The Titans will be without Caleb Farley to begin the season. The 24-year-old corner is headed to the reserve/PUP list, reports Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.

Farley is dealing with a back injury, along with the recent death of his father. His attention will thus be focused outside of football for the time being. By beginning the campaign on the PUP list, he will be sidelined for at least four weeks. The move will leave Tennessee shorthanded at corner in a year where they will rely heavily on their young options at the position.

A 2021 first-rounder, Farley has battled injuries at both the college and NFL levels. His Titans tenure has been limited to just 12 contests so far, and his record of missed time will now continue into 2023. The Virginia Tech product has a pair of interceptions to his name, but his struggles in coverage have led to poor PFF evaluations in both of his Nashville campaigns.

Tennessee signed Sean Murphy-Bunting in free agency to a one-year, $3.5MM deal. That contract could prove to be a bargain if the former Buccaneer can deliver a productive season. Murphy-Bunting will be pegged for a starting role on the outside, as will 2020 second-rounder Kristian Fulton. The Titans also have Roger McCreary and Elijah Molden, another pair of recent Day 2 selections, in place to log a signficant defensive workload.

Upon his return, Farley will aim to carve out a more signficant role than the one he has received to date in his NFL career. He has logged 163 snaps on defense, and saw only a moderate workload on special teams last year. With a decision on his fifth-year option needing to be made at the end of the 2023 season, plenty is at stake for him this year. His debut this will be delayed, though, adding to the urgency he will have when he receives a clean bill of health.

Injury trouble will shut down Caleb Farley for a second straight season, and the nature of this injury invites concern about the former first-round pick’s long-term outlook.

Already on Tennessee’s IR, Farley will not return this season due to another back surgery. Farley is undergoing a microdiscectomy procedure to repair a herniated disk, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports (on Twitter). While the second-year cornerback is expected to be ready for the Titans’ offseason program, he has dealt with extensive injury trouble dating back to early in his college career.

Farley has suffered two ACL tears — one during his freshman year at Virginia Tech, the other last season — and will have undergone three back surgeries since 2019. Farley underwent a surgery to address a 2019 back injury, and while he played 10 games that season to vault himself onto the first-round radar, he needed a microdiscectomy in March 2021. Neither that procedure nor Farley’s 2020 COVID-19 opt-out deterred the Titans from using their 2021 first-rounder on him, but the team has not received much of a return on that investment.

The former high-end prospect went down three games into his rookie season, which did not begin on time, and has only played 103 defensive snaps this year. Farley could not move into Tennessee’s starting lineup to start this season, and after starting one game (Week 2), he returned to a backup role the rest of the way. This amounts to another lost season for the 6-foot-2 defender.

The Titans fired the GM who chose Farley — Jon Robinson — earlier this week. While Robinson certainly had draft hits — Derrick Henry, Kevin Byard, Harold Landry, Jeffery Simmons — he took one of this era’s biggest busts (tackle Isaiah Wilson) in the 2020 first round and chose Farley last year. Simmons was an injury risk when the Titans chose him; he had suffered an ACL tear while training for the 2019 draft. While Simmons has rewarded the Titans and will enter 2023 ticketed for a monster extension, Farley will face a crucial year after this latest injury-induced shutdown.

In the years sandwiching their Farley choice, the Titans used second-round picks on Kristian Fulton and Roger McCreary. Those two have been season-long starters, helping a team that has been without slot corner Elijah Molden for most of the season. The Titans placed Molden on IR for the second time Wednesday; a groin injury has plagued the second-year cover man since before the season began.