Tennessee Titans wide receiver Adam Humphries had a rough first season in Nashville after missing six games (including playoffs) due to injury and not producing to the level you’d expect for a player making $9 million per year.
However, that really wasn’t Humphries’ fault.
Of course, he had to deal with an injury, but he’s also a receiver in a run-heavy offense and saw a shade under four targets per contest over 12 games. He ultimately finished with 37 catches for 374 yards and two touchdowns.
It was never realistic to expect he’d match his career-best numbers from his final season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (76 catches, 816 yards and five touchdowns), a team that sported a pass-heavy offense.
The 27-year-old was still able to come up with some big grabs, though, including a game-winning touchdown in the Week 10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
As he recently told Jim Wyatt of Titans Online, Humphries slowly became more and more comfortable in the team’s offense as the season progressed, which should put him in a better position to succeed in 2020.
“Obviously coming into a new team, you’re not sure what your role is going to be and how you are going to play a part in the team’s success,” Humphries said. “But slowly I started to feel comfortable in the offense, with the way (OC) Arthur (Smith) was calling plays, and what they expected of me day in and day out. And the consistency at quarterback with Tannehill, too – the communication with him was great.”
Going into his second season with the Titans, Humphries is looking forward to building on his relationship and chemistry with Ryan Tannehill. If successful, he could see an increase in targets in his second season.
“I am excited to continue to build on that communication and that relationship with him over the next few seasons. I am optimistic coming out of the season. Obviously, we had great team success, and personally I felt more comfortable in the offense as the season progressed.”
With Tannehill entering training camp as the backup in 2019, he didn’t have a lot of time with the starting unit, so he was really forced to build chemistry with his pass-catchers on the fly. Things will obviously be different this time around, with Tannehill being the unquestioned starter.
Humphries called the foot injury that forced him to miss all that time “unfortunate” and also praised the talented group of wideouts around him.
“It was unfortunate to have that (injury), but everything happens for a reason,” Humphries said. “And now I am excited to build that relationship with Tannehill, and we have a great group of receivers, too.”
While we should certainly expect more from Humphries in Year 2, his ceiling will always be limited because of the plethora of options Tannehill has at his disposal and the overall make-up of the Titans’ run-heavy offense.
As a result, Humphries, who makes $9.75 million in 2021 and a whopping $11.25 million in 2022, could become a cap casualty before he gets to the end of his contract.
