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Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Byard spoke to the media on Thursday after Day 3 of mandatory minicamp, his first media availability since news broke earlier this offseason that he refused the team’s request to take a pay cut.
There was some thought that perhaps Byard’s absence from the voluntary part of the offseason program, which was a departure from years past, was somehow related to that, but he made it clear that is not the case and he planned this approach before the pay cut request from the team.
“I want to address OTAs and things like that,” Byard began, according to Terry McCormick of Titan Insider. “I had been in communications with the coaching staff really early in the offseason before obviously all this news and all this stuff came out,” he explained. “I was going to have my own plan and be able to train on my own. Every player on this team is in a different stage in their career. I’m very comfortable being with Shane (Bowen), being with the coaching staff for the last five years – Shane’s been the coordinator for the last four. I’m very comfortable with the defense and I’ve stayed in communication with the coaches this entire offseason about any new stuff that we had, any new nuances that were coming out within the defense.
“I had been enjoying training on my own and felt it was really important. There never really was any doubt from the coaches and on my end that was going to be here. I was going to be here for mini-camp and be the same player I’ve always been and be the same leader I’ve always been.”
As far as the actual pay cut request and his refusal to do it are concerned, Byard didn’t want to go into specifics and share his feelings on the matter.
“I don’t really want to get into my feelings and my emotions about that,” he said. “I’ll guarantee that I won’t be the last player and I haven’t been the first player to be come to about a pay cut. I let my agent and the organization, obviously Ran (Carthon), the GM, handle those things. But I felt it was very important for myself, though, to come here and be a leader and be the person I’ve always been – making plays and communicating and things like that, and that’s always who I’m going to be.”
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