Tennessee Titans: 4 Reasons to Believe Chris Johnson Holdout Ends This Weekend

The Tennessee Titans problems with Chris Johnson's holdout need to come to a close pretty quickly if he is to feature from the start of the regular season in a matter of little more than a week.

This holdout looked like a dead cert to carry on into the season but there are a few reasons to be optimistic that this deal could get done within a matter of days.

Johnson's Resilience Is Waining

Chris Johnson's recent twitter activity is telling in that the stress of this whole holdout situation is obviously starting to irritate him.

Lashing out at fans—whether they are fake or real in his eyes—is never a good thing and can be PR suicide. It definitely hurts Johnson's position because entering the regular season if the Titans start off poorly, some of those fans that would have been calling his name may now think twice.

Holdouts are all about leverage and Johnson hurt his when he said:

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"Can these fake Titan fans STFU on my timeline I don't have a regular job so don't compare me to you and I can care less if u think I'm greedy"

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Despite later trying to defend his statement to Titans' fans, the damage will have already been done to many of his previous supporters.

Mike Munchak Will Want to Get off to a Winning Start

First impressions are important in every facet of life. Mike Munchak's start to his era at the helm of the Tennessee Titans could be marred by this contract dispute and if he doesn't win games early on then he may be under more pressure than a rookie head coach should be.

There is no doubting that Johnson will raise his chances at keeping his job long term because teams don't tend to make excuses for anyone even if they are missing their star player.

Starting at Jacksonville won't be as easy as it appears on paper while the Ravens visiting Tennessee the next week will put the offense under pressure early.

Learning from the Past

In 1993, the Dallas Cowboys' star running back Emmitt Smith held out for the first two regular season games of the NFL season.

The Cowboys lost both games before Jerry Jones opened up his sizable wallet and paid the man. The Cowboys didn't look back as the team eventually won the Super Bowl that year. While the Titans aren't likely to even make the playoffs this year never mind the Super Bowl it does remind you how important one player can be to a team even at the running back position.

Negotiations Always Go Down to the Wire

Every NFL fan should understand after the NFL Lockout during this offseason that negotiations only get done when they absolutely have to get done.

Even if you look back to Darelle Revis' holdout from last season with the New York Jets, you can see that there is a precedent for this holdout and how it can finally end.

As soon as Johnson starts to face the prospect of missing game checks and watching his teammates on the field he will want to get a deal done and lower his demands. Obviously he wants to maximise his money as he likely will have a short career but the longer this holdout goes, the more money he loses.