Two of the stranger things about the Tennessee Titans in free agency thus far has been the team not announcing reported signings of outside free agents as other teams have done, and we still don’t have exact contract details for two of the signings the team has made.
Of course, the team will never release contract details, but usually they are reported rather quickly upon a player signing. That has not been the case for offensive tackle Andre Dillard and offensive lineman Daniel Brunskill.
Granted, we do know Dillard’s deal is three years and $29 million, but we don’t have information on his guaranteed money. With Brunskill, his two-year deal remains a mystery entirely.
While we continue to wait on the contract details, Jim Wyatt of Titans Online did shed some light on why we haven’t heard anything from the team outside of the deals with their own free agents.
Chris Davis from Jackson, Tennessee
Question: With a lot of the NFL teams getting players off the free agency, any reason why the Titans have been 98% silent on signing anyone? Thank you for letting Titan nation to ask questions!
Jim: Hey Chris. The Titans haven’t been 98% silent, I promise. But let me explain why you haven’t seen some of the reported deals on this web site, or on my Twitter feed. As a team, I guess you could say we’re on the conservative side as far as releasing news at this time of the year. While the team has announced new deals for some of its own players, it hasn’t for free agents previously with other teams. And, here’s why: Leading up to the start of free agency, the league doesn’t want teams announcing they’ve “agreed to terms” with players from other teams for a number of reasons, including “tampering” concerns. While some other teams have announced they’ve agreed to terms with players since the new league year officially began on Wednesday with a “pending a physical” attachment, the Titans, in most cases, prefer to wait until the player comes in and passes a physical, and then officially signs, before announcing the roster move. So, while at least five players have reached verbal deals with the team (as national reporters have reported) the team won’t make some of these moves official until a day or so from now. It’s my understanding the new players will be in town soon. So, stay tuned. I can assure you no one in the front office was on vacation last week.
There you have it. It looks like we can expect a formal announcement of the Titans’ moves any day now, and press conferences for those signings should follow, as is normally the case.
And, perhaps more details about the contracts of Dillard and Brunskill will surface around the time that happens, but that’s just speculation on my part.
