• Tyjae Spears showed sparks late in the season: Tony Pollard dealt with injuries late in the 2024 season, allowing Spears to become a top-five fantasy option.

• Spears needs the starting job: Spears could see increased playing time with the Titans in 2025, but he likely needs to secure the starting role to become a consistent fantasy starter.

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PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs will impact each player’s fantasy football outlook.

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, June 4

Player Performance

Tyjae Spears was a third-round pick by the Tennessee Titans in 2023 and immediately carved out a role in passing situations, taking significant snaps from Derrick Henry. Henry’s snap rate dropped from 66.8% in 2022 to 53.1% in 2023, with Spears almost exclusively handling third downs and the two-minute drill. His usage was predictable, but he made the most of his limited touches, especially in the passing game, where both his rate and volume stats looked promising. Still, Spears finished just 34th in fantasy points and never emerged as a reliable weekly fantasy starter, as Henry remained healthy all season and the rotation stayed consistent.

The Titans changed coaching staffs ahead of the 2024 season and moved on from Henry, signing Tony Pollard in free agency. Pollard won the starting job in training camp, and Spears settled into a complementary role, logging between 20 and 30 offensive snaps per game through the first four weeks. He suffered a hamstring injury in Week 6 that sidelined him for three games, and just two games into his return, he suffered a concussion.

With Pollard banged up late in the year, Spears saw increased usage during the fantasy playoffs. He played at least 50% of offensive snaps in each of those games, catching six passes for 87 yards and a touchdown in Week 15, rushing 10 times for 27 yards and two touchdowns in Week 16 and posting a 20-carry, 95-yard effort in Week 17. Over that three-week stretch, he ranked fifth among all running backs in fantasy points. However, since Pollard remained the starter in Weeks 15 and 16, Spears’ value during that run was largely limited to a potential Week 17 payoff. Unfortunately, he suffered another concussion in Week 17 and missed the season finale.

The two concussions in a short time span are a concern, though Spears has no other documented concussions in his playing history.

As a receiver, Spears has been elite at making defenders miss. He avoided 1.5 tackles per game on receptions in 2024 — the best mark among running backs. His 0.55 avoided tackles per reception and 0.096 avoided tackles per route over the past two seasons also lead all players at the position.

Projected Role

For the most part, Spears’ role didn’t grow in 2024 despite Derrick Henry’s departure. Instead, he transitioned from backing up Henry to backing up Tony Pollard. He wasn’t on the field as consistently in passing situations, and his usage in other areas of the game didn’t increase either.

The Titans retained both Pollard and Spears for 2025, and their only backfield addition was Kalel Mullings, a sixth-round pick who profiles as a bigger back, potentially one who could factor into short-yardage or goal-line work. Given how well Spears played at the end of last season, and considering Pollard’s durability concerns, it’s possible the Titans move toward a more balanced split between the two backs. Still, Spears would likely need to take over the starting role outright before becoming a trusted weekly option in fantasy.

Impact of Teammates

This will be Spears’ second season under head coach Brian Callahan, whose offensive scheme in Tennessee differed noticeably from his time in Cincinnati, particularly in run frequency, which likely stemmed from the Titans’ uncertain quarterback situation.

Tennessee drafted Cameron Ward first overall, but they haven’t done much to bolster the receiving corps around him. While we could see a modest uptick in rushing volume to protect their rookie quarterback, any drastic shift would likely depend on how quickly Ward adjusts to the NFL.

One of the biggest issues for both Spears and Pollard last season was the offensive line, which finished with the second-lowest team run-blocking grade in the league. The Titans attempted to address that by signing free agents to replace some of the weakest links. Left tackle Dan Moore Jr., added primarily for his pass protection, has shown incremental improvement as a run blocker. The more notable addition was veteran guard Kevin Zeitler, who, despite being 35 and more known for his pass blocking, still represents an upgrade. While the offensive line should be better than it was a year ago, expectations for dramatic improvement should be tempered.

Bottom Line

Spears has shown some promise as both a runner and receiver during his first two seasons, but he will need to beat out Tony Pollard for the starting job for a chance to be a fantasy starter.

Footnotes

• Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.

• “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
• Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.

• As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.

• Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.

• Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.

• The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).

• All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.

• Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.