Ring of Honor to be Relocated, Reimagined

The new location, which will debut with the start of the 2021 NFL season, likely will be a temporary one.

NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Titans Ring of Honor is on the move. That is the first thing.

Eventually it will be reimagined.

CEO Burke Nihill said Wednesday that the placards that honor the NFL franchise’s greatest players, coaches and executives have been relocated to a more prominent, albeit not permanent location inside Nissan Stadium. Sunday’s 2021 season opener against the Arizona Cardinals will be the first opportunity to fans to see the new look.

“We have moved them down to the cinder block walls behind the lower bowl with some really well-done design,” Nihill said. “Even then, though, I don’t think that will be the final location. Our hope would be to find a Walk of Fame-type/Ring of Honor/Hall of Fame-style honor for our legends in a modified stadium/development, which would really give an opportunity for our fans to interact with whatever the memorials would be – the numbers, the players – on a 365-day [per year] basis.”

Since Nissan Stadium opened in 1999, the Ring or Honor has been located on supports above the highest seating areas.

Currently, it includes 14 greats, many of whom played or worked exclusively during the franchise’s days as the Houston Oilers. Earlier this year, the team announced that former coaches Jeff Fisher and Bum Phillips and former general manager Floyd Reese will be added during the 2021 season. Reese recently passed away and, therefore, will be honored posthumously.

“In the case of a lot of our Houston Oilers players, it would give us an opportunity to actually better introduce them to our fans, to give their statistics and what made them great in more of a plaza, walk of honor-style basis,” Nihill said.

He added that a lot of time and energy already has gone into the project with more to come.

“It really was a lot harder than it may seem to find a good location,” Nihill said. “You’ll go to the stadium and you’ll see that there are places that may seem like a logical place for a Ring of Honor where there is some blank concrete in between seating areas. And all of those have technology functions, whether it’s Wi-Fi or some sort of lighting function, and in many cases, there is a drainage function that just won’t allow us to put signs there.

“… The Ring of Honor has never been something that [controlling owner] Amy Adams Strunk has been satisfied, both in terms of the quality of the signs or the location of the signs. It just really wasn’t befitting of our legends in her mind nor any of ours.”