After spending two of their three fourth-round picks on wide receivers, the Tennessee Titans’ current wideout room is one of the youngest and most unproven units across the entire league. It’s also filled to the brim with untapped potential.
With the first of their day-three 2025 picks, new general manager Mike Borgonzi selected Florida receiver Chimere Dike. Despite this pick being widely considered a reach, it displayed a clear vision for what the Titans want in their offense.
While he’s not the most well-rounded receiver at this point, Dike’s unique skill set suits him perfectly for a niche role during his rookie year in Nashville.
What can Chimere Dike add to the offense?
Tennessee has fielded a plethora of sputtering offenses in recent years. A common theme has continued to plague each of these units.
A crippling lack of speed has been a consistent governor on Titans offenses of recent past.
The former Gators playmaker adds an instant injection of explosiveness that the team has sorely lacked. Bolstering a 4.34 40-yard dash, Dike’s short-area quickness makes him lethal off the line of scrimmage.
His explosiveness is the first thing that pops when turning on Dike’s Florida film. Effortless is the word that comes to mind when watching him accelerate. Changing gears at an absurd pace, he hits his top gear within two to three steps into his route stems. His torque off the line is only a part of what makes him such a nightmare in one-on-one man coverage.
For how quickly Dike gets from 0-60, he gets from 60-0 even faster. Paired with the threat of his acceleration, his ability to sink his hips and stop on a dime makes life miserable for defensive backs in man coverage.
Where Chimere Dike can improve?
While the short-area burst is impressive, Dike’s blistering long speed is just as dangerous. He was such a significant deep threat at Florida that it actually hindered him as a draft prospect. One of his biggest knocks throughout the draft process was his collegiate route tree (or lack thereof).
With his route tree consisting primarily of deep crossers and other vertical routes, reps that were translatable to the NFL were few and far between. While no fault of his own, it leaves questions about his ability to separate at all levels of the field and run the necessary routes of a complete NFL receiver.
Another question mark on Dike’s scouting profile is his ability to handle contact. Both at the catch point and during his routes, he struggled heavily with more physical defensive backs. He has a tendency to allow more aggressive corners to knock him off his flight path while setting up on routes.
In addition to this, he also rarely fights through physicality at the catch point. Boasting a 7.2% career drop rate, the catch point has continued to be his biggest area in need of improvement.
Where will Chimere Dike fit into the Titans’ offensive rotation?
Another way in which Dike’s speed makes his evaluation more difficult is when projecting his inside-outside versatility as a receiver. He rarely saw press-man coverage in college due to teams being wary of his top-end athleticism.
With his lack of press reps, it’s difficult to project how he will survive against NFL boundary corners. However, his impressive footwork and arsenal of release packages is reason to be hopeful that he can play both in the slot and on the boundary at the NFL level.
It’s unlikely that he will crack the starting rotation as a rookie, but that doesn’t mean he won’t contribute significantly to the offense. His skillset is perfectly molded to play supplementally as the offense’s rotational Z receiver and as a field-stretching deep threat. While he may not contribute as much down-to-down, expect to see Dike responsible for a number of the Titans’ explosive plays in 2025.
