NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Titans coaches have seen enough positives from rookie receiver Kendall Wright at the "X" position that they began moving him to other spots in the offense this week.
Titans offensive coordinator Chris Palmer and receivers coach Dave Ragone began working with Wright at the "X" — the same spot that Kenny Britt usually plays in the offense — to see how fast the 20th overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft would grasp the concepts.
"He's a rookie, but he's learning. He's doing an excellent job," Palmer said. "He's got tremendous quickness. He's learning the system. We started this week to move him from the "X" to other spots. He did such a good job the first week, with his confidence and showing everybody what he could do. Now, we're starting to play him in other spots. We're going to have flexibility with all of our receivers to play different spots."
Palmer's vision is an offense with multiple threats from multiple spots at any time. He wants to move receivers around so the Titans can locate mismatches and exploit them. He also wants to capitalize on each receiver's attributes to increase the success percentage of each play.
Starting Wright at one position allowed the coaches to assess his skills last week when the offense went against the defense for the first time this offseason. Titans coaches liked Wright's quickness on the field and in grasping the concepts and are now placing him through a progression.
"We're very comfortable with him," Palmer said. "At some point, he'll get overloaded, which is normal for a player, but right now he's doing an excellent job and we see the things that we saw before the draft, and now we want to move around and put him in some other spots. The plan is to move those guys around and based on the play and whatever their trait is, we'll try to take advantage of that trait."
Wright, the lead receiver in a potent Baylor offense that didn't use a playbook, said his primary goal is doing whatever he can to get on the field.
"Moving to different positions helps create different matchups for everybody out there," Wright said. "We all want to play multiple positions and not give the defense a chance to see us at just one spot."
Wright didn't set a schedule for learning the "X" position, but said he's happy with how he picked it up. He said the concepts became simpler when the defense began challenging the offense last week.
"I didn't tell coach I wanted to move positions or anything," Wright said. "He just told me that they were going to move me around a little bit and he wanted to see me do certain things. You don't want to play just one position. You want to move around and do different things."
Third-year Damian Williams gained significant playing time as a rookie and built on that foundation last year when he had 45 receptions for 592 yards and five touchdowns. Previous coaches credited Williams' playing time in his rookie season with how quickly he grasped the playbook, and Palmer said the Titans will ask him to do a lot of different things this season.
Williams said he spent a significant amount of time asking the more experienced receivers questions during his rookie year, and he's seen Wright doing the same.
"He's asking me questions, asking Nate questions, asking (Lavelle Hawkins) questions — guys that have been around this team," Williams said. "That's the fastest way to go. Outside of that, you've just got to go be a playmaker, learn as much as you can, be in the playbook as much as possible and go make plays."
Williams said versatility is a goal that the receivers share.
"You always want to be in a position where you can go in at any time, whether it be the "X," the "Y," the "Z," whatever it is that you need to be," Williams said. "If you can do that, there's more opportunities for you on the field."
