Cortland Finnegan saw what could potentially be the end of his Tennessee Titans career as he cleaned out his locker on Monday.

He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But it has, and he is coping with it.

“I sat in my locker for about an hour,” Finnegan says, reflecting on his six years and countless friendships he has enjoyed with the Titans. “There’s 23 other guys in the same boat I am.

“It’s a tough thing to leave a place you got drafted to and worked your way up the food chain. You don’t know what the future holds. You would like some type of clarity on what they’d like to do, but you don’t have any, so you just move on.”

Moving on appears to be tougher for Finnegan than some of the other Titans. He was drafted by Tennessee from Division I-AA Samford as a seventh-round afterthought cornerback after playing safety in college.

“I couldn’t be more thankful that I got to live out a dream, and now it’s come to an end.”

He made an immediate impact, winning the nickelback spot in his rookie year of 2006, then taking over a starting job the next season when Adam “Pacman” Jones drew a year-long suspension for his off-field shenanigans.

Things got better for Finnegan from there. He was named to the NFL’s prestigious All-Pro team in 2008 and was rewarded with a contract extension of around $17 million.

Since then, Finnegan has endured his share of ups and downs. There was the whole “dirtiest player in the league” comments he made that came back to haunt him in 2010, a train wreck of a season that culminated in an on-field scuffle with Houston Texans receiver Andre Johnson.

Then, there was this year’s training camp walkout that lasted a weekend over his displeasure with his contract situation. Finnegan apparently had been told before the lockout that he would be taken care of. When it didn’t happen, he left camp.

Asked about those talks and if there were every any seriousness to them, he said, “None worth mentioning, no.”

Finnegan apologized and then tried to move past that, and seemed to when he was voted a team captain.

“Whatever happened then happened, and I tried to move on past that. The team entrusted me being a captain, and that thing was pushed to the side. So we’ll see what happens,” he said. “I think in six years I’ve overcome a lot, being voted captain here and things of that nature leadership-wise. We’ll see what the future holds.”

Finnegan has made Nashville home. It’s where he found his wife and where his daughter was born. But he also knows the NFL is a nothing if not a cut-throat business, and the business end of the game is what he is feeling right now as the negotiating window with the Titans slowly shrinks.

As far back as July, when the lockout finally ended, Finnegan was preparing and saying that this could be his final year as a Titan. And thus far, nothing has changed his mind on that.

“Do I want to be (here)? Absolutely. But that’s all I have to go on now,” Finnegan says. “If they’re interested, they’ll reach out to my agent. We’re not having any talks with them. If they’re interested, they’ll reach out. If not, everyone in the Titan nation will know it’s not what they wanted.”

And therein lies the question: What do the Titans want in regards to Finnegan, who at times seems to be two different people rolled into one. There is the humble, community-minded Finnegan, who has twice been the team’s Man of the Year. The other Finnegan can be snippy and surly when a reporter’s line of questioning isn’t to his liking.

Finnegan has worked to curtail some of that, but you wonder if perhaps the front office has been keeping score of things as it contemplates what to do with the player who has become one of the faces of the franchise.

Perhaps the Titans could still reach out to Finnegan, who has made it clear he wants to stay, and probably would do so at a lesser price because he believes Mike Munchak is on the verge of building a winner, and it would hurt Finnegan to be left out.

“Coach Munchak is building something special here,” he says. “In five months, this team came together, and not a lot of people thought we would have a crack at the playoffs. We’re still getting to know each other. There’s a lot to build on. There’s something special here.”

Which is why Finnegan is hoping his address won’t change.

Terry McCormick covers the Titans for TitanInsider.com and is the AFC blogger for National Football Post.