Kendall Wright is out to make sure the Tennessee Titans regret not only letting him leave, but for barely using him in 2016.
The 27-year-old, who signed a one-year deal with the Bears in March, isn’t sure why he was only targeted 42 times last year. But that lack of usage didn’t ding his confidence and only fueled his motivation to show his former team how wrong he thinks they were.
“Everything motivates me,” Wright said. “What motivates me the most is I probably was the best receiver on the Titans roster last year and I was playing, like, 10 plays a game.”
In 2013 — his second year in the league — Wright caught 94 passes for 1,079 yards. It was a breakout year for a guy the Titans drafted 20th overall in 2012, but the Baylor product wasn’t able to build on that success.
Wright’s targets and receptions declined for three consecutive years, going from 93 and 57 in 2014 to 60 and 36 in 2015 to 42 and 29 a year ago. Part of the reason for that decline was a spate of injuries — hamstring, knee, ribs, MCL, hand, ankle, shoulder — but he also clashed with the Titans’ coaching staff toward the end of his time in Nashville. Wright was a healthy scratch for Tennessee’s final game of 2016 and was benched in Week 14 due to tardiness and missed meetings.
“I don’t read anything,” Wright said. “You hear it, you see stuff everywhere, but I don’t really get on my social media and stuff like that because I could care less what anybody has to say.”
The Bears play at Tennessee in Week 3 of preseason play, though Wright isn’t putting any added emphasis on a game that won’t really count for anything. The better way for him to show the Titans how they screwed up would be to produce against everyone else during the regular season.
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“They’ll feel it after this year,” Wright said. “They’ll feel some type of way after they see.”