Titans standing pat at trade deadline amounts to waving the white flag on 2022

Any chance the Titans had at making a run in the playoffs died upon the passing of the trade deadline on Tuesday, when the team made no moves.

The Tennessee Titans desperately needed to add some help to their offensive line and wide receivers rooms, but as the Nov. 1 trade deadline came and went at 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, the team was silent.

The Titans will not be adding to their biggest needs for the second half of the season and instead will keep things status quo. That means relying on terrible players to play better, injured players to get healthy, and players picked off the scrap heap to step up.

The problem with all that is there is nobody coming to save this team at left tackle, and the eventual returns of injured wideouts like Treylon Burks and Kyle Philips are hardly exciting given they weren’t doing much to begin with.

One reason the Titans likely didn’t make a move is their salary cap situation, which has them with just $2 million to spend, and in 2023 the Titans are in the red, according to Over the Cap.

Not an ideal situation for Tennessee, as their impressive 2019 draft class with the exception of Jeffery Simmons is hitting free agency in 2023, and he’ll likely get extended before hitting the market in 2024.

Of course, there are always ways to work around the salary cap if a team really wants to, but clearly the Titans don’t want to. They are intent on moving ahead with their soft rebuild.

What this all means is the Titans are simply letting it ride for 2022 and don’t plan on seriously contending for a title. After all, no team can contend with what Tennessee has going on on offense right now.

The Titans will still make the postseason because they simply suck the least out of the putrid AFC South teams, but their already paper-thin hopes of making a run in the playoffs ended at 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

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