As of now, it doesn’t look like the Titans will use Black Monday to fire head coach Mike Munchak on the heels of a 6-10 season and part of their reason could be that he didn’t have quarterback Jake Locker available to work with for the entire season.
Locker dislocated his left, non-throwing shoulder twice this season. The injuries resulted in Locker missing five games and parts of two others, a significant chunk of time for a player in his first year as a starter. According to Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean, Locker will have surgery on the shoulder in the near future in hopes of repairing the injury and perhaps lowering the chances that it will happen again.
Wyatt reports that the surgery is expected to keep Locker out for several months, although there’s a chance he’ll be ready for the team’s minicamps in May.
Locker finished the year with 2,176 yards, 10 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and a 54.6 completion percentage in his 11 starts. If the Titans do keep Munchak, a repeat of that season would likely make the Monday after the end of the 2013 season a black one in Nashville.