THURSDAY, 4:32pm: The team placed Morgan on injured reserve, Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle tweets.
MONDAY, 3:42pm: Titans defensive end Derrick Morgan will have shoulder surgery and miss the remainder of the year, according to Terry McCormick of TitanInsider.com (on Twitter). Ditto for Dexter McCluster, who will undergo season-ending surgery on his wrist (link).
Back in March, the Titans re-signed Morgan to a four-year, $27MM deal with $10.5MM of that fully guaranteed. Morgan’s return to Tennessee was a little surprising, since he was widely considered a better fit as a 4-3 defensive end, and has never really lived up to his first-round billing in five seasons with the Titans. However, despite modest sack totals (his 6.5 in 2014 matched a career high), Morgan graded as a top-10 outside linebacker according to PFF, which ranked him eighth in 2014 and credited him with 49 total quarterback pressures. Morgan paid visits to the Falcons and Buccaneers in the spring and was reportedly scheduled to hit Dallas for a meeting with the Cowboys. Instead, he circled back to Tennessee.
In 10 games (9 starts) in 2015, Morgan has amassed 24 tackles and 4.5 sacks with two pass deflections and one forced fumble. The versatile McCluster, meanwhile, has tallied 507 catching and receiving yards for the Titans in 2015.