What the Titans Didn’t Say When They Let Treylon Burks Go

There’s a particular kind of silence that follows a first-round pick getting cut—one that isn’t filled with outrage, but with avoidance. The Tennessee Titans waived Treylon Burks after a fractured collarbone and a fractured promise. No statement lingered long. No tribute trailed behind. It was the cleanest kind of break: clinical, quiet, and oddly convenient.

Because the truth is, the fracture didn’t happen last week. It began the moment Burks was drafted—not as a player, but as a patch. A stand-in for A.J. Brown. A quick fix with a big frame and a highlight reel. The Titans weren’t investing in a future. They were mourning a past.

They drafted a body. They needed a memory.

A Shoulder Isn’t the Only Thing That Breaks

Treylon Burks wasn’t a bust in the traditional sense. He flashed. He strained. He sprinted with the urgency of someone running toward a narrative he didn’t write. And when he got hurt, fans didn’t gasp—they shrugged. That’s the danger of stepping into a story you didn’t author: it rarely ends on your terms.

By his second year, Burks had become the quiet man on the sideline. Not disruptive. Not dazzling. Just there. And in the NFL, “there” might as well mean gone. “He’s got all the tools,” one former teammate said, “but you could feel he wasn’t the guy anymore. And that matters.” The NFL doesn’t trade in potential—it trades in perception. And Burks, fairly or not, had lost the room.

It wasn’t the collarbone. It was the chemistry.

When Talent Isn’t Enough, What’s Left?

What the Titans did wasn’t cruel—it was calculated. They’re reshaping, rebranding, repositioning. And Burks, like many before him, was no longer the silhouette they wanted on the billboard. But here’s the bitter whisper: in a different city, under different lights, would this be a different story?

Burks is 24. He’s 6’2″, 225, and still cuts routes like gospel. He didn’t disappear—he was eclipsed. First by injury. Then by inconsistency. Then, worst of all, by expectation. The kind that walks into the locker room wearing someone else’s jersey.

Now the league will say the right things. “He’ll land somewhere.” “Still young.” “Plenty of upside.” But behind those platitudes is a more haunting question: if a first-round pick can be erased this quietly, how loud must you be just to survive?

Somewhere, in the still air of a July practice field, there’s a cleat mark that won’t get covered up by next season’s grass. And it isn’t from the man who made the catch—it’s from the one who never got the chance to make the last one.

Because the NFL doesn’t bury its mistakes.
It just stops mentioning them.