This offseason Titans fans and media can't seem to get enough of Treylon Burks, most of it focusing on the negative. First it was about his lack of a role on offense now that the Titans have DeAndre Hopkins, Calvin Ridley, and Tyler Boyd. Then it was some fuss over him "being relegated" to special teams work. And then of course at least one media member was calling to cut him due to his "practice efforts" early in minicamp.
As it turns out, essentially all the negative noise surrounding Treylon Burks this offseason has been baseless nonsense. And today, Titans wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert put an end to the practice efforts concerns with Burks.
Treylon Burks is practicing perfectly
Wide receiver's coach Tyke Tolbert was one of many positional coaches available to the media today and had some very specific words for those who questioned Treylon Burks' practice efforts. He wanted to make sure to defend Burks (among others) as you can see mentioned in the A to Z Sports post below.
Here's more of the quote from Tolbert when asked about Treylon Burks' practice "attitude and effort":
"Attitude's great. Effort's been good...somebody said something about his effort in practice the other day...one thing I would mention is that a lot of those guys come straight from special teams, and they're running like 100 yards up and down the field. And when they get to my period we have only eight minutes. So what I tell them to do is, they can tone it down a little bit. Go through the route technique part of it, not so much speed. Because after eight minutes we go back full speed on routes in there with the quarterbacks."
For those who don't see practices live, it's hard to express how fast-paced they are. The practices are chopped up into several segments ranging from 6-12 minutes each, and there are no breaks. After the first round of special teams, sprinting up and down the field in various roles, players immediately run to their positional groups for specific drills. After that the wide receivers immediately (without break) run to the opposite side of the field and start more combined drills with quarterbacks.
It makes total sense that in some instances coach Tolbert understands that his wide receivers (especially ones on special teams) don't need to push it 100% on every single rep. He elaborated further, emphasizing just how many more reps special teams contributors (like Burks and Jha'Quan Jackson) have to run, and that technique is more important than anything during his portion of practice.
"On a kickoff team or punt team as a gunner, they're taking more reps, probably twice as many reps as some of the rookies are, so I'm trying to give them a little bit of a break when they get to my area as far as running full speed...I tell them all, they say 'What's the speed?', I say go half speed this time, three quarters...sometimes we go full speed, but they always ask 'What's the speed?'...I tell them, the technique won't suffer, but just tone it down a little bit."
Again, all of this stemmed from one question on Treylon Burks' attitude and effort. Coach Tolbert, head coach Brian Callahan, offensive coordinator Nick Holz, and special teams coordinator Colt Anderson have all spoken positively about Burks throughout OTAs and minicamp. From his athleticism, to his attitude, to his drive, and ability to succeed in a variety of ways for the Titans.
Burks is exactly the player the team needs and wants him to be right now. All of the nonsense about his "efforts" needs to be completely shut down. Yes, in retrospect, would it have been nice if he became a clone of AJ Brown? Absolutely. But since that isn't the case, the team is clearly trying to utilize his skills the best they can now. And he's doing the same.
