Titans' Taylor Lewan sustains knee injury in blowout loss to Bills

September 20, 2022

The Tennessee Titans sustained their second consecutive defeats early in the season after conceding to the hosting Buffalo Bills with a margin-wide 41-7 earlier this week. The Titans also walked out of Bills Stadium with veteran left tackle Taylor Lewan injured with a questionable timetable of return.

Lewan reportedly sustained a knee injury after the team’s first drive of the game. The longtime tackle was seen lying for a few minutes before he was carted off to the locker room early in the first quarter of the matchup.

At the time of writing, there is no expected time of return or any updates regarding how severe Lewan’s injury was. Titans pulled in former Carolina Panthers offensive tackle Dennis Daley as Lewan’s replacement in the game.

“I thought Dennis went in there and tried to compete and did some things. Obviously, we lost some other guys, unfortunately. You never like to see players down on either side of the football field. So I hope everybody is going to be OK,” Titans head coach Mike Vrabel said.

In the meantime, Vrable might resort to Daley or other tackles available in the team’s locker room. However, it might be difficult since Lewan is central in the Titans’ offense. Vrabel would need him this season, but also cannot rush having the 31-year-old back playing for the team, considering that his knee injury this week might also affect his torn ACL sustained in 2020—the very injury that landed his name on the injured reserve list in October that year.

The three-time Pro Bowler is a longtime player in Tennessee. He was signed by the team in 2014 after wrapping up his collegiate career with the Michigan Wolverines. Lewan was drafted in the first round with the 11th pick and was named as the starting left tackle for the team entering the 2015 season.

Going for nine strong seasons with the Titans and currently, in the fourth year of his five-year, $80 million contract extension inked back in July 2018, Lewan has started in 100 out of 105 career games with the franchise.

Rough start for Titans

The Titans went 0-2 early this season and their Week 2 defeat was a wake-up call to how poor their offense and defense can be at the same time. The franchise kicked off the first quarter with a strong performance, tied seven points to the Bills.

However, tragedy struck in the remaining quarters as the visiting Titans went scoreless, while the Bills went on a scoring spree.

Vrable and his men failed to keep producing points after the first drive. The game ended up nowhere for the Titans, as they went on deeper to the bottom of the season standings along with two other teams in the AFC, including the Cincinnati Bengals and Las Vegas Raiders.

Vrabel had a brutally honest take on the team’s defeat.

“We got our a—s kicked, plain and simple. They outcoached us, they outplayed us, and that’s the definition of it,” he said in the postgame press conference.

Last season, the Titans dominated the AFC South with a stellar 12-5 record over three other divisional rivals, which included the Indianapolis Colts (9-8), Texans (4-13), and Jacksonville Jaguars (3-14).

The objective this season remains the same for Vrabel, that is to port the Titans' divisional success last season to this year.

“We’re gonna get back to work, and we’re gonna figure out a way to win a football game,” he added.

Jake
Jake Williams
Jake Williams is a sports gambling expert. He's been writing in the sports betting and DFS industry for over a decade. He specializes in MLB and NBA, along with College Basketball and College Football.