'Healthy' Kearse solidifies starting role for Titans

When the Tennessee Titans re-signed Jevon Kearse this past March, the biggest question surrounding their former first-round pick was his health and just how much he would be able to contribute at defensive end.

Most figured Kearse who had fallen out of favor in Philadelphia, even dropping behind his former Tennessee backup Juqua Thomas [now Parker] on the depth chart, would be limited to being simply a situational player in his second tour of duty with the Titans.

But as the Titans come off their bye week, Kearse might be the healthiest of their four starting defensive linemen.

Kearse finished Tennessee’s Oct. 5 game at Baltimore, while ironman Kyle Vanden Bosch (groin) and defensive tackle Tony Brown (ankle) did not. Defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth also missed some time with nagging hurts, but managed to come back into the game.

As for Kearse, he has solidified his hold on the left defensive end spot, a position shared by Antwan Odom and Travis LaBoy a year ago. Backups Jacob Ford and Dave Ball are still getting their share of plays, but Kearse has definitely re-established himself as a starter.

“I’ve been playing around 40 to 45 snaps a game, which is pretty decent,” Kearse said. “They’d probably want me to play a little less but I don’t think I can do that. I want to jump out there as much as I can, just to get better.”

So far, Kearse has 17 tackles, including 10 solo stops and 1.5 sacks to go with six quarterback pressures. But Titans coach Jeff Fisher offered that Kearse’s value thus far has gone beyond the statistics.

“There’s gap fit responsibilities. There’s contain responsibilities,” Fisher said. “He’ll flatten out on bootlegs and force the quarterback to throw the ball out of bounds. And guess what? We don’t see a bootleg the rest of the day. You don’t see that, but we see that. So there’s a lot of those hidden things that he’s doing for us right now, well above and beyond the sack numbers and the hurries and the hits that are contributing to the success of our defense.”

Fisher said Kearse’s playing time probably will remain stable at its current level as long as he stays healthy and productive.

“His numbers are a little higher than what we thought. But he’s playing well,” Fisher said. “He’s strong and he’s not having any issues. ... I don’t think we need to look at the numbers unless we see some sign where he’s fatiguing. But I don’t anticipate that because of the off-season work he had here.

“I think the speculation was that we’ll bring him back in here as a situational pass rusher and we’ll do what we did last year with Travis [LaBoy] and Antwan [Odom] and we’ll split time with them. That’s not necessarily the case. He’s playing hard. He goes back and he comes over and stands by us and rests and goes back on the field. He’s in the same rotation as the other three starters.”

Kearse agreed that he is in a much better situation for his 32-year-old body at this point in 2008 than he was in 2007 when he was coming off a serious knee injury with the Eagles.

“I was much more worn down last year at this point,” Kearse said. “I was playing a lot more reps and didn’t have a lot of time off.”

INJURY UPDATE: Vanden Bosch and Brown were two of a number of Titans players who did not practice last week and stayed behind during the bye week to rehab their injuries. Vanden Bosch has started 53 straight regular season games since signing with the Titans, but left the Ravens game in the first half with a groin injury.

Brown departed with an ankle injury and did not return to that game either.

Fisher indicated that both players are improving and said he was “very encouraged right now” with their progress.

Elsewhere, receiver Justin Gage has a chance to return to the practice field and play this week against the Chiefs after missing the Baltimore game with a knee injury.

TRADE DEADLINE: With the trade deadline looming on Tuesday, the Titans at the present time don’t appear to be in serious negotiations regarding acquiring any players.

There had been talk of the team potentially having interest in Detroit Lions wide receiver Roy Williams, but Williams told Lions beat writers that he had been told he was not being shopped.

Though the Titans’ interest in Williams is not completely a dead issue, with the deadline coming, it would appear to be a very long shot of happening. The winless Lions still apparently have not decided for certain if they will move Williams or not.