Music City Miracles
The Tennessee Titans are coming off their best offensive line performance of the campaign. The Titans rushed for 184 yards in Sunday’s 31-29 Week 14 victory over the Cleveland Browns. Tony Pollard rushed for a career-high 161 yards and two touchdowns, scores of 65 and 32 yards respectively.
Rookie quarterback Cam Ward was sacked just once despite facing the potential sack record-breaker in Myles Garrett. Also, 90 of Pollard’s rushing yards occurred before contact, per Next Gen Stats, proving the offensive line was creating rushing lanes.
All of this was achieved without starting center Lloyd Cushenberry in the lineup.
Cushenberry has missed two consecutive weeks with a foot injury. He’s been replaced by veteran Titans fan favorite Corey Levin in the lineup. The offensive line has been better with Levin as opposed to Cushenberry, who entered this season coming off a catastrophic 2024 torn Achilles injury.
Cushenberry has struggled, to be expected, given last year’s injury. Levin is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent, but the former Chattanooga standout has been a Titan for the majority of his career and could easily be re-signed to a team-friendly deal. The Titans should also be careful to overreact and make Levin a permanent starter, something he’s never been considered to be in his career.
But you can’t help but wonder if Mike Borgonzi will consider releasing Cushenberry this offseason. He inherited his four-year, $50 million contract from Ran Carthon. Borgonzi has already severed ties with several Carthon acquisitions. Cutting Cushenberry would create $8 million in additional cap space if designated as a post-June move, per Over The Cap.
There was also this interesting tidbit from senior team editor Jim Wyatt in a recent mailbag. “As for the o-line group next year, I suspect three of the five will be back,” Wyatt wrote. Doing some simple math, it’s essentially a guarantee that Peter Skoronski, JC Latham, and Dan Moore Jr. will return next season. Wyatt could be hinting that Cushenberry and free-agent-to-be Kevin Zeitler will potentially be replaced.
Alternatively, upgrading Cushenberry would be difficult. In-house option Jackson Slater seems destined to replace Zeitler at right guard, though it’s difficult to say what his long-term potential is considering we haven’t seen him play yet. Replacing Cushenberry adequately would probably mean the Titans are drafting a center highly, or paying someone like Tyler Linderbaum (who probably won’t actually hit free agency) handsomely.
Cushenberry could also improve next season, another year removed from his Achilles injury. The Titans have a difficult decision to make with Cushenberry’s status this coming offseason. Right now, they’re better off with Levin in the lineup despite the vast difference in their salaries.
