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Tennessee all-time team: Strong safety

By Andrew Strickert | July 5th, 2008

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I hope all of you had an enjoyable Fourth of July and will continue to enjoy the weekend. Please make it a safe one.

Shifting gears to football, which is why we’re here, three strong safeties deserve your consideration as we continue the voting on our all-time Tennessee team.

Blaine Bishop (1997-2000) — A ten-year NFL veteran, Bishop played for the franchise nine years and earned four Pro Bowl selections, two in Tennessee. He was the “Fire” in the Titans’ “Fire and Ice” safety tandem of Bishop and Marcus Robertson. Bishop was a fierce player, very emotional, a very hard hitter and intimidator.

Tank Williams (2002-2005) — Tank was a promising young player whose career was sidetracked by an ACL injury. He had the tools to play but never lived up to expectations. My favorite Tank Williams memory is the hit he laid on Peyton Manning, resulting in a Keith Bulluck fumble recovery and touchdown

Chris Hope (2006-present) — The addition of Hope helped solidify the secondary, which was horrendous for a few years. He had 121 tackles and five interceptions, one for a TD, in 2006. Hope’s 2007 season was cut short by a neck injury and it remains to be seen if he’ll be the same player he once was.

Sounds like another no-brainer to me, I’ve got to vote for Bishop.

In our last poll, Samari Rolle was selected as the right corner on our all-time Tennessee team.

Our defensive team so far:
LDE Jevon Kearse
LDT Kevin Carter
RDT Albert Haynesworth
RDE Kyle Vanden Bosch
LLB David Thornton
MLB Randall Godfrey
RLB Keith Bulluck
LCB Andre Dyson
RCB Samari Rolle

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 6:58 am and is filed under Players, Commentary, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Tennessee all-time team: Strong safety”

I.jason says:

July 5th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

No Brainer. Bishop.

Question though, how are we at Safety already? Is there not going to be a poll for nickle? Nickle is a starting position on the Titans. Just ask Jeff.
Andrew Strickert says:

July 5th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

Hey, l.jason, there’s not much going on at safety since this piece I wrote three weeks ago, except that Rocky Schwartz had a calf injury on his first day and hasn’t practiced since. You can pencil in Griffin and Hope as the starters, assuming Hope has fully recovered from his neck injury last year. If he hasn’t, Lowry should have the inside track to be a starter again.

I thought we’d do the poll on nickelbacks after the safeties, then finish up with a kicker and returner. One little problem we’ll have with selecting a nickel is that most of them didn’t play too long at nickel. (One year for Samari, one for Finnegan, before they moved to corner.) Vince Fuller has played it as long as anyone. I’m thinking that Donald Mitchell is probably the favorite. Who are your favorite Tennessee nickelbacks?
cld12pk2go says:

July 5th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

Blane. He brings the pain and that is the truth…
jrtitans says:

July 6th, 2008 at 4:45 am

BB all the way!
Tom Gower says:

July 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

I’d put Schulters in the NB poll-he spent a fair bit of time there in 2003.
I.jason says:

July 7th, 2008 at 8:18 am

Andrew,

Thanks for the update at the safety position, but what I was asking was “how did we get to selecting safeties already.” My thought process was sorta moving from zone to zone: DL, LB, CB/NB, S. But no big deal. Everything gets done in time.

As for my fave NBs, I think you’d have to look at Schulters (he sure won’t win at Safety, but I liked the guy), Fuller, and Mitchell.
Joe says:

July 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am

Guys,
I love All-TIme franchise teams, so this is great that you guys are doign this. Now, are you including actual Oilers as well? If so, where in the world is Elvin Bethea and Robert Brazille?
Andrew Strickert says:

July 11th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

Joe, thanks for the compliments. This is a Tennessee-era team we’re compiling but we’re planning on doing an all-time franchise team as well. That will give us a chance to include guys like Bethea, Brazile, Earl Campbell, Warren Moon, Mike Munchak, etc.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.