Vic Beasley Jr. didn’t make it through his first season with Tennessee.
The Titans are releasing the former Pro Bowl linebacker Wednesday from the remainder of his one-year, $9.5 million free-agent contract.
Beasley registered 15.5 sacks for the Atlanta Falcons in 2016, one year after they’d drafted him with the eighth overall selection in the 2015 NFL Draft out of Clemson.
Beasley, who totaled eight sacks for the Falcons last season, was fined $500,000 and placed on the non-football injury list after reporting more than a week late to Tennessee’s training camp over the summer.
He appeared in five games with the Titans (5-2) this season, finishing with three tackles, no sacks and one forced fumble while being on the field for just 24 percent of the team’s defensive snaps.
The Titans are cutting Vic Beasley after just seven games.AP“At this point in the season, teams are going to go in one of two directions, they’re going to keep getting better or they’re not, and we were a team last year that continued to improve,” Titans coach Mike Vrabel said Monday when asked about Beasley’s performance this season. “That’s my charge now, is to make sure that we’re one of those teams that keeps getting better.”
Jadeveon Clowney, the bigger of the Titans’ pass-rush signings on a one-year deal worth more than $12 million, has zero sacks through seven games.
The Titans also released veteran cornerback Johnathan Joseph and long snapper Beau Brinkley.
