Titans' Punt Returner Job 'Open,' Special Teams Coach Craig Aukerman Said

The Tennessee Titans have struggled to find a consistent punt returner for some time and those struggles are continuing into 2023, leaving the Titans uncertain about who will man the job for the remainder of the season.

After Ran Carthon was hired as the new general manager of the Tennessee Titans, head coach Mike Vrabel said at a press conference, "Ran, go find me a punt returner." Apparently, that hasn't happened because entering Week 8 of the NFL season, the Titans have no idea who will be their punt returner going forward.

According to Titans special teams coach Craig Aukerman, they are currently holding a competition to see who will return punts now. Aukerman explained what's going on before practice on Thursday.

"Right now it's open," Aukerman declared. "The competition's going to be open. There's guys that are going to be back there, even today, that are going to go and catch and we'll make the best decision. What we feel, that a guy can go and catch the ball and get up field and get some positive yards." 

The job is only open because second-year receiver and the expected punt returner Kyle Philips has simply been awful at it. Philips muffed two punts in four games in his rookie season and then muffed another in the Titans' last game against the Ravens right before halftime that led to an easy three points for Baltimore.

Aukerman took responsibility for Philips' muff in Week 6, saying he shouldn't have had a returner back there in the first place based on the circumstance, but Philips also has to be smarter and more sure-handed as well.

Will Philips get a shot in the open competition? Aukerman says yes.

"Yeah, sure," Aukerman said while explaining why. "He's gonna be back there. We don't want to throw Kyle away. He's done some good things for us, so he'll be back there and they're going to go compete for the job and we're going to give the job to the guy we feel is the most reliable guy, that's going to factor, that's going to catch the ball and give the ball to the official afterwards."

The question becomes, who is Philips in a competition with? According to Aukerman, joining Philips will be rookie receiver Colten Dowell and then three players from the Titans' practice squad, corner Eric Garror, receiver Shi Smith and receiver Mason Kinsey. 

Kinsey actually held the punt returner job for a few weeks while Philips was out. He had four returns for 50 yards, averaging 12.5 yards per return with no fumbles. Kinsey started the year on the practice squad, was eventually brought up to the 53-man roster before being waived and put back on the practice squad after the Titans' win over the Bengals.

Why not just keep Kinsey on the roster to do a job he was doing well? Aukerman's answer wasn't very informative.

"Just going back, you're right he did a good job for us this year and when you look back at last year too, he also had a muff," Aukerman reminded as a show of Kinsey's own fallibility. "It's all about who are we going to bring up with 48 people. Is Mason going to be one of those guys that are going to be up, is it Kyle that's going to be up, is it other guys. We made the decision to put Kyle back there and unfortunately it didn't work on the one, but we'll see how this things leaves us here in this next game."

Aukerman is dancing around the real answer which is Kinsey is not a good enough player to be consistently on the 53-man roster and the Titans don't want to devote a roster spot out of their 48 on gameday for a designated punt returner.

The Titans can try to avoid that all they want, but more than half of the players they are trying out are on the practice squad, so they may not have a choice before long. What we so know for sure is, Vrabel needs to ask Carthon for another punt returner this offseason.

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