Is Tony Pollard the RB1 in Tennessee?
Yahoo Fantasy's Josh Norris and Hayden Winks discuss whether the Titans' even split between Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears in preseason signals a true committee or is it Pollard's job? Check out the full conversation on "Yahoo Fantasy Football with Josh and Hayden" - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen .
Video Transcript
Tennessee and the Titans.
Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears split reps in preseason week, week one.
With Cam Ward on the field, Tony Pollard played nine snaps, got five opp- opportunities.
Tyjae Spears got 13 snaps and four opportunities.
What was your instant reaction when you saw this?
I had to close the gap between them.
I moved Tony Pollard to 84th overall.
He's my RB31, and then I h- moved Tyjae Spears, who I was not drafting really at all.
I moved him next to, like, the Woody Marks type of range, which was definitely a, a step up.
He's my RB44 at this point.
Both of them looked good.
Pollard scored a touchdown, cut back, run.
Tyjae Spears had a nice spin, for a, for a nice gain.
I'm just worried about, you know, the Titans offense in general.
So I think this is, like, a, a good reminder of what exactly are we doing with Tony Pollard.
I have him, like, next to, like, JaCorey Cross, Merritt, Rico Dowdle- Right that type of tier, like clear committee backs.
And I have, you know, the Bahl, Jalen Warren, Bucky Irving, like, J- Ja'Darian Price clearly ahead of Tony Pollard at this point.
It felt like for a lot of times this summer, Hayden, if you went s- you know, zero running back, then Tony Pollard was people's favorites as one of those jam up men maybe can liven up your running back two spot.
Uh-oh.
I know.
And that's a danger.
I mean, seventh round on Yahoo at this very moment.
Rather than move Tony Pollard further down, 'cause I still, and only had him as running back 30, so it's not, like, that high, I just moved Tyjae Spears up.
I guess my question to you is, are we reading into this too much?
Like, we just talked about what the Cardinals did of, hey, they should have managed Jeremiah Love's workload more and given more to Tyler Allgeier.
Should we just be saying that the Titans did manage Tony Pollard's workload?
Or is this a case where, hey, Robert Saleh also, when asked about Nick Singleton earlier this summer, said, "Well, we have two feature backs in Tyjae Spears- Right and, and Tony Pollard," and we just didn't maybe see that play itself out in, in rankings and drafts so far enough?
Well, Pollard last year was the RB29 and RB32 usage 'cause the Titans were really bad, and that was when he was, like, clearly the top option.
So, you know, the Titans have to get better for him to matter and, you know, I'm not fully convinced that they're gonna be much better this year.
And then I think that the context of Pollard's an older player and Spears a younger player, I do think we should be, like, reading into that a little bit, where, like, there is a chance that he just takes the job away from him.
Uh- Yeah where I think the Jeremiah Love stuff, why that stood out to me is because they were talking that, oh, he, he might be in a real rotation.
They were talking about James Connor and these other guys, and then they come out there and he just dominates touches, and plays a bunch of snaps with the first team.
Where I think that was, like, a bigger indicator, o- o- on that front.
And I do think there's a threat, threat to Tony Pollard being, like, you know, the traditional dead zone back, bad offense and a younger- Yes player behind him, where I think you can get away with him in your flex earlier on, but I, I think that the upside's pretty capped.
