Thirty Years Says Titans Receiver Depth Is Usually a Summer Illusion

Training camp always produces intriguing Titans receivers. Thirty years covering the franchise says real depth isn't revealed by summer highlights. It's revealed when the fourth receiver has to make a season-defining play.

By PAUL KUHARSKY

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Every camp produces multiple interesting receiver stories. 

A rookie. A veteran looking reborn. Maybe an undrafted free agent. 

We add them together.

We mistake them for real depth. We start believing the Titans have finally solved the position.

Then September arrives.

Thirty years says this is one of the biggest annual illusions around this franchise.

Receiver has been a trouble position for the Titans for the team’s entire existence in Tennessee. 

Derrick Mason was drafted as an Oiler and had an excellent career. Drew Bennett was a quality find. Nate Washington was an excellent signing. AJ Brown was a shooting star.

Much more frequent have been underachieving picks, big-time athletes who didn’t understand nuance and free-agent hope that didn’t pan out.

Every August, optimism fills the vacuum created by decades of not truly solving the position.

In training camp right now, the team looks to have a quality trio at the top with rookie contested-catch expert Carnell Tate, high-volume Wan’Dale Robinson and a healthy Calvin Ridley. The depth is keyed by Chim Dike and Elic Ayomanor, who showed promise as 2025 fourth-rounders.

Ayomanor looks to have made significant gains since last year. He's improved his playing posture, starting with more forward lean, and he's been reliable, making multiple quality catches in camp. He left Thursday's practice with a shoulder injuty that needs to be evaluated. Ideally, he or Dike becomes the kind of fourth receiver who can push Ridley and help give the Titans uncommon strength at Nos. 4 and 5 that can move up the depth chart in a year. And maybe, depth is completely different this time around.

But we've said that before and we need to see it happen in games, not let camp convince us it is already present.

Will things really be different than they’ve been in the past?

What Real Receiver Depth Looks Like

Real depth doesn't reveal itself in camp. It shows itself in the season. And it rarely shows up in Tennessee. 

Receiver depth isn't having six guys who impress in camp. It's having the fourth receiver make the catch when the season is on the line.

Thirty years offers plenty of examples:

The 2003 AFC Championship Game in Oakland. Bennett was banged up and Justin McCareins suffered a concussion. Still within a touchdown in the third quarter, the Raiders blew coverage on third-and-25 and Steve McNair hit Eddie Berlin in the numbers for what would have been a 76-yard touchdown. Berlin dropped it and the Titans wound up losing by 17.

A 2018 game in Buffalo: On a third-and-4, down 10-6, Marcus Mariota scrambled and found Nick Williams open in the end zone, but Williams dropped the ball.

Khalif Raymond, effective at other big moments, slipped on a crucial play in the 2020 Wild Card playoff game at Baltimore, yielding a game-sealing pick to Marcus Peters. It looked like this:

INTERCEPTION MP JUICE MAN @marcuspeters. ‼️‼️

📺: https://t.co/wNrNNZ9crp pic.twitter.com/E4TGJjDO7g

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 10, 2021

Mason Kinsey failed to make two plays that could have been a big help against the Texans in Week 11 last year. 

It's not to say the Titans never get anything from their down-the-depth-chart receivers.

Marcus Johnson flipped a game against the Saints in 2021 with a 50-yard catch and run; Justin Gage pulled in a big free-play third and long for Kerry Collins in a crucial late-season game in Pittsburgh in 2008; Lavelle Hawkins kept Vince Young's legendary 99-yard game-winning drive against the Cardinals alive in 2009 with a big fourth-down catches.

Over thirty years, the difference between camp depth and real depth has usually shown up when the season was on the line.

Thirty Years of the Same Receiver Pattern

The Titans have drafted or signed zero First Team All-Pro wide receivers.

Through six head coaches and an interim, through six general managers, the position has been an issue from top to bottom, with brief breaks but no long-term breakthroughs. At times they weren’t trying a great deal, content to have Frank Wycheck or Delanie Walker featured prominently instead. 

Just before the conversion from Oilers to Titans, the franchise chose Kevin Dyson over Randy Moss in 1998 to avoid the eventual Hall of Famer’s issues and has generally steered clear of diva types. 

They went through a phase where they loved high-end athletes like Justin Hunter and Dorial Green-Beckham, who simply couldn’t refine their games in the way needed to play with the necessary nuance. 

They spent premium picks on Corey Davis and Treylon Burks without getting franchise-changing returns.

They traded up for Dez Fitzpatrick in 2021, leaving Amon-Ra St. Brown on the board. 

Beyond the lack of star power, Nashville has long fallen in love with the underdog receiver, perhaps dating to Drew Bennett's unlikely rise from undrafted quarterback in 2001 to 1,000-yard receiver.

The vast majority of popular preseason longshots produced little meaningful in the regular season: Biren Early, Michael Preston, Tre McBride, Chester Rodgers, Marcus Johnson, Mason Kinsey, Xavier Restrepo (yet). Khalif Raymond was a nice exception. He had two years of experience when he arrived in 2019 and made some meaningful plays, including a touchdown catch in a playoff upset in Baltimore. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine grew into something.

The 2020 Buccaneers showed what real depth looks like. Beyond Mike Evans and Chris Godwin,  Antonio Brown and Scotty Miller has meaningful moments. Tyler Johnson showed up in the the playoffs.

Lots of times teams regarded as deep are just top-heavy and healthy. See the Bengals in 2021 with Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd.

Now in Tennessee, we watch Bryce Oliver, Xavier Restrepo and KJ Osborn because we know there will be winners and losers. But there is minimal room, and the winner will land primarily on special teams.

If the Titans are really counting on any of them, it means something went wrong with Tate, Robinson or Ridley.

The camp-attention to game-opportunity ratio is always skewed. The Bennetts and NWIs are rarities.

More common are camps like 2021, when Johnson and Rodgers were deserving of daily buzz.

In August.

Then Johnson got hurt and hardly played. Rodgers caught 30 passes and wasn’t impactful.

Now, it’s a more receiver-driven league than it’s ever been. The Titans believe Tate can become the first receiver they've drafted since AJ Brown to change the trajectory of the position.

Maybe Oliver becomes something. Maybe Restrepo sticks. Maybe Osborn has one more good season left.

I'll watch all of them.

I always do.

But thirty years says the real test isn't what happens in July.

It's whether the fourth receiver makes the catch when the season depends on it.