Nicholas Singleton Camp Update — August 31: The Roster Math Came Back His Way
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Nicholas Singleton made the initial fifty-three after a week out of practice and no recorded rep in either of the last two preseason games, while the Titans released D'Ernest Johnson and Michael Carter and cut Kalel Mullings. Our last episode implied the sitting rookie was the one at risk. That read was wrong.
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Nicholas Singleton made the 53. The rookie who was out injured through our entire last episode is on Tennessee's initial roster, in a four-man backfield with Tony Pollard, Tyjae Spears and Julius Chestnut, per Jim Wyatt at the team's website — while the cutdown moved out three of the backs around him. D'Ernest Johnson was let go despite scoring the game-winning touchdown against Seattle and another in the finale, per Adam Schefter at ESPN; Michael Carter was released, per Josh Alper at Pro Football Talk; Kalel Mullings was among the notable cuts, per Wyatt. No coach or general manager comment surfaced on cut day, so no explanation was offered, and cutdown mechanics don't need explaining — but the outcome is unambiguous.
It's also the opposite of what we implied. Our August 20-third episode said a rookie who closes camp without another live rep is leaving the roster math to others, and the frame was precarious — the wrong week to sit. The math came back his way, and we'll name the miss rather than glide past it: the direction of that read was wrong. The staff evidently didn't need another August rep to make the call.
What the week did not supply is the rep itself. Singleton appears in neither the Seattle postgame notes nor either finale write-up — no recorded involvement in either game, which is an absence from the record, not a report of inactivity. A headline at RotoBaller asserted a return to practice, but the item couldn't be verified or dated, so the honest statement is that the window never pinned down when he got back on the field. He carried no injury designation at cutdown; he is simply on the active roster.
Back in June we kept our promises small on the fifth-round pick — nobody can tell you what he produces behind two bellcows, and the checkable things were special teams involvement and health. Both are still unchecked: no special-teams reporting surfaced in the week's coverage, and the health file ends at an unpinned return. What changed is that the question now gets answered on a regular-season roster. We'll pick him up again when the games count.
_Data via nflverse._
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