Veteran Outside Linebacker Waived

Injury helps derail Reggie Gilbert's quest for a bigger role with the Titans in 2020.

Tennessee Titans coaches said early in the offseason that they were eager to see more of Reggie Gilbert.

Now, it is possible that they have seen the last of the fourth-year linebacker.

The Titans waived-injured Gilbert on Tuesday, the same day another outside linerbacker, Vic Beasley, was placed on the Non-Football Injury List. The exact injury nature of his injury was not disclosed.

Gilbert, 27, was acquired in a trade with Green Bay at the end of the 2019 preseason while he was still on the mend from a knee injury. He was inactive for the first two weeks of the regular season but eventually played in 11 regular-season games as well as the divisional playoff victory at Baltimore. He made 24 tackles, one sack and notched seven quarterback pressures in the regular season.

Tennessee had re-signed him to a one-year deal for $750,000 in early March.

“(Gilbert) came in and he actually gave us something,” outside linebackers coach Shane Bowen said early in the offseason. “He got here late. He was playing catch up. And he was coming off a knee injury. But he came in and he produced, and he contributed for us.”

Undrafted out of Arizona in 2016, this is the third time in his career that Gilbert has been waived. The first two did not mean the end of his time with a particular team.

Green Bay cut him in 2016 and again in 2017. Both times the Packers immediately signed him to their practice squad, where he spent all of 2016 and the first 15 weeks of 2017 before he finally made his NFL debut.

In 2018, he played all 16 games for Green Bay and set career-highs with 44 tackles, two and a half sacks, two passes defensed and one fumble recovery.

“He has a veteran presence,” Bowen said. “He’s smart. I think he can play multiple positions for us and do multiple things, so he definitely adds value in our room just being a little bit of an older guy and being around a little bit.”

Just like that, though, he is on his own.