Kenny Britt Injury: Which Titans Players Need to Step Up with WR Down?

The sight of Kenny Britt being carted off the field in the second quarter against the Denver Broncos is just the latest addition to a very familiar string of events for Titans fans.

Supremely talented though he may be, Britt simply cannot stay on the field. Hamstring injuries derailed his breakout season last year and limited his offseason participation this year, and now it appears that a right knee injury could send him back to the bench.

Fortunately, the Titans have several promising young receiving targets that could benefit from getting some reps on Sundays.

First on that list is Lavelle Hawkins, the fourth-year WR out of the University of California. Hawkins has been an enigma to this point in his career and he is likely to the “put up or shut up” part of his fledgling NFL career.

For years, Hawkins has shown promise in the preseason before disappearing altogether once the games matter. Hawkins was no favorite of the Jeff Fisher regime, as he showed a repeated inability to learn the fundamentals of an NFL playbook.

He has the physical gifts needed to make big plays in this league if he can get his head on straight, and Britt’s injury may give him that much-needed final opportunity to prove himself in Nashville. 

Jared Cook, a TE out of the University of South Carolina, is less of a tight end and more of a massive WR. Too big for most DBs to handle (ask Ed Reed) and too fast for linebackers to keep up with, Cook is a mismatch against virtually any man coverage defenses throw at him. 

Cook can stretch the field and make circus catches with regularity, so look for his role in the deep passing game to expand if Britt is lost for an extended period. 

The third player that the Titans hope will step up in Britt’s absence is Damian Williams, out of the University of Southern California. Williams is the closest thing physically that the Titans have to Britt, though even he isn’t quite the specimen that Britt is. 

Williams showed some flashes in his very limited playing time last season as a rookie. While he is still very much a work in progress, Williams will be another guy the Titans will look toward to step in for their injured star WR.