Center Eugene Amano's triceps injury sounded pretty bad, and Mike Munchak at a press conference today confirmed the worst: the MRI revealed a tear, and Amano will miss the 2012 season.

Amano's drawn a lot of ire from Titans fans for his play, some of it deserved. The Titans looked at several veteran centers in the offseason and didn't sign any. Munchak indicated in his pre-training camp press conference Amano's lock on the center at the position wasn't set in stone, but he was apparently working with the first-team offensive line and seemed poised to start at center again. He's not a great player, but going out for the year is definitely a loss for the Titans.

With Kevin Matthews suffering from a concussion and sitting out, Fernando Velasco will be taking the first-team reps at center. The Titans also announced today they signed free agent Chris Morris, who previously played with the Raiders and Panthers but did not play in 2011.

We'll take a detailed look at how Amano's injury affects the roster when we get to the center position in our positional analysis series. For now, suffice to say there seems to be a spot on the 53-man roster that likely wasn't available a few days ago.

We continue our trip around the Titans position by position as we head towards the 2012 regular season with a look at the tight ends.

As Drexel noted in our offseason look at the position, 2012 was a year of change at the tight end. The Bo Scaife era came to an end, at long last, and the Titans played three tight ends in relatively major, albeit different roles. As with the fullback, how the Titans use the position is as interesting as whom the player will be.

Those three tight ends all had interesting offseasons, as well; not interesting in a bad way like Kenny Britt, but interesting in terms of their differing fates. One could have departed but was retained, one would have returned had the team not unsurprisingly but not unexpectedly cut him, and one heads into the final year of his deal, unsure if he'll get a new one. The Titans also added a tight end, from whom big things are hoped, though more likely later than sooner.

How then, might the fates shake out in 2012, both for the players involved and what the role of the tight end will be in the offense?

After previewing the quarterbacks and the running backs, it's time to turn our attention to the other backfield position, the fullback, in our preseason positional analysis series.

For the past six seasons, the Titans' starting fullback has been Ahmard Hall. The former Texas Longhorn's contract expired following the end of the 2011 season, though, and the Titans elected not to re-sign him. There will be a camp competition for his starting job, between a veteran and a younger player whose pre-Titans trajectory in some ways mirrored Hall's.

The veteran is Quinn Johnson. Acquired in a trade with the Green Bay Packers at the end of last training camp to fill the void created by Hall's four-game suspension, Johnson sadly lived up to his advance reputation. I did not rate his fullback play highly, as he seemed to struggle to locate and then block the free man in the Titans' preferred zone run plays. The Titans seemed to agree, waiving him when Hall returned from his suspension, and I thought the Titans were done with him.

Back when we did the offseason round of positional analysis, Andrew was kind enough to write up our look at the running back position. Had that been my task, you would've ended up with a lot of words like "!%#!#" and ^!#$%" as I got progressively more annoyed while writing the piece and remembering the 2011 season. By now, though, it's been weeks since I've watched the Titans offense repeatedly and even longer since I forced myself to watch the running game, so I should be fine.

If the question that animated the quarterback positional analysis was "who will the starter be?" then the question that animates this positional analysis is "What will the Titans get out of Chris Johnson?" As Andrew ably chronicled, what the Titans got out of Johnson in 2011 was a lot that was not very effective.

The man then known as CJ2K held out, signed a lucrative new contract, then showed up out of shape and struggled to run the ball effectively. His nadir was probably the Week 7 loss to the Texans, after which I wrote he was not really an NFL-caliber rusher. He had some better performances after that, with good games against Carolina and Tampa Bay, but also a couple other games, including against the Saints in the rematch in Indianapolis against the Colts, where he was pretty much as ineffective as he was earlier in the season.

As we did in the offseason journey, we will begin the preseason trip around the Titans position by position with the man under center.

Matt Hasselbeck or Jake Locker? Jake Locker or Matt Hasselbeck? It's been the biggest question about the Titans the entire offseason, and NFL.com's Around the League blog named it the second-biggest training camp battle in the entire league. I hope those of you who care about the level of volume about the Titans emanating from the NFL's chatterati are happy. I don't care, because they're not the ones making the decision.

That decision will instead by made by the Titans braintrust, in some combination of head coach Mike Munchak, offensive coordinator Chris Palmer, and/or general manager Ruston Webster, with ever-present possibility owner Bud Adams may decide to make his considerable influence felt (unlikely, in my guess, but you never know). Their call will be based on a number of factors, including play in preseason, ability to exclude various elements of the offense, and likely as well softer factors like chemistry and the ability to inspire and lead teammates.

As I've tried to chronicle this offseason, both quarterbacks have their strengths and weaknesses.

Unlike yesterday, today brings some good news to the Titans. They have reportedly agreed to terms with first-round selection wide receiver Kendall Wright.

The primary holdup on Wright's deal was likely the amount of fourth-year guarantee, but that hurdle and any others have apparently been overcome. The CBA's participation rules mean he likely won't be a full participant in training camp until Saturday, but barring an unexpected snag he'll be there for Thursday's practice after the Titans are off Wednesday on a limited basis. We're still waiting on full details of the contract, but multiple media reports indicate the Titans gave Wright a higher fourth-year guarantee than the previous pick, Bears DE Shea McClellin received, and the second- and third-year money is partially in the form of bonuses.

It was mildly disappointing not to see Wright available for the full duration of camp, and I was starting to get mildly concerned about the practice time he missed. Now that he's signed and it's not even August yet, plus that he participated in offseason workouts, he should have enough time to work on the playbook, develop a rapport with Matt Hasselbeck and/or Jake Locker, and get himself ready to be the kind of contributor I think both the Titans and I are anticipating he'll be this year.

I'd planned to write something about the quarterback battle or things to watch in training camp this morning, but instead want to note some very somber news. Wide receiver O.J. Murdock passed away this morning in Tampa from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Murdock joined the Titans as an undrafted free agent in 2011 out of Fort Hays State, after earlier stops at South Carolina and Pearl River Community College. A longshot to make the team thanks to the Titans' habit of not keeping undrafted free agents, he tore his Achilles in training camp and spent 2011 on injured reserve. I didn't think he had much of a shot to make the team this year, and he missed reporting to training camp for what Mike Munchak described as personal reasons. Apparently those personal reasons were a lot more serious than any of us realized.

The Titans have released the following statement:

We are shocked and saddened to hear of O.J. Murdock's death this morning. In his brief time here, a number of our players, coaches and staff had grown close to O.J., and this is a difficult time for them. He spent the last year battling back from an Achilles injury as he prepared for this year’s training camp. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends as they try to cope with this tragedy.

Condolences from Total Titans to Murdock's family and friends.