skoronski is the only guy with no NFL experience, but Brunskill calls him and ''old rookie.'' He's adapting well to the pro game, Brunskill said, and he asks a lot of questions, both on the field and in the meeting rooms. 

The two guards, they talk often, and they're getting a lot out of each other.

"Peter and I have had a few one on ones, and he is great about asking questions,'' Brunskill said. "At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how old you are or how young you are. I can learn things from him, too, seeing what he's doing out there. You can help him too by telling him when you see an NFL defense setting up this way, this is what they're trying to do.

"He's very mature, there's no doubt about that. He's a hell of a kid and I'm looking forward to watching him play. He's going to have a great career.''