Lendale White: It's Time to Move On

Lendale White gave up tequila, lost 30 pounds and showed up in the best shape of his career last season. If he had known how the season was going to turn out, he could have kept drinking and hitting the buffets.

White has decided that he doesn't want to go through that again. A year after he became an infrequently used insurance policy, White is a restricted free agent who wants to be elsewhere.

He isn't angry with the Titans -- he understands that Chris Johnson is the best back in the AFC, but because of that he wants a chance to see what he can do elsewhere.

"But I want everyone to know, Titans fans or whoever, it is not that I don't want to be a Titan. I would love to be a Titan if things were different. ... But we are talking about a guy who just ran for 2,000 yards and I hardly played in the last however many games, and that is not me, I am not comfortable with that.''

With Chris Johnson rushing for more than 2,000 yards, White became an afterthought in the Titans' offense. In 2007, White topped 1,000 yards as the Titans' primary back. In 2008, he served as the short-yardage back -- his carries were cut by a third thanks to Johnson's arrival, but he got to score 15 touchdowns as a consolation prize. Last year, he carried the ball only 66 times and only 13 times in the final eight games of the season.

It made sense. At his best, White is a move-the-chains back who can take a lick, move the pile and every now and then break off a nice run. Johnson is the NFL's best big-play runner since Barry Sanders was dodging tacklers. So, given a choice, the Titans decided to build the offense around the superstar.

The bad news for White is that there's not really much chance that he's going to get to move on. He's one of the players who is completely screwed by the lack of a collective bargaining agreement. In any other year, White would be an unrestricted free agent who at worst would be able to get a solid deal to compete for a starting job.

But because of the lack of a CBA, White is a restricted free agent. Teams would have to offer a significant new contract and give up a second-round pick to sign White. It's hard to argue that it's worth doing that when there will be very solid, less expensive tailbacks available in the second round of this year's draft.