Tennessee Titans offensive lineman Nicholas Petit-Frere is being counted on at right tackle after missing most of the 2023 season due to injury and suspension.

-- Photo By Mark Zaleski | Ap

Now that the Titans have settled who will start on the offensive line, it is a matter of getting those five guys to play well together in order to finally solve a problem that has plagued this team the previous two seasons.

Nicholas Petit-Frere came off the physically unable to perform (PUP) list to reclaim the right tackle job that was his as a rookie two years ago. His 2023 season was limited him to three games between a gambling suspension and a shoulder injury.

At right guard, the Titans have settled on Dillon Radunz, who at long last has found a position to call his own. In Radunz’s first three seasons, he has gone from an overwhelmed rookie who didn’t win a job in camp to utility player, playing both guard and tackle last year. He also has a torn ACL that cost him the end of his second year.

Those two, along with center Lloyd Cushenberry, left guard Peter Skoronski and rookie left tackle JC Latham, are tasked with learning Bill Callahan’s ways and improving.

After a bit of a shaky start in camp, the unit seems to have made needed strides throughout preseason and looked good in the preseason finale at New Orleans.

The “competitions” that were supposed to materialize in camp never really did, except for the time Radunz battled Saahdiq Charles. Then Charles abruptly retired. The only competitions appear to have been to see who will be the three or four backups who make the 53-man roster.

And from a communications and chemistry standpoint, perhaps that isn’t a bad thing.

Head coach Brian Callahan says communication is of the utmost importance, something the Titans hope can grow over the course of the season.

“Centers and guards and guards and tackles that play together, there’s sort of a sense of what’s going to happen,” Callahan says. “They play enough together, they feel whether they’re snapping off a stunt or they’re making a call, or sometimes they don’t get the call out and the defense is moving.

“It’s those things where the chemistry and communication really come into play and playing together for a long period of time benefits you because you just have a great understanding of what the guy next to you is doing,” he continues. “You can certainly play together and not have it, but there’s a benefit to the continuity of spending a lot of time playing together in that regard, you just understand what’s happening with the other person. There’s not a lot of communication that has to happen, you just know because you’ve played with them for so long.”

Callahan says he intentionally left the first-team offensive line in for longer than the skill position players in the preseason finale Sunday versus the Saints, just to get them more work together.

“The intent of the offensive line was to play a considerable amount more. We have a young offensive line and they need reps together,” he says.